Idleness is the Devil’s Workshop: Cursed are the Idle, Blessed are the Busy
My business partner at Diaspora Ventures, Carlos and I were talking about our circles in Silicon Valley. One observation is that everyone here in general seems unhappy despite the immense wealth and opportunity. They run on their hamster wheel trying to escape their own personal demons. This is what happens to type A individuals in an environment full of other type A individuals. Think Wall Street but more passive aggressive and introverted. Keeping busy so you don’t have to face these internal issues, something i admit was my first 19 years here,
Not having time to think is bad but the reverse is also very much bad too.
Too much time for children or for adults is terrible for you. You go nuts overthinking everything as our minds want to keep busy. You literally go mental. You search for distractions.
Even worse, if you have money to go along with a lot of time. If you have time but no money, there is only so much you can do. You are limited. With a lot of money, that is a different story as these limits are gone. Money is an enabler, magnifier and enhancer. You can go down some deep dark paths. It becomes very easy to take anything or everything to excess. Excess becomes toxic.
Think on how many 2nd or 3rd generation rich kids have ended up living useless or meandering empty lives. Grossly unhappy.
This is probably what led Warren Buffet to say: “I want to give my kids enough so that they could feel that they could do anything, but not so much that they could do nothing.”
This is why you have to have a great mission in life. This is why you need to have values of adding value and making an impact in your life. It is why you need to teach and embed this in your kids. This is also why you have to love the game you play and the process of playing. It’s healthy and keeps you out of trouble. This is also why you need to be busy but at the same time NOT too busy you don’t think clearly and run into a wall or burnout.
As the brilliant folks at BowTiedBull wrote:
“In the end, long-term readers of this side of the internet know that retirement is a dream sold to the masses. No one successful enjoys doing nothing all day (billionaires continue to work/do something well past retirement age). Instead, we should focus on a point at which *you* don’t have to work on anything you dislike! You’re still going to work doing something.”
(Source: https://bowtiedbull.substack.com/p/lifestyle-inflation-and-retirement)
I’ll finish with a quote from Benjamin Franklin:
"If you want something done, ask a busy person."
Marvin’s Best Weekly Reads Oct 2nd, 2022
"There is nothing impossible to they who will try."— Alexander the Great
This is a must read for anyone trying to explore entrepreneurship & a good guide to getting started.
"Nothing will give you more freedom and security than running a business you fully control.
A lifestyle business isn’t about getting rich (although it could happen).
A lifestyle business is about being free."
https://newsletter.invinciblesolopreneurs.com/p/how-to-build-a-lifestyle-business#details
2. Bravery is so rare these days, unlike back in the age of aristocratic warfare. Here is an interesting list of episodes from back then. Be inspired.
https://twitter.com/CallMeColletta/status/1570791729519030274
3. For all new startup founders who came up in the world last 3-4 years. This is a wake up call backed up by data.
"When you look at how much median valuations were driven up in the past 5 years alone it’s bananas. Median valuations for early-stage companies tripled from around $20m pre-money valuations to $60m with plenty of deals being prices above $100m.
If you’re exiting into 24x EV/NTM valuation multiples you might overpay for an early-stage round, perhaps on the “greater fool theory” but if you believe that exit multiples have reached a new normal, it’s clear to me: YOU. SIMPLY. CAN’T. OVERPAY.
It’s just math.
But we’re confident that valuations will get reset. First in late-stage tech companies and then it will filter back to Growth and then A and ultimately Seed Rounds."
https://bothsidesofthetable.com/what-does-the-post-crash-vc-market-look-like-ed81cd884021
4. This is really good stuff. Building your own self defense system & may be useful particularly in the USA. Think of it as insurance that you hope you never have to use.
"I will walk you through the evolution of my thinking on self-defense, what I tried that worked and didn’t, and what my self-defense system is, plus I’ll link you to every effective resource I know of so you can develop your own system.
Ideally, this post should save you thousands of dollars and months or years of wasted effort and time–not to mention, it may even help you protect yourself or your family."
https://www.tuckermax.com/my-entire-self-defense-system
5. "Between the time a seed-stage SaaS startup ships its MVP and closes its first few paying customers is the Wilderness Period. This is when you find out that your MVP isn’t really MVP.
You try to sell your minimum viable product, encounter objections you hadn’t anticipated, race to code the new requirements (the new MVP), and repeat. The Wilderness Period can take two months, two years, or forever.
That unknown makes this one of the most unsettling periods in a startup’s life, as the pure potential and excitement of building the MVP confronts the reality of not being able to find paying customers. Or as Mike Tyson said, “Everyone has a plan until they get punched in the face.”
The Wilderness Period ends when the startup finally makes its first few bonafide sales. I call this crossing the Penny Gap. But selling to friends and classmates doesn’t count; only unaffiliated revenue qualifies. And the milestone isn’t satisfied just by closing the customer, you also have to implement them successfully and turn them into happy references. In other words, these deals only count if they are potentially repeatable."
https://sacks.substack.com/p/the-wilderness-period-61f009c769ac
6. "Ballpark nachos are a concession stand staple. At Rangers games alone, 600k orders were sold last year, or 1 for every 3.5 fans. For all of Major League Baseball, that statistic would translate to ~13m orders.
And for every order, there’s one key figure to thank: San Antonio businessman Frank Liberto.
Decades ago, he added a twist to a popular Mexican appetizer and originated the concept of the ballpark nacho. If you’ve purchased nachos at a sporting event or a movie theater, odds are you’ve bought chips, cheese sauce, or jalapeños from the Liberto family’s longtime business."
https://thehustle.co/the-family-that-built-a-ballpark-nachos-monopoly
7. This is always a good conversation on the edge of the internet and creative world.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5UPXVwHRo0A&t=1572s
8. There are oodles of actionable sales wisdom here. Wish I had then we got started oh so long ago.
https://bowtiedsalesguy.substack.com/p/how-to-be-efficient
9. "I therefore do not share the pessimism of Tooze and Ferguson regarding Ukraine’s immediate economic situation. Yes, it’s good to be properly alarmed in order to avert problems before they become insoluble. But at the same time, it doesn’t seem accurate to depict Ukraine’s economy as being on the brink of collapse.
Economic activity is stabilizing, exports are rising again, foreign aid is pouring in, food isn’t a problem, fuel is being imported in sufficient quantities, inflation is high but still manageable, the hryvnia peg is holding for now, and the military situation appears to be improving. Ukraine needs to raise taxes, but if they make that one policy change, they should probably hold on OK.
And after the Russians are fully ejected from the country, Ukraine has a bright future ahead. Its grain exports will recover, its defense industry will be supercharged by the war and will transition to peacetime manufacturing, and it appears to be joining the greater East European information technology cluster. Foreign countries will likely forgive their wartime loans and provide reconstruction aid — already, countries are lining up to promise support.
The EU will probably offer single market access for Ukraine, which helped supercharge the economies of Poland and Romania in earlier decades. And Ukraine’s oligarchs seem to be declining rapidly in power and wealth— a sign that the country won’t return to the corrupt, dysfunctional economy of the 1990s and 2000s.
In the long term, I am very bullish on Ukraine."
https://noahpinion.substack.com/p/cautious-optimism-about-ukraines
10. A guide for anyone stuck in a big company job & trying to get out.
Protect your time, be in the top percentile of performance (not 1% but 20%) and work on your side businesses.
"Your career is the regular season, your WiFi biz and health is the playoffs. Don’t get them mixed up."
https://bowtiedbull.substack.com/p/basic-office-politics-moves-and-how
11. Good analysis on Putler's speech on the partial mobilization.
Basically stay cool, no negotiations, send more weapons to Ukraine and crush these Russian barbarian invaders.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zfx7P1PVZoU
12. "You will never regret that you didn’t spend enough time online but you will regret that you didn’t spend enough time on the things and the people you love. Technology should liberate us, not enslave but only you can decide which alternative you prefer and what lifestyle you want to live."
https://fewerbetterthings.substack.com/p/digital-minimalism-is-a-daily-practice
13. "China is also sidling up to Turkey because it has a bigger army and more effective weapons than Russia. Turkey knows who the arms buyers will be in the future – China and its allies in the Shanghai Cooperation Organization. Turkey is now set to be the only member of NATO to join the SCO. Even in the murky world of gun runners, Turkey’s ability to play both sides and play with both sides is quite stunning.
Xi is well aware that Russia cannot seem to run its army or successfully recruit what they need. Russia’s efforts to convince prison labor to join the Russian Army are not going well. Russia has a standing military of 280k, including contract mercenaries, some volunteers, and a formerly bloated, but now heavily assassinated officer corps. Turkey, in contrast, has double that number and can expand this quickly. China wants manpower and technological capability. One can see why they’d swap Russia for Turkey. Turkey is hot now. Russia is increasingly out in the cold."
https://drpippa.substack.com/p/hot-turkey
14. "We used to refer to an information economy. But economies are defined by scarcity, not abundance (scarcity = value), and in an age of information abundance, what’s scarce? A: Attention. The scale of the world’s largest companies, the wealth of its richest people, and the power of governments are all rooted in the extraction, monetization, and custody of attention.
Commercial exploitation of attention is not new. Humans have been competing for attention since the days when nomadic leaders argued over which branch of the river to follow and turning “content” into wealth since Aeschylus produced the Oresteia.
Oil was elevated by the invention of the internal combustion engine, industrial revolutions in mechanization and plastics, and the development of a Western lifestyle dependent on the mobility of goods and humans. Now the shift from atoms to bits — digitization — has put wells into pockets, on car dashboards, and on kitchen counters, drilling night and day for … attention."
https://www.profgalloway.com/attentive
15. "Maximilian’s heroism and the valor he displayed on the battlefield raises a very interesting question. How were aristocratic young boys like him raised to be able to fight in battles so young and to endure both the physical and the mental aspect of these brutal wars?
Obviously tournaments, hunting and similar imitations of war and confrontation played a role, and Maximilian enjoyed these a lot. But education for future rulers like him had already been geared towards physical training, strengthening of character and preparation of war since their early childhood, and tutors could play an important role as well."
https://aristocraticfury.substack.com/p/15th-century-advice-on-how-to-raise
16. "All across the ragged fringes of Russia’s sphere of influence, from Eastern Europe to the Caucasus and Central Asia, former parts of Moscow’s once-vast empire are in outright rebellion or being left to fend for themselves while the Kremlin focuses on its increasingly catastrophic war.
As it loses sway among its former subjects, new conflicts are breaking out, alliances are being forged and old rifts opening up."
https://www.politico.eu/article/vladimir-putin-fall-russia-empire-ukraine-war-armenia-azerbaijan
17. This is an excellent episode of "All in Podcast" this week. Especially the great discussion on the public and private markets.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bcGwHworAo0&t=1s
18. This is the latest Peter Zeihan talk. As always, I get new ideas and learnings about the geopolitical environment when I watch these.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UA-jOLF2T4c
19. "Accelerating the pace and prospects for a decisive Ukrainian victory would be not only smart strategy but an act of mercy—mostly for Ukrainians, who deserve it, but also for Russians who do not. One may have sympathy for the draftees from impoverished, non-Slavic regions of Russia who provide Putin’s cannon fodder, but these are also the ones committing the barbarities and war crimes that have so marked the war.
One cannot say it too often: The Biden administration holds the key to making this war shorter, less destructive, and less bloody than it already is. The war cannot end—nor a just peace begin—without a Ukrainian victory that secures all of its sovereign territory. We can see this victory just outside the window now."
https://www.thebulwark.com/what-the-ukrainians-need-to-succeed
20. "The contract between a business and a worker to do X and get paid Y. It’s project-based work that isn’t compensated at an hourly rate but based on the value of a job that needs to be done.
It’s a career model that aligns well with the trends of the creator economy model.
That career model generally looks like this:
As more people participate in social media, they grow audiences around an infinite number of niche topics. Including professional topics.
Individuals with growing audiences realize that they present an opportunity to monetize a growing network in different ways. They begin to realize that remote work is a viable work opportunity that supports many different lifestyles.
And so, they look for ways to leverage global audiences to first establish credentials via content and relationships and then leverage these credentials to earn incomes from these niche communities.
What’s The Benefit For Companies?
A partially contract-style workforce can lower the hiring costs of traditional employees. No health care, payroll tax, office space, or other HR-related expenses. (unless of course, these are part of the negotiated compensation)
It means smaller commitments and businesses can turn these relationships on or off quickly."
https://dougantin.com/recession-proof-the-quarter-time-job
21. Great thread on the future of work. Remote and its ramifications.
https://twitter.com/DougAntin/status/1573645755914407936
22. This is a crazy good rundown of the Figma deal and Porsche-VW.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WXkjtN2-huY
23. "Accelerating the pace and prospects for a decisive Ukrainian victory would be not only smart strategy but an act of mercy—mostly for Ukrainians, who deserve it, but also for Russians who do not. One may have sympathy for the draftees from impoverished, non-Slavic regions of Russia who provide Putin’s cannon fodder, but these are also the ones committing the barbarities and war crimes that have so marked the war.
One cannot say it too often: The Biden administration holds the key to making this war shorter, less destructive, and less bloody than it already is. The war cannot end—nor a just peace begin—without a Ukrainian victory that secures all of its sovereign territory. We can see this victory just outside the window now."
https://www.thebulwark.com/what-the-ukrainians-need-to-succeed/
24. I've been pretty vocal for YEARS about how crap Bird and the micromobility space is. Awful unit economics and no business model. It's turned into a VC pump and dumb scheme.
"Winter is coming. Literally. The scooter business is extremely seasonal.
I wanted to take a moment to eulogize the venture scale scooter business. We’re seeing the full unraveling of the blitz scale, cash-on-fire venture model.
“It was the beginning of that pure VC ‘herd mentality’ period,” remembers someone from the on-demand world. “Almost everyone was trying to tell everyone over and over the economics didn’t make any sense, but no reason for anyone to listen."
https://www.newcomer.co/p/scooter-executives-head-for-the-exits
25. "The war is far from over — the violence will continue; Ukrainians will continue to die. And so the West’s involvement must continue, too. There can be no retreat — either for Ukraine, or for the international order we have so painstakingly built over the seven decades, since the last time a tyrant unleashed industrial war on the European continent."
26. "So, just because you create within a certain vein doesn’t matter – that’s not what we want and that’s not what the world needs more of. Audience data shows we crave personality, it’s the logical endgame of what makes for standout, memorable media. What’s legitimately fascinating and unmissable is …you. We’ve said it before and we’ll say it again: no one can copy that."
https://adamsinger.substack.com/p/niche-overrated-personality-underrated
27. "Brooks, who began his Atlantic column in 2020 after 10 years as the president of the American Enterprise Institute, the neoconservative think tank known for its support of free-market economics, has quickly turned himself into a leading popularizer of happiness studies. In his eyes, he’s uniquely positioned as a messenger between academia and the self-help space. “The self-improvement people can’t read the literature, and the academics can’t talk to the humans,” says Brooks. “There’s a seam running through that.”
Brooks lives on that seam. He may not have a degree in psychology, but his Ph.D. in quantitative public policy analysis—“basically, mathematical modeling and applied microeconomics,” he says—makes him particularly adept at synthesizing scientific research and common sense wisdom into erudite life advice.
Typically he reads a dozen scholarly articles a week and metabolizes them for the general public, both in his Atlantic column and on his podcast, The Art of Happiness with Arthur Brooks. His goal, he says, is to build “a grassroots movement of happiness hobbyists.
His goals are not modest. “That’s actually how you change the country,” he continues. “Everyone is talking about politics—nonsense. Politics changes because people have hope. People have hope because they’re seeking happiness. So you have to start where the story starts, which is trying to simulate a happiness movement. Then you save the country. The ambitions are big.” Jeffrey Goldberg, the editor-in-chief of The Atlantic and a close friend of Brooks’s, underscores that point. “Arthur is on a mission,” he says. “And I think being on a mission makes him happy.”
https://www.gq.com/story/arthur-brooks-secrets-happiness
28. The Brosnan boys.
"Dylan and Paris say they’ve learned a lot from their father’s example – lessons about preparation, passion, confidence, showing up on time. And humour, Dylan says: “Don’t be afraid to make fun of yourself.”
That in-on-the-joke quality comes through in the elder Brosnan’s self--deprecating responses any time the conversation veers into craft talk. It’s always been key to his appeal. He’s there when the movies need a Pierce Brosnan type to put on a tux, but he also meets our need to see a Pierce Brosnan type be made to look silly (traversing a hotel lobby in The Matadorwearing nothing but boots, a moustache, and a pair of Speedo’s). He’s been pelted with fruit by Robin Williams, transformed into a disembodied head by Martians, and once sang Abba’s “SOS” to Meryl Streep."
https://www.gq.com/story/the-brosnan-boys
29. "There is no evidence for now that weapons are being moved into position or being prepared for such strikes. US intelligence, which has been extraordinarily precise so far can be expected to pick up any details (or at least the Russian would need to assume that). No effort has been made to explain to the Russian public why such strikes might be necessary.
After all Putin still insists that this is a limited operation and has refused to put the country on a war footing.
As we have seen Russian figures talk garrulously about scenarios for nuclear use against NATO countries but not Ukraine. We can also assume that neither of Putin’s recent interlocutors - Xi and Modi - would be enthused. This is a scenario largely generated in the West trying to anticipate contingencies that have yet to be reached."
https://samf.substack.com/p/going-nuclear
30. "From this perspective, I’m not traveling anymore, just living here with a few well curated things fitting into a light-weight 35 liter backpack. And I live with two interfaces: one towards the new physical reality and one towards the same digital screens, now blending into a new whole life experience.
Thus traveling is both the physical activity of going from one place to another and the spiritual journey of self-discovery. It’s shifting context to be exposed to new ideas, learnings, and experiences for the benefit of personal growth and self-awareness."
https://fewerbetterthings.substack.com/p/traveling-without-moving-is-called
31. This is an excellent interview with the brilliant Balaji Srinivasan. So many insights on the future incoming world + a great overview of his optimal schedule for productivity. Strong recommendation here.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tQpZSVCTZCo&t=766s
32. Another example of the idiocy in the European governments right now. Especially in light of the energy crisis happening there.
https://www.yahoo.com/video/why-europe-won-t-exploit-230000776.html
33. A good thread on the issues with Russian logistics and why mass mobilization will not help their war effort as much as people think.
https://mobile.twitter.com/TrentTelenko/status/1573783459537076225
34. Lessons from one of the best hedge fund managers around. Stan Druckenmiller.
https://twitter.com/NeckarValue/status/1573685872192622598
35. "For the West, there is a risk that, given Russia’s military position on the ground, mobilisation is met with complacency. In practice, however, it means that new Ukrainian manoeuvre units must be trained and equipped to counter new Russian formations in the spring. It also means that improving Russian troop levels will force Ukraine to expend more materiel to make progress.
There is, therefore, a need to reinforce success now by continuing to expand training and equipping of Ukrainian troops. There is also a need to transition defence industry to be able to sustain production of equipment and ammunition throughout 2023. This is both to meet Ukraine’s needs and to reinforce a deterrence posture against China.
The decision point to make such preparations is now. If those decisions are not taken, Western governments – like Putin – may find that when they come to pull the lever, there is a considerable lag between when the resources are needed and when they become available. The cost for Kyiv of such complacency would be severe.
It is also possible that if new waves of Russian recruits, forcibly mobilised, fail to improve Russia’s position on the battlefield, then the political backlash in Russia may provide the best means of compelling Moscow to shift its policy."
36. "It will be a Herculean administrative task to provide uniforms and training for 300,000 troops, find qualified leaders at the officer level, provide them with effective equipment, and get them integrated with communications and logistics. It will be months before a significant number can be brought to bear in combat. Then, almost certainly, they will become yet another wave of cannon fodder launched at Ukrainian positions.
The Ukrainians, knowing they may eventually be facing a much larger force, will prepare their own responses. They will be seeking (and probably receiving from the West) systems that can negate large numbers of foot soldiers: close-air attack planes, tanks and artillery, mounted machine guns, precision mortars and long-range surface-to-surface missiles.
The Russians being pulled off the street in this mobilization will face a highly motivated, extremely well-armed and very innovative foe in the Ukrainians. The War of Putin’s Ego continues, and many of these 300,000 poor souls are likely to pay the ultimate cost for his folly."
37. "Thankfully, however, the ‘VID-demic caused many of us to rethink the way our lives are structured. And many of us have taken action to make changes.
Many people took action to acquire residency in a more free nation, or to trace their lineage to see if there was an easy way to claim a second citizenship and passport. And for some, it was the simple act of diversifying cash and assets across multiple nations, to prepare for the possible unfortunate event of an economic calamity in their home nation.
And the great news is that unlike most of prior human history, many of these actions aren’t only exclusive to the richest segments of society. Almost anyone can get another residency, citizenship, or set up a digital bank account to store assets around the globe.
However, many of us haven’t paid attention to the signs. Or at least once the stress of the ‘demic subsided, just reverted back to their old patterns as soon as life began to return to normal.
It doesn’t matter what you do to create a backup plan. Just do something."
https://abundantia.substack.com/p/time-to-flee
38. A very interesting thread on medieval naval warfare.
https://mobile.twitter.com/LandsknechtPike/status/1573838412913704964
39. “There’s been a retreat by ‘tourists,’” said Hebert, meaning those investors who normally had not invested in hard tech and typically come in at later stages."
https://news.crunchbase.com/venture/deep-tech-funding-investors-quantum-cruise
40. "Much of success in venture is knowing what (and when) to buy. If you do that well it’s very difficult to mess it up. Conversely, if you’re not a good picker, it’s difficult to overcome that, even if you had perfect timing on secondary sales. But sometimes the difference between B+ and A- (or between A and A++++) can be a well-timed decision to turn unrealized gains into partially realized."
41. "Sometimes, long-term focus is confused with the expectation of outsized outcomes. Targeting outsized outcomes is great but it is not the same as having a long-term focus. Multi-billion dollar outcomes happen because the building blocks are long-lasting and not the other way around. Simply put, large victories happen because of incredible visions and the proper execution of that long-term strategy."
https://medium.com/susa-ventures/the-future-of-software-back-to-the-basics-521544e5a25b
42. "What can we make of Adani and his fast-growing $142B fortune?
The Financial Times brings up an important question: is the concentration of wealth in India a path towards an East Asian model of development (think the Samsung family in South Korea) or the Russian model (oligarchs nabbing state assets on the cheap while creating little value for the country).
Adani clearly has close ties to Modi. Adani Group is over-reliant on coal. The business may be sitting on a systemic debt bomb. AND the value of his stocks are completely removed from business fundamentals.
But, Adani also has a track record of delivering what India needs to develop (ports, rail, infrastructure, electricity). His big bets on export-driven growth and energy also aligns with Modi’s development goals for India.
Whatever you think of him, you have to understand Adani to understand India’s future…and this is my first attempt at doing so."
https://trungphan.substack.com/p/gautam-adanis-140b-fortune-explained
43. Sounds about right.
“Lethality matters most,” he said. “When you can kill your enemy, every part of your life is better. Your food tastes better. Your marriage is stronger,” Minihan said."
https://taskandpurpose.com/news/air-force-general-mike-minihan-mobility
44. Interesting cool facts of the ultra Cool Berlin techno scene.
"A key factor of Berlin's scene: The clubs never have to close their doors. Many stay open the entire weekend, leading some ravers to arrive on Friday night and leave Sunday morning.
The roots of Berlin's no-curfew culture can be traced to the start of the Cold War, when negotiations over a bottle of whiskey led to the abolition of a postwar curfew — and set the stage for Berlin's becoming one of the world's hottest destinations for techno music."
https://www.npr.org/2022/09/23/1121435229/berlin-clubs-techno-berghain-kitkatclub
45. "If you’re in a position to run a high-velocity fundraising process, then presenting yourself as a dot (a single data point during fundraising), is likely to be the best approach for many founders.
But not every founder can do that.
There are situations where it is in your best interest as a founder to present investors with multiple data points so that they can build a line over time."
https://chrisneumann.com/blog/are-you-a-line-or-a-dot
46. Illuminating thread on the big crisis the world faces in fuel, food and fertilizer.
https://mobile.twitter.com/vtchakarova/status/1574162334813229057
47. "Putting this all together,
1) Japan is in a really messy situation and it’ll be interesting to see what they do with US token reserves and interest rates going forward,
2) public companies are in big trouble if they have international revenue and limited FX hedges,
3) there is no “quick fix” for this level of global stability as FX hedge contracts will swing wildly to reflect the volatility in the currency swings and
4) this is a major issue that likely leads to layoffs especially if not perfectly hedged (vast majority are not perfectly hedged and even major companies would unlikely hedge more than 80% or so).
"Patience is a Virtue: In a bull market, patience isn’t a virtue. Everyone is hopping from new idea to new idea over and over again. The more “value” in the terminal multiple the better!
In the current environment (runaway train inflation hikes) it’s the opposite. Every quarter or so you will see prices go down particularly for homes. This means sit back keep your career, maintain biz volumes the best you can and wait. When the math starts making sense for you (sometime 2023 at earliest) then it’s time to take a look.
Conclusion: Take a look around and see who is in a bad mood, good mood and unchanged. People who are unchanged/in a good mood are the ones you want to jot down. It means they didn’t take on too much risk. They can laugh at some of the bad decisions they made over the last five years and on top of that, they will likely do incredibly well through the bear market.
https://bowtiedbull.substack.com/p/fx-causes-high-costs-and-eps-adjustments
The First Rule of Personal Finance & Happiness: Pay Yourself First!
In personal finance it’s the concept of Tithing: You always put aside or withhold at least 10% of your paycheck for savings and investments. You only spend what you have left over. This way you never get ahead of yourself and live beneath your means while investing in the future.
This concept is very important and you need to do the exact same thing with your time.
Yes, you are very busy and have family and work obligations. But your first hour or hours of your day are critical. You need to put this aside for yourself. Whether it’s meditation or exercise or even just mentally preparing and planning of the day.
Probably more importantly, use this time to work on your personal projects and side hustles. This is an investment in yourself. This is a crucial step towards financial and personal freedom. Pay yourself first.
I talk to so many people who complain about their life and how they want to quit a crappy job. And that they are too busy and have no time to work on a side hustle or a business idea. When I hear this, it just means it’s not a big enough priority to find the time. If you can’t find the time, it just means it’s not a big or clear enough priority for them.
The way to get past this is to pay yourself first. Just put aside one hour first thing in the morning and get to work. Do this consistently for a few weeks and you may be surprised by what you are able to accomplish.
Transform your time into money. Or just invest in your own personal development and mental health. You owe it to yourself. This is just one more thing I wish I had started doing way earlier in my life.
As Naval says: "Guard your time. Forget the money."
Ageism & The Reality of Silicon Valley: Beware of Older Tech Folks (Like Me)
As an old guy now, I definitely see the raging ageism that is rife in Silicon Valley. God help an older tech person applying for a job at Google or Facebook, let alone a series A/B startup. And I understand it, older people tend to be rigid and not want to learn new things. Or are usually just set in their ways. Even worse, they are just unable to keep up with the rapid amount of change.
There is a cult of youth here because they bring energy and new ideas.
Yet I would argue that there is a lot to learn from older people who are still in the game. We’ve seen the up cycles and down cycles. Most of all, we’re survivors. For those who have grit and grind to survive the downturns. Sometimes survival is enough in a darwinian environment like this.
It’s like the old joke of two friends walking in the woods. They see a bear charging them. One of the friends bends down & starts to tie his shoe laces. The other friend says: “what are you doing? You will never outrun a bear.” The friend with tied shoe laces responds “I don’t need to outrun the bear. I only need to outrun you.”
This brings me to a commentary that I love by Bohdi Sanders:
“Beware of An Old man in a Profession Where Men Usually Die Young”
Old warriors did not get old by accident; they got old by being wise, having the right knowledge, and being tough. Never underestimate an old man who has grown up in a rough profession or a rough environment.
These men have been around. They have done things, and experienced things, that you probably have never even thought about. They are tough, their minds are tough, and they have the knowledge, the skill, and the will to finish you off, if you force them to do so. A boy will fight you, but an older man will hurt you.”
Word to the wise young ones! :)
And for all you fellow old tech biz folks, keep on swinging and keep on grinding forward.
Marvin’s Best Weekly Reads Sept 25th, 2022
“Don’t be afraid to give up the good to go for the great.” -John D. Rockefeller
Ignoring the racist vitriol, message is pretty relevant to everyone in my opinion. We all have to toughen up for the challenges coming our way.
"The Ancient Romans spent much of their time surrounded by enemies on all sides. What did they do? They made the most warlike men in history and dominated their side of the world. You must do this. You must take back power and self-reliance from this hostile government. Work in the shadows if necessary.
The Romans at least had a city to defend. White Americans are vastly separated and isolated. They’ve surrendered almost all their strength to the government. You must take steps to retake your power and a Warrior Religion is the best vessel to bring this about. Surrendering your military might to the government instead of the race was a terrible mistake, though you can argue when it happened, it was a government of the race. This situation we find ourselves in is in between a rock and a hard place."
https://resavager.substack.com/p/the-future-of-america-and-the-warrior
2. Good message. Passive Income is a myth.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JUMHo1gramg
3. Love this podcast. I enjoy the discussions but in regards to Ukraine, it might be out of date considering the collapse of the Russian army and the massive advances in the South and East.
The guys are spot on though about economic issues and macro investing. And how stupid Europe has been with their energy policy.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s0tfoW1N3VM
4. "There is now talk of defeat on the Russian side. There was no sense of this in President Putin’s insouciant remarks at the Vladivostok economic forum, with Russia’s isolation symbolised by the lack of international presence (Myanmar, Chinese and Armenian representatives turned up).
He claimed that nothing had been lost by the war and sovereignty had been gained as if his desire to intensify autocracy and achieve autarky in the name of self-reliance has been worth the tens of thousands of Russians dead, wounded, and taken prisoner, and the years of defence production and economic modernisation up in smoke.
His forces might stabilise the situation, at least away from Kharkiv, and provide more breathing space while he hopes Europe’s economic pain leads them to abandon Ukraine. But as I argued in my last post that is unlikely to happen, and he may now have less time than he thought to find out.
Because of the opacity of Putin’s decision-making and his delusional recent utterances, presenting Russia as the keeper of some core civilisational values, there is no suggestion that he has reached the point where he can acknowledge the position into which he has led his country. Prudence therefore requires us to assume that this war will not be over soon. But nor should it blind us to the possibility that events might move far faster than we assumed – first gradually, and then suddenly."
https://samf.substack.com/p/gradually-then-suddenly
5. "We live in a world where salespeople conflate validation with positive buying signals.. but I can assure you that a prospect who is serious about investing large sums of money into new software is not going to be chummy with you.
Decisions are Clarity. They are movement.
On the other hand, Validation, while nice to receive, can be a distraction & keep you stuck if it’s prioritized over getting a Decision.
If Sales is the Life blood of every company, Decisions are the Life blood of every salesperson."
https://bowtiedsalesguy.substack.com/p/seek-decisions-not-validation
6. "Liemandt had seen the future and decided to get out in front of it. In 2006 he quietly began building an enterprise software empire where innovation and growth take a back seat to sheer profitability.
Using his closely held ESW Capital, Liemandt began buying dozens of business-software firms with values ranging from $10 million to $250 million. Ever heard of Nextance, Infopia, Kayako or Exinda? Not many have, but these are the types of firms that run things like customer service and document management, humming in the background of an untold number of businesses.
Liemandt’s team was on a quest for the regular income streams associated with sticky software maintenance contracts. To cut costs, R&D and employee benefits were to be gutted. And as a sweetener, he began assembling a patent-litigation war chest. Through one of his holdings, Liemandt has sued 20 companies, ranging from SAP to Sears and Toyota. He’s currently suing Ford for $300 million.
Liemandt’s metamorphosis has transformed him from every dorm-room coder’s hero to an ominous force in tech as his expanding global cloud-force pushes down wages and turns computer programming into factory work."
7. This is a masterclass in VC investing from one of the best in the business. I listened to this twice. It's so good.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wkz2a1GkjZo
8. "While the showdown between Ukraine and Russia may be the only direct, high-profile kinetic conflict currently taking place, make no mistake: there is a multifaceted economic war quietly being waged between the major flags of the world. Behind closed doors, the US / NATO (EU) alliance is squaring off against Russia / China.
My intent is to simply point out that, no matter how wealthy or powerful you may be, any asset whose ownership is conferred by legal title is fair game for wartime confiscation. Your bank account, your stock portfolio, your house, your car — your ownership of these things is predicated upon the State upholding and protecting your exclusive right to use them. If that weren’t the case, anyone who had something coveted by their neighbour would have to be perpetually ready to inflict physical harm upon strangers who had that “lean and hungry” look.
The goal is to remain financially flexible in the face of the vagaries of war. 100% of your financial capital should never be parked in just one monetary instrument, whether that be Bitcoin, domestic fiat currencies, bonds, stocks, real estate, commodities, or gold. But your opportunity to move your fiat assets into Bitcoin and other “real” assets only exists today, and may not tomorrow. Remember that."
https://medium.com/entrepreneur-s-handbook/for-the-war-fd5509d525d
9. "Mentioned here for over a decade. Your passions and interests don’t matter. If you want to be successful you want to be a winner and be the best within *any* field. Yes. We’re telling you the things you were told as a kid = total lie. The only thing that matters is your ability to be the best (or close to it). Winners care about winning and being the best. That’s your “passion”.
Wealth Disparity: This has been a hot topic for years and will only get worse. How can someone claim an individual YouTuber is overpaid if they are a one man show. They can’t. You know this, we know this, everyone knows this. Software and advanced tech will remove all the overhead and push even more income to the person generating all of the value."
"Their goal is to cut spending to bare bones, your goal should be to increase income as much as possible since there is no ceiling to earnings. You can earn $1K in a month or $1M in a month. There is no “limit”. For the frugality set up, there is always a limit so if you never move your income, you’re stuck with a “flat” savings percentage of say 50%. If you earn an absurd amount say $1M a month, it would be practically impossible to avoid saving/investing 90% of your money since you’re earning so much!"
https://bowtiedbull.substack.com/p/importance-of-a-second-income-and
10. There is a lesson here somewhere.
"Interviews with more than 15 former Airlift employees depict a company torn in two: Inside Airlift’s corporate offices, young workers who were experiencing the highs of belonging to the most-celebrated startup in the country, rallied behind Airlift as it went all guns blazing on a path of unbridled growth; meanwhile, the company’s operations staff, responsible for executing the ambitions of Airlift’s amateur leadership, were allegedly neck-deep in chaos: inventory mismanagement, pricing inefficiencies, and fraud were rampant. Eventually, the growth-at-all-costs model became untenable, and collapsed.
“It felt like they were doing it all for valuation because there was no way that they could have ever thought of becoming profitable like this,” a former warehouse manager from Lahore, who had previously worked for a number of large Pakistani corporations, told Rest of World. “It didn’t make sense.”
https://restofworld.org/2022/inside-story-of-airlift-crash
11. Yikes, this is all I have a say when reading this.
I don't understand at all why a VC is investing in this at all.
https://www.vox.com/the-goods/2022/9/11/23340917/launch-house-sexual-assault-web3-community
12. "What happens when two Hollywood actors who know nothing about soccer buy a middling pro team in Wales?"
https://www.gq.com/story/wrexham-fc-ryan-reynolds-rob-mcelhenney
13. "Japan stands out as the one economy in the world with a relatively benign inflation shock. Where in America, consumer prices are now up by more than 9% from a year ago, Japan’s CPI prints barely above two percent. This may come as a surprise, given the global nature of the inflation shock: excess money and credit, supply bottlenecks, the war in Europe, the surge in pent-up demand as the pandemic abates.
Further, the global cost-push pressures -- from rising energy, electronic components, and food prices – have been compounded by a falling Yen: in the United States, the price of oil is up approximately 60% in US dollars since the end of December. In Japan, the Yen price of oil is up almost 90%. And yes, America is a net exporter of energy - and food - while Japan is one of the worlds largest importers of energy - and food.
So how come that, despite greater and more severe exposure to global inflationary pressures, consumers in Japan are much less affected by the global inflation tsunami than they are in America?"
https://japanoptimist.substack.com/p/whos-afraid-of-inflation-not-japan
14. "Support every portfolio company, not only because it's the right thing to do, but because each one might be your fund returner. Disengaging with a portfolio company may harm your ability to double down on the breakouts, as mentioned earlier.
While social proof can be a valid signal, it’s necessary to be confident enough to invest without social proof from other investors, especially if you’re leading deals."
https://www.signatureblock.co/p/top-mistakes-first-time-fund-manag
15. "Though the war is far from over and Russia can find new ways to punish Ukraine, collapsing Russian forces have not only been pushed back; in abandoning their former headquarters in Izium, they also left behind large stores of equipment and ammunition that the Ukrainians can now use against them. Even if the Russians stabilize the line in the coming days, they will be in a far worse position than they were on September 1. Building on months of careful efforts to both prepare Ukrainian forces and waste Russian ones, Ukraine has achieved a strategic masterstroke that military scholars will study for decades to come."
https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2022/09/ukraine-russia-putin-kharkiv-kupyansk/671407
16. "However, Brands concedes that “this is actually kind of normal for Russia—it is a great power that has never been as great as it thinks it is. So it constantly tries to punch above its weight in international affairs (by waging a Cold War against the entire Western world, for instance). That leads to failure, which leads to dramatic contractions of Russian power and influence, which leads, after a time, to a period of resurgence anew. Russia will be down for a while if things keep going in this direction—but don't count it out.
The former commander of the U.S. Army in Europe, General Mark Hertling (retired), notes that some countries were able to rebound fairly quickly from the damage done by fallen leaders as Saddam Hussein, Nicolae Ceausescu, and Adolf Hitler. But, Gen. Hertling says, “Russia is different.”
Specifically, he accurately notes, Russia’s “military failed because of corruption, grift, poor equipment, failure to follow a doctrine that was disconnected from capability or training, a lack of both individual and team preparation for the demands of the modern battlefield... but most of all, extremely poor leadership at all levels. But here’s the most important lesson: you can’t fix any of that, within any period of time or with any amount of money, as long as the government the military serves is dysfunctional and corrupt.”
https://www.thedailybeast.com/what-happens-to-russia-after-it-loses
17. "We are at the point in this struggle where as a people, we must exile themselves to the metaphorical desert, to face nature again, and reforge what was lost. Hell, we’re not even that far. We’re still trying to pull our own out of hell, to show the demoralized the light, to find some way to organize. How can we disconnect a people from a hostile regime? How can you steer a people back toward self-reliance?
It all comes back to you. You have to figure it out. Identify where you are on the path to self-reliance and move forward from there. The man of the ancient world was many things. He was a warrior, a farmer, a patriarch, and a priest. The best among men became warlords and kings. The legendary get remembered. The enemy has co-opted the most powerful country in the world, but it’s our people who made it the most powerful in the first place. It ain’t the technology, it’s the warrior.
Recognize the defeat for what it is. The America you were taught to love doesn’t exist anymore, but Americans still do. Your purpose, your Great Work, is to get as many of your own to the light. To embody excellence on a level to match, if not surpass, the enemy’s technological capabilities. You must find a way where there seems to be none. Our ancestors faced the New World and the frontier with hard discipline and a martial spirit. We must do the same."
https://resavager.substack.com/p/the-life-stolen-from-man
18. Slava Ukraini! I hope this also shuts up the Putin appeasers on the hard left and right in the west.
"Ukraine has turned the tide of this war in its favor," said the Institute for the Study of War (ISW), a U.S.-based defense think tank, in its Sept. 12 report.
"Kyiv will likely increasingly dictate the location and nature of the major fighting, and Russia will find itself increasingly responding inadequately to growing Ukrainian physical and psychological pressure in successive military campaigns unless Moscow finds some way to regain the initiative."
Experts now believe that Ukrainian pressure in Kherson Oblast, combined with its rapid counter-offensive in Kharkiv Oblast, presents Russian forces with a terrible dilemma.”
19. Yup, Russian Agitprop is still very active. But yet so many people fall for it & lots of "Useful Idiots" here in the West.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TRTKUf0nWdE
20. Will to win matters. Good summary of what’s happening in Ukraine from a US military vet.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e1o_J42_5o8
21. I like this framework.
"The next time you’re evaluating an investment, ask yourself if this company or product is a vitamin, painkiller, narcotic, or religion and gut check it with your heart monitor--the higher your heart rate the better. If you’re a founder, you need to take a cold hard look at your product and ask if people genuinely care."
https://robleclerc.substack.com/p/is-your-product-a-vitamin-pain-killer
22. "If I take hundred photos per week maybe I have 1-3 that are really good and worthy of posting. And that’s how I think about everything: do your work well but only share what’s really great. Create layers between yourself and the Internet for reflection, curation, quality, and depth.
Cause the truth is that most of our thoughts and work are shit or at least mediocre and should not be shared. It takes time, focus, and creative energy to make something really good and worthwhile of people’s attention and one’s own self-respect. We are doing ourselves a big disfavor by always reacting instead of slowing down to create and respond with intention and quality.
I think we need to think of ourselves as artists, in the Picasso tradition, and not of productivity rats. The artist experiments, drafts, creates, fails, discards, try’s again and the latter only runs, and runs, and runs ad infinitum."
https://fewerbetterthings.substack.com/p/youre-an-artist-not-a-productivity
23. "The trick is that the larger an entity is, the harder it is to retain human faith and confidence in the reasons for its expansion. As nations and companies get larger, they lose their ability to serve the needs of their constituents and customers. You can have a billion customers (like McDonald’s) or citizens (like China), but they won’t be able to reach anybody when there is a problem. Chatbots can’t deliver like a person on the phone.
How long can an entity sustain loyalty after the lines of communication start breaking down? Not very long. This is why it is quite possible that the superpowers – Russia, China and even the US – may break into smaller, more manageable groupings after the current leadership move on. Size matters. Nation-states and global companies have become too big to manage. Smaller is becoming better."
https://drpippa.substack.com/p/size-matters
24. Holy crap. 20B! Adobe acquires Figma.
https://www.cnbc.com/amp/2022/09/15/adobe-to-acquire-design-platform-figma-for-20-billion.html
25. All new founders trying to fundraise from VCs need to read this. Really good stuff.
https://chrisneumann.com/blog/things-that-make-you-go-hmmmm
26. I find this terrifying, considering how incompetent & deluded our politicians and bureaucrats have been in the West last few years.
"Many people at the time warned that even though letting the private sector figure it out would bring healthy benefits, not every utility was made for the free market. Notably railways are hard to privatize and we are now finding out that airports most probably need far more oversight from the state, in exchange for lower profits. Quite possibly an entirely new business model.
Energy too may be best provided by a public utility rather than some offshore entity with shareholders who could not care less if some Dutch retirees will have to light a candle to make it through the winter. Governments catching up with chaos on the ground are struggling to fill the gaps that the market can apparently no longer fix."
https://pieterdorsman.substack.com/p/the-state-is-coming-back
27. This is where the guys shine: discussing and dissecting tech businesses and transactions. So much insight here.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_UpczzfeAFA
28. Good summary of the latest monopoly news.
"There are other reasons to be wary of the deal. Adobe is paying 50 times the revenue of Figma, which is a crazy price unless it is trying to maintain its market power. It feels sort of like Facebook buying Instagram, which seemed wildly overvalued at the time, but in retrospect was a clear way for Facebook to prevent disruption of its business as social network moved from the desktop to the smartphone.
It’s also not the first time that Adobe has bought a competitor to retain its monopoly revenue stream."
https://mattstoller.substack.com/p/should-the-government-block-the-adobe
The Ground Truth: Go to the Frontline!
Ground Truth is defined as “information that is known to be real or true, provided by direct observation and measurement (i.e. empirical evidence) as opposed to information provided by inference.” Source: Wikipedia
Why is this important?Information gets Filtered as it moves up the chain. And this is the reason that so many generals & CEOs of corporations have no idea what’s going on at frontlines. And that is why they are always unable to catch emerging problems. Or usually are caught by surprise when these problems become too big to ignore.
Sure you can have great reporting, amazing employees and a culture of honesty and transparency. But the bigger you get, the harder it is to maintain these things. Complexity begins to increase. More complexity means more points of failure. That is why it’s critical that senior executives leave their plush offices and spend time all across the hierarchy and talk to customers. Otherwise they lose touch with what’s really happening in the market and their organization.
I had heard a story that the most connected CEOs were ones that smoked. Why? It was because they had exposure to frontline employees when they went outside to have cigarettes and chat.
I think this led to the term coined by Management Guru Tom Peters called MBWA=Management By Walking Around.
So it doesn’t matter how high you rise in the organization, you need to spend time on the frontlines and get the ground reality of the market. If you do this, you may have a better chance of catching and surviving the inevitable curve balls of business issues that come your way.
Wisdom from My Violin Teacher: Relationships & Grand Memories Are the Whole Point of Life
Another long flight and another round of movies to pass the time, when I don’t feel like reading. I’ve always loved this scene from Fast Five, part of the Fast & Furious franchise when the main character Dominic is saluting his crew. “Money will come and go. We all know that. The most important thing in life will always be the people in this room. Right here, right now.”
It’s a great scene and really great comment. Life is all about people. The amazing people in your life. Your family and your friends. They are the ones who drive the special moments in your life. Ones that you would remember forever.
It also reminded me of a conversation I had with my violin teacher Lorraine Ovenell, before I went traveling in Europe after I graduated from university so many years ago. She said it was an incredibly good idea that I leave to explore the world as I would learn a lot about myself. And that I would also see new places and meet new people. But probably most important was that all the new experiences would lead to great memories. Paraphrasing her, she said “at the end of our lives, all we will have will be grand memories that we will enjoy and replay over and over.”
We hear that right before the end of life, we see the lives pass before our eyes. If that does happen, wouldn’t you want to have that filled with fond memories. Like your first win in sports, your first kiss, falling in love, seeing the birth of your child, the excitement of a new job or relationship, reliving the excitement of visiting a new place or returning to a place you love. Amazing and beautiful memories.
So my point is try to fill your life up with as much joy, adventure, achievement, friendships and wonderful memories as possible, because that’s all we will really have at the end.
Marvin’s Best Weekly Reads Sept 18th, 2022
“The greatest discovery of all time is that a person can change his future by merely changing his attitude” -Oprah Winfrey
Net net: don't own assets in China. You will lose it.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fomuXEaEAJA
2. So happy but it's not over yet. Good overview of what's up with eastern offensive in Kharkiv. Slava Ukraini!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iAD684eczq8
3. 50 Cent is a brilliant businessman.
"Curtis “50 Cent” Jackson didn’t become an entertainment mogul by being diplomatic. Whether when he was emerging as a hip-hop legend during the aughts, or developing his hit Starz crime drama Power into a franchise that now spans four series, he always gets things done with a mix of talent, shrewdness, aggression, and forthrightness. And he expects everyone who’s a part of his empire to share the same drive.
As with his music career, where he elevated his visibility through personal conflict, 50 Cent has a propensity for starting digital fires to call attention to his TV shows. His music fused brilliant, melodic hooks with a rugged edge, but he was always selling himself.
That’s still the case, but now he’s a behind-the-scenes force who’s happy to step out into the open and start a war, even if he has to make one up: He’s arguably even more calculatingly contentious as a TV producer than he was as a musician. And with 25 shows sold across nine networks, and more in production, it seems to be working. 50 Cent became a mogul by creating his own genre, and he’s determined to do what he needs to keep growing his empire."
https://www.gq.com/story/50-cent-tv-empire-power-ghost-raising-kanan-force-bmf
4. Both are very good books for founders.
"The best way to create a category is to go sell some software. Early-stage startups excessively focused on category creation are trying to win the game by staring at the scoreboard.
The best way to be a category king is to be the most aggressive company during the growth phase of the market. Do that by executing what I call the market leader play, the rough equivalent of Geoffrey Moore’s “just ship” during the tornado. Second prize really is a set of steak knives."
5. "With a CBDC, your food, clothing, travel, carbon, savings, spending choices and more could all be controlled, limited, or blocked at the push of a button. Everything you need to survive could be given, or taken away at will, by your government.
The very power of life and death itself.
The early United States government believed forgery was such a dire threat that to take part in it warranted the death penalty. And modern governments believe a currency controlled by the people is so menacing, that the solution is to create something with the ability to control every single aspect of your life.
So let me ask you this: what’s the bigger threat, and to whom?
To me, it is blindingly obvious that a CBDC poses a bigger threat to our freedoms, than crypto does to our society as a whole.
But that’s certainly not how they’ll frame the story."
https://abundantia.substack.com/p/franken-money
6. "If Betr can break the mobile-sports-gambling duopoly of DraftKings and FanDuel, it wouldn’t be the first time Paul has beaten the odds to make his way in a new industry. As a teenager, Paul’s aggro class-clown antics on Vine and YouTube attracted millions of followers as he grew up in front of the camera, learning to monetize nearly every moment of his time. With his older brother, Logan, he helped set the tone for the first wave of bro-y influencers living together in what are now known as hype houses. There were commercially — if not aesthetically — successful forays into music and acting.
Logan is now suplexing wrestlers in the WWE, but Jake found a home in the boxing world, where he has been driving pay-per-view sales with his DNA-level drive for self-promotion, a knack for starting feuds, and a right hook mean enough to knock out four amateurs who didn’t really know how to block a punch. Paul’s detractors still say he is a distraction and point to the fact that he hasn’t actually faced any pro boxers.
To show he means it, Paul has gotten extremely ripped and has won each time he has stepped into the ring against pros from other sports like mixed martial arts and basketball. Whatever boxing fans think of him, the prankster has become a serious force in professional fighting, earning seven-figure purses and feuding with UFC president Dana White over providing lifelong health insurance for its fighters.
At 25, Paul hopes to pivot again, this time to a role that doesn’t involve him getting punched in the face."
https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2022/08/jake-paul-takes-on-sports-media-with-gambling-app-betr.html
7. This is a very good point. Fragmentation of the media world means there are so many famous people but within niches & groups, not universally known anymore.
https://sotonye.substack.com/p/the-end-of-the-mega-star/comments
8. "Malone, who was raised in Connecticut and graduated from Yale with degrees in economics and engineering, traveled west and made his fortune by getting in on the ground floor of the cable TV business in the 1970s.
In its earliest years, cable was sold as a way to deliver broadcast channels in areas where normal TV antennas wouldn’t work, like the Rocky Mountains. Malone built up his Denver-based company Tele-Communications Inc. into a cable Goliath by rolling up a series of small mom-and-pop operators using debt financing. Along the way, he used his power as a distributor to extract ownership stakes in cable TV programmers like Fox News and QVC. He cashed out by selling to AT&T for $48 billion in 1999.
Since then, Malone has bought and sold and swapped companies and stakes in companies over and over, always with an eye on keeping his taxes as low as possible. He now owns a portfolio that includes meaningful ownership in everything from satellite music service SiriusXM to baseball’s Atlanta Braves to Live Nation, the ticketing and concert giant."
https://www.vox.com/2022/8/26/23322761/cnn-john-malone-david-zaslav-chris-licht-brian-stelter-fox
9. The case for remote work.
"The combination of portable computing, great communication and collaboration software, and the internet has empowered new ways of working and living to emerge. In the face of this, companies that don’t adapt will bleed talent to their competition, and companies that embrace remote work will replace companies that don’t.
Probably not today, maybe not tomorrow, but it’s a movement that won’t be undone. In the same way e-commerce has decimated many physical stores, virtual companies will crush office-based companies."
https://future.com/remote-startups-hire-top-talent
10. This is good. A list of things that make most people happy.
https://sotonye.substack.com/p/doing-things-that-make-you-happy
11. "A new friend reminded me yesterday that everything in life is fear-based except love. It’s a simple but profound insight. Only keep and use stuff that you love and that loves you back in ways that resonates with your higher being. Resist the emotional pull to heal wounds and fill voids by buying things that you don’t need or will never or rarely use. It’s a waste across so many areas, not mentioning an insult to yourself."
https://fewerbetterthings.substack.com/p/everything-is-fear-based-except-love
12. "The more the company has tried to denounce its associations to these influencers and their ideologies, the more these figures seem to endorse their product.
This phenomenon — when a brand is unwillingly co-opted by fringe groups to advance their message –—is known as hatejacking. Hatejacking has become increasingly common as extremist politics have crept into the mainstream, interfering with brands aiming to please broad audiences.
Most of the time, the fringe group picks its targets at random. There are no clear answers for why it happens and to whom. Just as confusingly, there’s no surefire strategy for silencing the fringe groups."
https://thehustle.co/what-happens-when-your-brand-is-co-opted-by-extremists
13. "Another effect of the digital medium is more indirect but may also be more profound. The moment one enters the online environment, the self begins to liquify. The lack of external or internal pressures makes it impossible to maintain a definite shape or character. On the web, you can be anyone or anything—a vertigo-inducing condition that is equivalent to being nothing.
Identity, which in traditional culture was pressed hard upon us by social forces and in modernity became problematic, now dissipates into thin air. Those of us who are of a certain age will borrow attributes from the analog world. But the young make no distinction between virtual and real. They are stuck on a question that is part narcissism and part fear of the monster in the labyrinth: What am I?"
14. "In summary, new web3 creative projects are inverting the media creation model: communities of owners are forming around nascent creations, writing their own stories into existence with skin in the game, and distributing them to communities with shared upside, then to broader audiences. Fans become creators, and their own fans become creators, too, resulting in a prismatic assemblage of creation, all powered by a native business model and new funding mechanisms. The end result, hopefully, being the democratization of storytelling and creativity for everyone."
https://li.substack.com/p/fans-are-the-new-creators
15. "Since the 15th century, the last five global empires have issued the world’s reserve currency — the one most often used by other countries — for 94 years on average. The dollar has held reserve status for more than 100 years, so its reign is already older than most.
The dollar has been bolstered by the weaknesses of its rivals. The euro has been repeatedly undermined by financial crises, while the renminbi is heavily managed by an authoritarian regime. Nonetheless, alternatives are gaining ground. Beyond the Big Four currencies — of the US, Europe, Japan and the UK — lies the category of “other currencies” that includes the Canadian and Australian dollar, the Swiss franc and the renminbi. They now account for 10 per cent of global reserves, up from 2 per cent in 2001. Their gains, which accelerated during the pandemic, have come mainly at the expense of the US dollar. The dollar share of foreign exchange reserves is currently at 59 per cent — the lowest since 1995. Digital currencies may look battered now, but they remain a long-run alternative as well.
Meanwhile, the impact of US sanctions on Russia is demonstrating how much influence the US wields over a dollar-driven world, inspiring many countries to speed up their search for options. It’s possible that the next step is not towards a single reserve currency, but to currency blocs."
https://www.ft.com/content/989b2e50-e8b5-474c-86a3-190c6881b235
16. This is grim but it sounds about right.
This is the consequence of really bad economic and energy policy in the EU. (although US/Canada is doing everything it can to shoot itself in foot too). All self-inflicted.
https://twitter.com/HKBelvedere/status/1563975832741216256
17. This guy writes beautifully despite being white supremicist Intel. But he is correct in that America has gotten soft. Conflict & disorder is coming so we need to toughen up fast to protect our way of live and values from the barbarians coming.
"We live in a world where the strength in man isn’t valued. Why be strong when there’s airplanes and drones that will bomb you to hell before you even get a shot off? Fortuna is almost gone from battlefield. It’s still a fallacy to ignore physical culture. You aren’t important enough to send a drone yet anyways. You must keep to the old ways of physical prowess because it’s the key to victory. You cannot win without a strong warlike people at your back. Never forget this.
Oswald Spengler believed that this leviathan can only be overthrown by force. You weren’t going to vote your way out of the tyranny of money and mind. You have to bring a different, a new and superior way of life to the forefront. Be capable of forging superior men who will embarrass the regime. Develop superior methods of war that will leave your enemies dumbstruck. Stop reacting to the enemy and go on the offensive.
You must cultivate the frontier spirit of Heracles and the American frontiersman again. Power and freedom are what matters. The Warrior Religion makes ritual all that grows our power and freedom. This is where true religious rites come from. The will to survive and thrive in nature, in enemy territory. Making sacrifices in pagan style don’t make sense to men in the same manner it did for the ancients. The ultimate purpose is to create religious rites that help forge a chosen, warlike people who will fight. You must do this.
It’s not sacrifice that made a man pagan. This is only Christian slander. There are many ways of sacrifice. The PAGAN, not the Christian, believes in justice. The frontiersman had a frontier code of vengeance when Indians butchered settlers, for example. Also in “pride and personal honor, will to power, patriotic readiness to meet force with force” as said by Robinson Jeffers."
https://resavager.substack.com/p/warrior-religion-ii
18. This is certainly disturbing reading.
"As you can see the policies benefit people who *already* own assets. If your goal is to get rich by working for someone else, it will be quite difficult since your wage growth will not mirror the company growth perfectly and your equity in the firm is likely minimal.
Fortunately? You’re reading this from a Computer. That computer is capable of reaching billions of people for a measly cost of around $4 a month. If you have any skill in the world where people go out of their way to tell you “hey you’re good at this” we can all but guarantee you can earn money online from it."
https://bowtiedbull.substack.com/p/lowering-your-standards-a-history
19. "the huge rise in energy prices in Europe, and demand destruction will cause massive disruptions to global supply chains. Manufacturing production which used to be competitive in Germany will no longer be at this level of energy prices, which means output will be taken off line.
This means that different parts of the supply chain (capital good, fertiliser, widgets that make things work but you never knew they came from Germany) will be disrupted - think of the supply chain disruptions during Covid but on steroids. This likely will accentuate global stagflationary pressures - the world will suffer because of this, and ultimately because of Putin's unfettered ambition and brutality.
So my advice to ME readers and listeners is be careful/cautious in how you view this crisis, and this is not a time for schadenfruede, but building your own economic defences for likely much harder economic times for all looming globally. I also think it is time the West pulls together with friendly nations in the Gulf and elsewhere to prevent rising energy prices causing a catastrophic global recession."
https://timothyash.substack.com/p/energy-exporters-need-to-be-worried
20. "The only purpose of sanctions that makes any logical sense is this: Sanctions should make it harder for Russia to prosecute its invasion of Ukraine, as well as any other future invasions that Putin may decide to carry out. And the way to weaken Russia’s military machine is to weaken Russia’s defense production. And the way to weaken Russian imports, so that Russia can’t buy the parts and machinery it needs to make weapons.
But remember, reducing Russian imports was the whole point of sanctions! Russia needs to import a ton of parts and machinery in order to make tanks, missiles, air defense radars, jets, and all its other implements of destruction. Now, thanks to sanctions, it can’t do that nearly as much. In fact, exports to Russia have rebounded a bit since the initial plunge, but almost all of the rebound has been in consumer goods, rather than in machinery, materials, and other “dual-use” goods.
And that’s exactly what we should want — we’re not starving the babushkas, but we are starving Russia’s military machine.
In other words, the strong ruble is pointless, because the cause of the strong ruble is that sanctions are preventing Russia from getting the imports its military needs."
https://noahpinion.substack.com/p/yes-sanctions-on-russia-are-working
21. I love Jiro Dreams of Sushi and watch it every year. This is a great retrospective on how that film changed the sushi scene forever.
https://www.eater.com/23327804/sushi-omakase-united-states-nakazawa-jiro-dreams-of-sushi-history
22. Love NAFO. Down with Vatniks.
"Russian influencers have struggled to respond to the badly-drawn Shiba Inu memes, YouTube-style viral videos and the power of ordinary social media users debunking Kremlin talking points. Even answering a Twitter account whose avatar is a “doge” can make a Russian diplomat look foolish. In essence, NAFO can swim in online waters that governments would struggle to enter.
Five Western national security officials, almost all of whom spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak publicly, welcomed the rise of such pro-Ukrainian internet warriors. Unlike the usually colorless official efforts at dispelling Kremlin’s falsehoods, NAFO has tapped into wide public anger against Russia via popular culture references and laughter, they added.
“Employing humor to counter disinformation is a brilliant strategy,” said Jakub Kalenský, a senior analyst at the European Center of Excellence for Countering Hybrid Threats, a joint initiative between NATO countries and the European Union. “One inspiration we should take is that it is possible to fight back. It is really possible to do something — so stop being lazy and trying to look for excuses.”
23. Worthwhile & helpful thread on how to categorize a country collapse. Net net: we are not there yet in the USA.
https://mobile.twitter.com/Rest_Stop_Juche/status/1564953253846355968
24. Another reason many founders find most of their VCs to be useless.
"This person agrees, however, that boards have become “broken.” For one thing, he says that most that he attends have slackened into Zoom calls that feel even more perfunctory than in pre-COVID days.
He also says that in addition to frenetic deal-making, two other factors have conspired to make formal meetings less valuable: late-stage investors who write checks to younger companies but don’t take board seats, leaving their co-investors with a disproportionate amount of responsibility, and newer VCs who’ve never served as executives at big companies — and sometimes weren’t even mentored — and so aren’t quite as useful in boardrooms."
https://techcrunch.com/2022/08/31/coming-out-of-covid-investors-lose-their-taste-for-board-meetings
25. "The men of the early Roman Republic exemplified Barbaric Vitalism. Their definition of virtue (virtus) was manliness. Virtue didn’t carry the connotations it does today. It just meant you were manly. The way to show your manliness to the Romans was through labor. Strenuous exertions and ordeals made or broke men. In Rome, you weren’t born a man. You had to become one.
Manliness to the early Romans was associated with physical power, vigor, vitality, energy, and violent action. The Romans compared to the many tribes that surrounded them weren’t that impressive. Their adversaries were often bigger, stronger, and outnumbered them. You’d think the way we’re taught about the Romans, they won most of their battles, but they actually lost most of them.
The Romans were known for their no surrender, never say die mentality. The Romans refused to admit defeat. They lost 50,000 men at Cannae at the hands of Hannibal, but still refused to throw in the towel. The Romans showed energy, vigor, VITALITY. They had the powerful desire to OVERCOME. They would rather be killed off then live the rest of their lives as slaves. This is Barbaric Vitalism.
Barbaric Vitalism is seeing nature at play and realizing all the bullshit feelings of the modern world don’t matter. It’s realizing nature doesn’t care about equality, decency, or who was where first — nature only cares about who wins."
https://resavager.substack.com/p/the-power-of-barbaric-vitalism-361
26. "Sadly for Mr. Ford and the well-intended but totally naïve young woman holding out hope that the unicorn concept of “cheaper cleaner greener” energy is actually a thing, they are both victims of insidious propaganda. As reality will soon demonstrate, if a country can’t afford to keep its citizens warm during the winter, then that country is poor, not rich. And if the proposed solution to this crisis is to double down on the same crazy policies that caused it in the first place, then we should expect the problem to get worse, not better.
In hindsight, our expectation that Western leaders would awaken to the laws of physics was terribly mistaken. Instead, they have behaved as though they have leverage over Putin, not the other way around. Despite already skyrocketing energy prices, Nord Stream 2 was canceled, adding further strain to the EU’s depleting energy options. Emboldened by the cards handed to him by his geopolitical opponents, Putin invaded Ukraine. The West’s response – attempting to sanction Putin’s energy from global markets – was quite literally the dumbest option available, akin to sawing off your own hand in the middle of a boxing match.
In the past week, the market for European electricity broke, begging the question of exactly who is being sanctioned by whom. Forward-year prices for baseload power in Germany skyrocketed to over €1,000 per MWh before crashing by more than a third a day later. The same contract was selling for €45 per MWh less than two years ago. The imminent crisis is now undeniably laid bare for all to see. How will Europe navigate the upcoming winter? Will logic, sanity, and genuine leadership take hold, or will the same fools who rushed into this mess double down on their foolishness?"
https://doomberg.substack.com/p/dead-of-winter
27. Sacks has been listening way too much to discredited Mearsheimer. But its always a good discussion on this show. All in Podcast is a great show.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wc-Leuq0G7o
28. Crisis investing in the emerging & frontier markets. Fascinating discussion.
https://mailchi.mp/497e654bdaeb/crisis-investing-in-frontier-and-emerging-markets?e=123a1c25c4
29. "Going forward I think these water level and shipping-related problems will occur more often than some people today expect. The last time we faced a similar problem was in the summer of 2018. I think this will become a regular problem for us in the years ahead.
My Biggest concern is because of the enduring drought in Europe, China and the US is, on the other hand, another one. I think low water levels will lead to less hydropower capacity around the globe which would be bad for our green energy transition ambitions. The other potential threat I can’t stress enough are crop yields.
As water becomes scarcer and therefore more valuable farmers will most likely use less water to water the crops and if those drought conditions intensify over the next years this will hit the crop yields in times when the world population is growing faster than ever."
https://commodityreport.substack.com/p/the-rhine-shipping-crisis
30. "Stradner said that “Russia is weaponizing information to destabilize and divide our allies. If the West wants to win the information war against Russia it must put the Kremlin on defense and counter Russian information operations globally.”
Echoing this sentiment, Cesar Villaroel, a television and communications expert in Latin America, indicated that he had seen an increase in the numbers of people tuning in to RT in Spanish to get the latest of current events. Villaroel indicated that, “Despite the fact that the war in Ukraine is a big story in the US, and in Europe, the fact is Ukraine’s message is not effectively reaching people across Central and South America.”
https://www.kyivpost.com/russias-war/the-information-war-of-ukraine-falters.html
31. The question is whether Russia can find the trained crews and infantry to protect them. Here is to Saint Javelin destroying more of these! Slava Ukraini!
"The Kremlin’s reckless and unsuccessful blitzkrieg on Kyiv resulted in the loss of over 1,000 tanks – within just a few weeks after Feb. 24.
By April, many battlefields in northern Ukraine had become tank cemeteries, with dozens of scorched machines eviscerated by Ukrainian anti-tank squads.
This is a heavy blow for Russia’s offensive component, even given its large military. Contrary to its propaganda, Russia’s infamously large stockpile of Soviet tanks is little more than a pile of scrap metal unfit to be used in battle.
However, we can not expect Russia to run critically low on tanks anytime soon.
Despite heavy losses, Russia still has enough machines to continue waging its war for years."
https://kyivindependent.com/national/how-many-tanks-does-russia-really-have
32. 110% agree.
"First, bottoms-up and top-down are no longer binary. In fact, the layering of top-down over bottoms-up is becoming the de facto playbook. I’ve lost count of the number of “product-led” companies that had stagnated, but bit the bullet, built an enterprise sales organization, and have since found their second wind.
So I’m going to call it. We’re no longer living in a world where bottoms-up growth is the only “fundable” go-to-market strategy. Let’s hope investors (and public markets) respond to these trends in kind."
https://medium.com/angularventures/its-not-all-about-bottoms-up-a87671cfd3c3
33. "Your devotion to The Gods will be shown by your commitment to way of a warrior. Your first steps should be towards self-reliance. This is a big country and while not everyone can separate yourself completely from the system, you should consider yourself a spiritual steppe nomad. Don’t depend on the state to save you, ever. Make your and your family’s safety your responsibility. You should be getting in shape. If you don’t know how to fight, pick up a martial art like boxing, general mma, or muay thai. BJJ is popular right now, but I wouldn’t recommend it as your first martial art. The last place you want to be is stuck on the ground.
No one really talks about it, but your confidence is greatly improved by humbling yourself in a martial art. Unfortunately, war isn’t all hand to hand, so you must also be armed. Make sure you have knives and tomahawks like frontiersman forefathers. Make sure you bear arms. Do not be like those guys who own like twenty different assault rifles, but lack body armor and night vision. You’re much more tactically sound if you get basic riffle and handgun with body armor and night vision vs having your own armory.
You will feel most alive when you’re testing your strength. Whether it’s lifting weights, climbing mountains, sparring in the gym, or war itself. You will never feel quite right until you’re trying to make yourself as proficient as possible in the ways of war. You must treat your training with as much reverence as a holy man does his religious rites. This is after all, a Warrior Religion. They are religious rites and The Gods will reward you for keeping to these rituals. It was a mistake to delegate war to the government. It should be the duty of every man."
https://resavager.substack.com/p/the-disciple-of-the-warrior-religion
34. This was a fun interview & discussion. Go Batch 14!
35. More of this please! Much more.
36. Great advice for founders.
https://twitter.com/mwseibel/status/1565869137192226819
37. It's about time Taiwan got serious about preparing for an invasion by China.
"Tsao, who donned body armor for his announcement, warned it would be “an intentional slaughter and vicious war crime and crime against humanity” if China were to use force against Taiwan.
The tycoon said he would put TW$600 million towards training three million “black bear warriors” in the next three years who could work alongside the military.
Another TW$400 million will be used to train 300,000 “marksmen” with shooting skills."
https://www.thedefensepost.com/2022/09/01/taiwan-tycoon-train-civilian-warriors
38. "I’m excited about deep tech. The SPAC boom doesn’t offer a sustainable model for building these kinds of companies, but the combined effects of software advances, social and political interest, and a growing talent base might be enough of a cocktail of tailwinds for era-defining companies to be built."
https://mandel.substack.com/p/four-theses-on-deep-tech
39. This is much needed in Europe. New breed of Fund of Funds for Emerging VC Fund Managers.
https://sifted.eu/articles/equation-europe-vc-fund
40. "So, what am I personally doing right now to prepare for a potentially catastrophic global financial market? Well, not investing in the stock market for a start. Furthermore, I’m doing all I can to pump excess cash into lowering my company’s real estate loans as a preventative measure, and lowering my debt liability in the case of inflation (and interest rates) getting even higher than it already is.
I’ve also just placed my biggest order for gold and silver for 2022 so far. Because to me, whenever people put too much faith (and money) into hopes and dreams of future payoffs, I prefer to put my faith in stability, as well as assets that humanity has used to store value for thousands of years. And to me, that’s why metals are always a safe bet.
Long story short, when it appears everyone has placed their bets on belief for far too long, I prefer to put my faith in those things that have stood the test of time. Things like precious metals, real estate, or following the fundamental basic tenets of good finance like making an effort to lower one’s debt.
Anything but investing money, time, or resources into a market that right now, seems to only be propped up by belief alone."
https://abundantia.substack.com/p/the-superbubble-pop
41. "I call this “sameness” trend the fast-foodification of everything.
It’s this feeling that we’re in a sea of the same. It all feels sterile. This is mediocrity at its finest.
Why fast food?
Well, fast food is something that is convenient and tastes good in the moment. But once you start driving home, you start feeling the effects. That KFC isn’t sitting well.
Fast food content. Fast food cities. The rise of standardization.
Standardization makes it easy for you to know what to do or where to go. Chances are if you walk into a Starbucks you instinctively know where the barista is standing or where to run to the bathroom. It’s extremely intuitive. People psychologically do well when they expect what they are looking for. No surprises."
https://latecheckout.substack.com/p/the-fast-foodification-of-everything
42. I'm a big fan of Julian Robertson and it’s so awesome that he started Tiger when he was 48! Find your zone of genius.
"When Fortune profiled him in 2008, they reported a return of 403% on his own capital on an estimated $1 billion fortune at the time he shut down.
Despite exiting during a drawdown, I think he made a smart choice for himself. He kept doing what he loved: he mentored great talent, traveled the world, and pulled the trigger on investing his own capital. The work of answering to investors, navigating a massive fund, and managing an extensive staff disappeared. He’d returned to what he loved: the craft of investing and spending time with his favorite people. No wonder he kept on winning."
https://neckar.substack.com/p/the-tiger-that-was-a-wolf-lessons
43. "Expensive gas threatens Europe in two basic ways. First, with winter approaching, Europeans will find it difficult to heat their homes (despite global warming, Europe still gets very cold). Second, much of European industry is dependent on cheap electricity. Aluminum output has cratered, chemical plants are closing all over the continent, lots of British manufacturers are saying they could go out of business, steel plants are starting to close, and so on.
The basic problem is that Europe uses a lot of natural gas — it’s about a quarter of the region’s total energy production and more than a fifth of electricity generation — and about 40% of that gas traditionally has come from Russia. In the long run, Europe can and will switch much of this to solar and wind power, and import more liquified natural gas from the U.S. In the short run, that’s just not going to happen.
So what will Europe do in order to sustain its economy and keep from freezing in the short term? Well, there are two basic strategies — price-based demand curbs and rationing — both of which will involve painful tradeoffs. European countries will probably choose a mixture of these. And in the end, Europe will be a little bit poorer, but it will make it through.
As a coda, although it’s too late for recriminations to be anything but a distraction in the current crisis, it’s worth remembering how Europe — and especially Germany — was forced into this unhappy tradeoff in the first place. There were two big mistakes: environmentalism without pragmatism, and a romantic attachment to the idea of peace through commerce."
https://noahpinion.substack.com/p/dont-panic-europe-will-deal-with
44. "In the throes of the current bear market, there is no better time for crypto-natives to be building. Join a DAO, read a crypto newsletter, write a blog post, pick up a technical skill, do a podcast, solve a practical problem.
Perhaps most importantly, build relationships. The bear market weeded out the crypto tourists, and the people remaining are the true crypto-natives. Indeed, building in the bear is a reliable way to meet like-minded folk serious in their convictions.
Put simply, when the excitement of the bull party is over, the bear market is the best time to solidify your second citizenship in the crypto world. Just as the Chinese or Jewish diaspora exists as an entity outside of whatever nationality they hold, crypto citizens hold “dual citizenship”, one “officially” in their physical nation state, and one “unofficially” in the crypto world of their choosing."
https://newsletter.banklesshq.com/p/the-sovereign-crypto-native
45. This is a much needed VC fund here. Congrats to Jai Malik
46. This fund will actually do well I think.
https://www.linkedin.com/news/story/kim-kardashian-starts-investment-firm-4944785
47. Too early to tell but I certainly hope so! Slava Ukraini!
https://timothyash.substack.com/p/are-russian-forces-on-brink-of-collapse
Dreams Versus Reality: You Need Both To Truly Live & Thrive
There is this great quote in the Dune movie: “Dreams make good stories. But everything important happens when we are awake. That’s when we make things happen.”
This is the paradox of our lives. Spend too much time daydreaming and you accomplish nothing. Yet It’s easy to fall into this mode as it’s really enjoyable and you feel good even though you have done nothing.
On the other hand, being busy all the time and taking action thoughtlessly just leads you nowhere. You don’t get to where you want to go.
We need belief to motivate us. We need to be inspired by our dreams, by other people.
We are humans. We live on stories. We are motivated by images & pictures. This is a tool we don’t utilize enough to make our lives and those around us so much better. It helps us get through the slumps and inevitable tough times on the journey to our destination.
Coupling this direction with hard action is the only way to achieve anything in life. And as I’ve stated many times before, you have to program your mind like a computer. Napoleon Hill famously stated: “Whatever Your Mind Can Conceive and Believe, It Can Achieve.”
Do it consciously or you will end up being programmed by someone else. Or worse programmed to pursue some else’s dreams.
As the Bible says: “Man without vision shall perish.”
Living in our Own Matrix: Reality is a Choice
I started watching the Matrix Resurrection. As a big fan of the original series I had high hopes that were dashed as usual by a crappy remake.
The story of the Matrix in which we are all trapped in this Virtual Reality fictional world while acting as living batteries for our robot overlords. But there are rebels who choose to give up the comforts of this fake world. Rebel candidates are given a choice: blue pill to return to the ease and normality of the matrix or a red pill that shows the reality of how the world works.
The red pill symbolizes truth and the choice to see all the lies around you. It’s an awakening of your mind. It allows you to literally break out of the fake world matrix surrounding you.
Unfortunately, the term “Red pill” has been co-opted by the loser manosphere movement but I think the actual concept is still relevant for us all.
We’re all trapped by the myths, stories, and family and societal expectations that we grow up with. In the authoritarian side of the world like Russia and China and it’s Ilk, the ruling class want to keep the populace even dumber and more ignorant. They blatantly lie, filter & keep information away from you. If you don’t know what’s real, how do you resist? Then it’s easier to be used as cannon fodder or cows to be milked.
In the Capitalist West, it's a bit more insidious and maybe even smarter. But the goal is the same: Control. We are trained to be consumers, not producers. To buy and value things but not people or our time. These myths and lies are propagated in the liberal West by an outdated education system, mainstream media, corrupt government and consumerist culture.
We are told stupid things like “keep up with the Jones”, that entrepreneurial endeavors are too risky, that we should get a good education and focus on getting a good job whatever that means. And an even more pernicious message is that we should trust what the government and media says because they know better and care about you.
What a crock of garbage but it’s all around us. It reminds of the story about the old fish who runs into some kid fishes and he asks them “How is the water boys?” The kid fishes respond “what’s water?”
This is exactly the situation we all find ourselves In. Most of us are so busy we don’t even question or know what we are surrounded by. Running on a continual treadmill. As the famous Matrix quote: “Billions of people just living out their lives, oblivious.”
So you sometimes feel like something in our lives is off. Wrong. But yet we don’t do anything. A character called the Analyst describes this situation well: “Quietly yearning for what you don’t have, while dreading losing what you do. For 99.9% of your race that is the definition of reality. Desire and fear.”
For many of us, it requires a traumatic episode in your life like a divorce, recovering from a serious health issue or facing economic ruin. These can act as wake up calls and a signal that something is not right. Sometimes it can be meeting and having a conversation with a new person, or reading a book that really opens your eyes. I find travel to new and exotic places also makes you question your assumptions of the world. These are the moments when the mental breakthrough happens.
It also requires an open mindedness and openness to being seen as different or weird by the wider population. It requires a willingness to question and sacrifice your certainty to see the reality and truth around us.
There is a quote in the movie:
“The paradox between free will and destiny. Are we all just algorithms doing what we are supposed to do or can we escape our programming. Is it free will or destiny.”
I think a lot about personal freedom, about the idea of Sovereign Individual. What does it mean to be truly free in this world? You can not be free if you work for someone else. You cannot be free if you do not face reality. You cannot be free if you do not see and understand how the world truly works so you can build your own better life.
So the question now is: Red pill or Blue Pill?
Do you wake up or keep sleeping walking through life like the 99.9% of sheeple out there?
Marvin’s Best Weekly Reads Sept 11th, 2022
“I alone cannot change the world, but I can cast a stone across the waters to create many ripples.” -Mother Teresa
For road warriors and frequent flyers like me.
"If you’re still in the grind here are some ways to make sure you stay in shape without killing your performance on the job.
Step 1 - Prepare: If you know that you will have a long week including travel you should think about it the following way: 1) Heavy leg workout the day before you leave, 2) grab compression socks and wax matrix niacin and 3) if you’re really concerned about bloodflow you can take a baby asprin.
Why? During flights you will recognize that your feet are inflamed. Badly. If you want proof of this simply take off your shoes on the flight and try to put them back on when you land. *Note, don’t be one of those gross people walking around the plane without shoes on*
We’re simply giving you a way to prove out that it is damaging to your body. Blood clots are a real risk to flying."
https://bowtiedbull.substack.com/p/skincare-and-working-out-while-grinding
2. A great example of a Portfolio Entrepreneur. One of the best to say the least.
"Though he might wince at the comparison, one commonality Hoffman does share with the onetime hawker of Trump Steaks, Trump University and Trump Tower is a penchant for building businesses—and then writing and talking at length about them.
Hoffman’s multitude of roles, each of which would soak up the bulk of a typical executive’s time, include partner at blue-chip VC firm Greylock, board member at Microsoft, main investor in the SPACs for autonomous vehicle startup Aurora Tech and flying-taxi hopeful Joby Aviation, and founder of a software company, Inflection AI, that’s in quasi stealth mode.
What, I asked, does a typical week look like, given this diverse portfolio? “The principal way I work these days is that I have projects that have CEOs that I’m working with, and I have, as noted by your account, too many projects to be the CEO of something.” Hoffman, sporting a black T-shirt and a mop of tousled hair, was sitting in front of a bucolic printed shoji screen. He said he toggles between these various enterprises depending on where he’s most needed—something he couldn’t do if he were an actual CEO. “That’s the reason why there isn’t, per se, a typical week. Every week is its own unique species.”
Hoffman, who recently turned 55, has been carrying on like this since 2009, when he stepped down for the second time as LinkedIn’s CEO. An early investment in Facebook, coupled with Microsoft’s 2016 purchase of LinkedIn for $26 billion and his 13-year run as a partner at Greylock, have made him a multibillionaire—but clearly not an idle one."
3. "The world is going multipolar – and China is on the rise, aiming to use its newfound wealth and strength to achieve what Chinese President Xi Jinping refers to as his dream of “the great renewal of the Chinese nation”. Reacquiring Taiwan is one of the most important aspects of Xi’s dream, and from Beijing’s perspective, one of the most powerful political figures in the U.S. (dear Nancy) just spit in that dream’s face.
The result? Not World War III, despite the breathless coverage from the media, which will fade away in a few weeks’ time as it has around the still-ongoing war between Russia and Ukraine. China is not powerful enough to conquer Taiwan yet, but make no mistake – China is building up its military capabilities in part so that a threat of force against the renegade island will mean more in the future.
Many U.S. companies that made their products in China are scrambling to rebuild supply chains from scratch, whilst those that remain in China face much higher costs to manufacture goods in China and pass these costs onto the consumer (i.e., you and me) – both of which are inflationary.
And that’s before accounting for what the pandemic and China’s COVID-19 lockdowns have done to disrupt manufacturing on the mainland. Instead of a reprieve in trade ties, a Fourth Taiwan Strait crisis means more trade tension and potential shipping disruptions in and around the South China Sea, which is still where the vast majority of the world’s semiconductors are produced."
https://www.thelykeion.com/a-geopolitical-primer-on-taiwan
4. Go Ukraine!
"So summarising the above into what I think happens. I think we see continued Ukrainian long range attacks on Russian troops in Ukraine, including Crimea, to devastating effect, as the West supplies more long range kit. I think Putin knows he needs a peace deal, but does continue to fuel the energy crisis in Europe over the next few months to boost his leverage in those talks.
I don’t think there will be a defining battle for Kherson, but the defining battle will be the Battle of Supply Chains - Russian military supply chains in Ukraine, and possible European supply chains disrupted as a result of Putin’s energy war in Europe. It’s ironic that both countries strategies are now based on hitting the other deep behind the front lines but with Ukraine this is in southern Ukraine, and for Russia is it in Central Europe, Germany, et al thru energy.
And eventually I think the two sides do end up at peace talks this autumn, likely November, when the first snows are falling and when Putin will be nervous about leaving his military in an enemy field during freezing temperatures.
Question will be how far Putin will be prepared to compromise, and can Zelensky accept any territorial concessions now, or is he and Ukraine willing to fight on until all Ukrainian territory is liberated. And I guess I worry if Putin is willing to play the Z-card - Zaporizhiya NPP?"
https://timothyash.substack.com/p/ukraine-prospects-for-peace
5. Good summary of the Russian invasion of Ukraine so far from a very smart, qualified guy for once. (US/Nato General). Slava Ukraini!
https://twitter.com/MarkHertling/status/1561042285214810112
6. We can all be much more supportive of each other down our chosen paths. It really matters.
"Feiler argues that most people think of life as a smooth linear path. If you ask most 21-year-olds, including me at the time, you’d probably get them telling you this is how life will go. Yet in his extensive research into how people’s lives actually play out, he found that the reality was much different. Instead of being defined by a line, the thing that shaped people’s lives was a steady stream of “disruptors.” Most people have about three dozen disruptors in their lives, meaning on average people face things that send them in new directions every 12-18 months."
"This can be life-changing to someone. Yet so few people do it.
This is why people like Tyler Cowen are so inspiring. He has taken a weird path, reached a level of status and success, and now puts a ton of effort into supporting hundreds, if not thousands, follow bold paths through his program Emergent Ventures.
Why doesn’t everyone have a Tyler Cowen-type person in their family or community? It’s a damn shame.
The good news is that you know all this now and realize that even if someone seems confident, they probably aren’t. Even people on the default path need encouragement and supporters.
I’ve talked to countless people of all life stages, income levels, ethnic backgrounds, and life conditions and it’s pretty clear - everyone is a bit uneasy and everyone could use a little more support."
https://boundless.substack.com/p/believe-in-others-193
7. "I do not consider myself a military or geopolitical expert, so there is a good chance I’m not seeing the big picture here. But I can’t deny that a lot of what Prince says resonates with my current thinking and/or experience of the world. This especially applies to his matter-of-fact economic analysis.
Prince points to the failure of the West’s attempt to bring China into the liberal fold via a strategy of making it rich. He says this strategy is responsible for much of what ails us. He also blames the over-domination of corporate monopolies and a lack of competition for entrenching an overly bureaucratic and ineffective state system. Nor is he a fan of easy money. He has some fairly clear-cut thoughts about the politicisation (or deneutralisation as I call it ) of the dollar — as well as the role that Russian sanctions are likely to play in further undermining the global reserve currency. Can’t fault him on any of that."
So what can we learn from this? There’s a lot to be drawn out from Prince’s views on things that go beyond Afghanistan.
Other notable points in the interview include Prince’s thoughts about bitcoin, crypto and gold. His concern about the rise of a “social credit system” surveillance state, which he says he will fight tooth and nail against. His role in running an assassination bureau that operated in “soft” jurisdictions like Germany. How the Russians had invited him to basically start what would become the Wagner group, but he turned them down in a move that he says proved he wasn’t a mere profiteer.
And his experiences in Eastern Europe as a kid and how they informed his opinion of communism. And much more…
That a mercenary favours gold and bitcoin and emphasises the importance of paying good wages to soldiers, of course, shouldn’t really be that surprising. It was true in Julius Caesar’s day, and it remains true today.
But that’s kind of the key point of this interview. It emphasises the degree to which the more things change, the more they actually stay the same. The same old forces still influence everything. The mercenary field may not be the oldest profession in the world, but it’s certainly high up there. And those who have the capacity to raise private armies are politically contentious for a reason."
https://the-blindspot.com/when-high-profile-mercenaries-have-opinions-about-markets-and-more
8. Gil has been one of the more disciplined investors in the last few years of crazy (because he is experienced and knows what’s up).
"Healthy atmosphere. But the other thing that has changed is the atmosphere. For the first time in a long time, all of our conversations with founders are grounded in reality. Founders are asking for reasonable amounts of capital at reasonable terms to achieve potentially extraordinary things with manageable risk. There is time for conversation, time for questions, time to get to know one another, and time to align. There is a return of mutual appreciation and respect. We tremendously respect founders that are making reasonable asks, driving reasonable burn rates, and taking on risk — and founders, in turn, seem to have a new appreciation for the real risk that investors are taking by believing in them."
"So right now — when so many investors and over-funded companies are struggling to adapt to the new environment — now is exactly the right time for us to double down on what we do — and what we have always done."
https://medium.com/angularventures/for-early-stage-venture-its-go-time-eca7b4ecda70
9. Worth reviewing. For founders who want to know what’s happening in the fundraising market right now.
https://www.linkedin.com/feed/update/urn:li:activity:6966490532126633984
10. I like this concept of Gorilla in tech, so much better than Unicorn.
"In nature, gorillas are impressive creatures. The same is true in business, where a Gorilla is a startup that has (1) surpassed a valuation of $1B and is (2) generating an annual net revenue run rate above $100M. Most importantly, these startups are on track to becoming enduring, generationally defining businesses.
With 1,250+ global unicorns, it’s safe to assume only a small fraction are Gorillas. Whether the name becomes vernacular or not, a stronger focus on business fundamentals seems appropriate now more than ever."
https://medium.com/susa-ventures/strive-to-be-a-gorilla-not-just-a-unicorn-d033ed341e8c
11. This is a worthwhile interview with controversial Erik Prince. Lots of very good insight here on where the world is going from a geopolitical perspective.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nwK_XLFOm_I
12. "I’m not suggesting for a moment you should stash your assets in a hidden Panamanian bank account like Iceland’s former prime minister did—over the years I’ve learned that your government will almost inevitably find out if you’re doing something shady. But I am saying that if there’s a legal means for you to pay less tax to your government overlords, you should take it.
Because many of your government overlords are doing the same.
If you own a company in Sweden, why wouldn’t you move it to Hungary to cut your tax bill by more than half? Or if you’re a location-independent entrepreneur, why not consider moving your legal address to Georgia, a nation that’ll allow you to legally pay just 1% tax?
Obviously, most of the benefits of being able to cut a huge chunk out of your yearly tax bill come when you stop being a paid employee, and structure your life around your own business, company, or solo enterprise. This is why Sorelle and I believe that generating an independent income is the most important first step in becoming a more free global citizen."
https://abundantia.substack.com/p/burn-the-witch
13. This is a great initiative. We owe our veterans more.
"The two have been paired together through Hives for Heroes, a Houston-based nonprofit that helps veterans take up beekeeping by matching them with experienced mentors. The project tackles two disparate problems: the mental health risks that veterans face when they separate from service and the declining population of honeybees.
Launched in 2018 by Marine Corps veteran Steve Jimenez, a Houstonian whose rough transition back to civilian life was transformed by beekeeping, the project has expanded to every state and matched more than 1,200 veterans—“newbees,” in the group’s parlance—with beekeeping mentors.
Hives for Heroes aims to give its novice beekeepers the same benefits. The project harnesses veterans’ desire to be of service—they’re helping the environment, and some volunteer to relocate unwanted colonies from walls and trees—and can lead to a new career. (Though not all beekeepers harvest honey, some do turn the hobby into a business.)
The mentor beekeeper—sometimes a fellow veteran, often a non-veteran civilian—is a supportive presence and a connection to the larger beekeeping community. For some combat veterans, the element of danger is an attractive challenge. And all participants develop bee-yard mindfulness out of necessity. If they rush or their minds wander, they’re more likely to get stung."
https://www.texasmonthly.com/travel/veterans-finding-new-mission-in-beekeeping
14. "If you hadn't had that experience with your injury, would you have ever become this mission-driven leader?
No. It knocked the hell out of me. You know, it knocked out all the narcissism, it knocked out that I knew everything."
https://theprofile.substack.com/p/mark-bertolini-interview
15. "George Leonidas Leslie led a double life: By day, he was a distinguished architect who hobnobbed with New York City’s elite denizens; by night, he was one of history’s most prolific bank robbers.
Unlike other heisters of his time, Leslie’s approach was academic rather than brutish. He studied the anatomy of locks, drafted up blueprints of banks, and invented mechanical safe-breaking devices.
During his “career,” authorities estimated that his exploits accounted for 80% of all bank robberies in the entire US during his active years of 1869-78.
Altogether, he stole at least $7m ($200m in today’s money), much of it pilfered from the bank vaults of America’s wealthiest titans.
The final bank heist he orchestrated is still, to this day, the largest in US history — an astounding $81m haul, adjusted for inflation."
https://thehustle.co/the-architect-who-became-the-king-of-bank-robberies
16. "Pretty much everyone in that world, from the millions of small-scale crypto holders to industry employees and investors, has watched in shock and dismay as Three Arrows Capital, once perhaps the most highly regarded investment fund in a burgeoning global financial sector, collapsed in excruciating and embarrassing fashion. The firm’s implosion, a result of both recklessness and likely criminal misconduct, set off a contagion that not only forced a historic sell-off in bitcoin and its ilk but also wiped out a wide swath of the cryptocurrency industry."
https://nymag.com/intelligencer/article/three-arrows-capital-kyle-davies-su-zhu-crash.html
17. Japan is on the rise. A critical military ally against the CCP.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QB-fBGMJVR8
18. This could be the future: investing directly in talent! Love this.
"In Central Park, they told me that, with Maria and Anna, they’d created an entity called Libermans Co. It held all the income from their enterprises; any debts, assets, and profits they might gain; and any investments they might make or companies they might start for the next thirty years. They had gathered all these elements and sold shares in the whole, offering investors, effectively, a stake in their entire financial future—shares in their life.
So far, the Libermans have traded around three per cent of their futures, which investors have valued at four hundred million dollars, or about a hundred million dollars per Liberman. They spent a few months in conversation with the Securities and Exchange Commission to list themselves on the stock market, which they hope to do by 2023.
The Libermans’ theory is that, in terms of stuff that America’s big wealth can invest in, people are more appealing than the current catalogue of middling venture-capital funds, shipping firms, and companies selling toothbrushes by mail. Instead of putting money into a fund for startups, investors would be free to find an ingenious entrepreneur and invest in her entire career.
Rather than buying shares of Spotify, a fund could buy into a portfolio of the futures of emerging hip-hop artists, all of whom would get that cash. Most of us are more excited about our brilliant friends than about the companies they work for. And while the average age of an S. & P. 500 company is approximately twenty years—most die young—people do better. The stronger their boost off the blocks, the longer they can keep trying, increasing their odds of success."
https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2022/08/01/is-selling-shares-in-yourself-the-way-of-the-future
19. "Decluttering our lives from things, thoughts, and people that doesn’t propel us forward makes us lighter, faster, and happier. Everything becomes easier as there is nothing cluttering up our time, attention, and creative energy.
Every day becomes a white space that we can fill with meaning but also leave open for surprise discoveries. Our calendars are no longer fully booked, our spaces are clean and easily manageable, and our thoughts are crisp and clear, brain fog gone."
https://fewerbetterthings.substack.com/p/towards-fewer-better-things-thoughts
20. This was a personally helpful discussion. Searching for self-actualization, gaining courage and finding your path.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q91g7IohQAE
21. "Let’s go back a century to Weimar. Most speculators knew that the government had lost control and that the only path forward was to print money. However, occasionally the politicians would try and arrest the inflation—as inflation crushes voters. Sometimes, it was an offhand quote from a government official, sometimes it was concrete action.
The market would convulse in panic, only to find that the authorities had zero tolerance for pain. Voters hate inflation, but they hate losing their jobs even worse. Politicians work for the speculators, not the voters—caught in a stall-speed between inflation and depression, politicians will almost always choose inflation. However, there were brief moments where the market believed the politicians—or at least worried that they’d lose control to the downside and things would crash.
Once again, the trick to navigating what is coming is to stay as long as possible, while not getting taken out during the inevitable pullbacks. If your timing is good, you can add size at the end of each pullback and dramatically increase your returns, especially as the amplitude of each incremental move will usually be greater—besides, as money gets debased, it is imperative to have some financial leverage."
https://adventuresincapitalism.com/2022/08/22/the-pause
22. "Spending more money on research is really the key here, because that’s what creates demand. Yes, supply of research inputs is important — we need lots of high-skilled immigrants, and we need to push more Americans to go into STEM. But unless there are jobs for those researchers, Americans will be discouraged from going into the field, and the presence of immigrants will seem like a cutthroat zero-sum competition. Spending more money ensures that anyone who has the talent can see their talent put to work.
So far, the current U.S. industrial policy revival has been a bit disappointing on this front. The CHIPS Act lobbed a bunch of money at the semiconductor industry, but this represented a vastly scaled-down bill that chopped out most of the best parts of an earlier version called the Endless Frontier Act. The Endless Frontier Act could have revitalized U.S. scientific research, far beyond the narrow confines of the chip industry, but our congressional leaders simply didn’t see the point.
Well, the point should be obvious now. When China has quantum computers a million times faster than Google’s, satellites that can talk securely with the Earth via quantum entanglement, quantum magnetometers that can (possibly) find our most secret submarines, and autonomous drone swarms that can fly through dense forests, Congress would have to be insane to worry about pinching a few pennies.
The U.S. hasn’t fallen behind in science yet. But in order to avoid falling behind, at least in many key areas, we need to take bold action now."
https://noahpinion.substack.com/p/the-war-economy-is-america-falling
23. "Above all, war is more than battles and operations. Regardless of the technology, it is, as Thucydides reminds us, the human aspects that matter most. If the public embrace the desire to fight to survive, are willing to endure and sacrifice, then systems will become less important. Even where superior and overwhelming firepower is employed, if a population refuses to submit, they will endure defeats in battle and keep fighting. Multi-domain integration determines only how to fight; it will not necessarily determine who wins wars."
https://engelsbergideas.com/notebook/human-behaviour-will-still-determine-who-wins-wars
24. Talk about mortgaging your country's future.
"Well, not really. The Erdogan administration might be able to muddle thru to elections, but at the price of the deterioration in Turkey’s balance sheet in the interim.
Russia might be allowing Turkey to pay in borrowed rubles, but they still have to be paid back, and these likely will create a liability on the next government to emerge after elections, AKP or otherwise.
Similarly, if the strategy it to continue to intervene to defend the lira, FX reserves will be spent, and the CBRT’s net international reserve position will deteriorate even further than it’s current estimated minus $60bn number.
All this does not resolve the underlying problem that Turkey is living beyond its means, too much growth now, not enough saving, and the accumulation of more external debt liabilities which need to be paid back, whether to Russia or the Gulf.
And in the case of debts to Russia, one had to ask what an absolutely malign character like Putin will demand of the new credits he has extended to Erdogan? But we know for sure that he will come knocking on Turkey’s door in the future and the payback will likely include a big wad of usury which Putin certainly believes in. Putin will extract a heavy’s price on Erdogan, and especially if this results in his re-election next year. Erdogan will owe Putin.
And what about the Gulf money? It’s hard really to imagine MBS, with all his tortuous history with Erdogan lending to keep the latter in power in Turkey unless a heavy pay back is expected - likely in lucrative Turkish assets being put up for sale to Gulf interests at some point in the future."
https://timothyash.substack.com/p/erdogans-economic-plan-for-elections
25. Great profile here on Idris Elba, who is aging like a fine wine. All men should aspire to be like this man. A very cool dude.
https://www.mensjournal.com/entertainment/idris-elba-mens-journal-cover-story
26. "CBDCs enable all of those financial censorship capabilities with one click of a button. Everything being collected leaves you in a very scary position.
If you carbon footprint is too large, fines automatically removed. Financial censorship on steroids.
If you read up on CBDCs from the rest of the central banks, like the Sand Dollar and the e-CNY, you’re going to find they all have the same motivations as China and the Bahamas. Tracking and controlling you, your money, and removing any and all privacy.
During the middle of the lockdowns, Summer 2020, only 35 countries were even deciding, whether or not, to develop or launch a CBDC. Now, over 80% of all central banks are active in developing a CBDC - making up over 95% of global GDP.
The central banks all have the same talking points, and they all recite the same “initiatives” for developing a CBDC. Best to be listening and developing your multiple income streams as fast as you can."
https://bowtiedbull.substack.com/p/cbdc-update-with-bowtiedscholar
27. Congrats to Timmu and the team. Proud investor here.
https://a16z.com/2022/08/23/investing-in-ready-player-me
28. An investing legend. Father of the baby cubs: a multitude of very successful hedge funds. RIP Julian Robertson.
https://fortune.com/2022/08/23/julian-robertson-hedge-fund-billionaire-tiger-cubs-dies-at-90
29. The CCP & their enablers are the enemy of America & the western free world.
"In that sense, in contrast to the Nazis’ militaristic imperialism, the CCP has resurrected a more ancient form of imperialism in which they’ve bought and groomed foreign elites to be more loyal to them than to their own people. Since the early 19th century, no illiberal regime besides the Soviet Union has had the wherewithal to co-opt western elites to that degree, and relations with the Soviet Union were limited. But the amount of western cash running through China over the last few decades appears to have made this ancient form of imperialism viable for the CCP.
This is, by all accounts, a sad story. China is running out of money. The CCP made promises to the Chinese people that they couldn’t keep, and they’re therefore resorting to increasingly ruthless ways of obtaining cash while dragging the world into totalitarianism with them, as we saw with lockdowns. They’re simultaneously resorting to increasingly ruthless methods of robbing their own people, such as bank defaults and jailings of billionaires, while doubling down on domestic controls.
Decoupling from China need not be permanent. China is a great civilization, and I have no doubt that China can right itself and rectify its institutions within our lifetime. But we can’t risk our democracy and the lives of our young people while we wait for that to happen. We need to be on the highest level of alert with regard to the CCP and treat the war as if it’s already begun. There’s presently no legitimate reason why we should be engaging with Xi’s China any differently than Nazi Germany or the Soviet Union."
https://michaelpsenger.substack.com/p/the-china-situation-isnt-as-bad-as
30. Shameful policy by grossly incompetent or corrupt political elites in Germany.
"Half a century later, in 2020, Russia would supply more than half of Germany’s natural gas and about a third of all the oil that Germans burned to heat homes, power factories and fuel vehicles. Roughly half of Germany’s coal imports, which are essential to its steel manufacturing, came from Russia.
An arrangement that began as a peacetime opening to a former foe has turned into an instrument of aggression. Germany is now funding Russia’s war. In the first two months after the start of Russia’s assault on Ukraine, Germany is estimated to have paid nearly €8.3bn for Russian energy – money used by Moscow to prop up the rouble and buy the artillery shells firing at Ukrainian positions in Donetsk. In that time, EU countries are estimated to have paid a total of €39bn for Russian energy, more than double the sum they have given to help Ukraine defend itself.
The irony is painful. “For thirty years, Germans lectured Ukrainians about fascism,” the historian Timothy Snyder wrote recently. “When fascism actually arrived, Germans funded it, and Ukrainians died fighting it.
When Putin invaded Ukraine in February, Germany faced a particular problem. Its rejection of nuclear power and its transition away from coal meant that Germany had very few alternatives to Russian gas. Berlin has been forced to accept that it was a cataclysmic error to have made itself so dependent on Russian energy – whatever the motives behind it.”
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/jun/02/germany-dependence-russian-energy-gas-oil-nord-stream
31. China is in very deep doo doo (just like many other places in the world these days).
"Whichever way you look at it, Beijing is walking a tightrope. And the scale of the risks is unprecedented not just for China but also for the wider world. Matt Klein may be right in his recent FT piece to argue that from the point of view of inflation-fighting, the deflationary effect of China’s slowdown is welcome at this current moment.
But to take the next step to argue that “China’s troubles may be just what the rest of the world needs”, is surely to push a good point too far. It may be true that “China’s healthy exports and weak imports” were previously a “drag on the global economy, depriving workers elsewhere of the incomes they would have earned selling goods and services to Chinese customers.”
But that is a counterfactual argument. A better world is, indeed, imaginable in which China’s current account since the late 1990s was more balanced. Fair enough. Meanwhile, in the actually existing world economy, there are plenty of workers and businesses around the globe who depend heavily on exports to China. None of them will be celebrating bad news from China as good news, especially in light of the pressure also being exercised by a strong dollar and Fed tightening."
https://adamtooze.substack.com/p/chartbook-145-china-on-the-tightrope
32. No one feels sorry for the rich tech bros & VC, nor should they.
"The biggest critics of the government are, oddly, some of its biggest beneficiaries. Tech billionaires are often the first to shitpost America, even as they continue to harvest wealth from the investments taxpayers make via the U.S. government.
A wonderful thing about our country is that the people who are most patriotic are the ones who’ve made the greatest investment: veterans. Less heartening are the individuals who’ve registered the greatest benefit, are the least grateful, and are often the most critical: VCs who relocate to Miami and, before buying sunblock, disparage (constantly) the state they built their wealth in. Also, mega-welfare queens who cash EV subsidy checks and sell carbon credits as they mock the elected leaders who passed those laws.
BTW, nobody believes you moved to Florida or Texas for better governance — you wanted the chance to recognize a capital gain at a lower tax rate than the middle-class taxpayers who funded your infrastructure."
https://www.profgalloway.com/welfare-queens
33. The west needs to get off its act together and stop the half ass support of Ukraine. Send weapons and money asap so Ukraine can finish the barbarian Russian invaders.
"The great hope of Western governments was that Western economic sanctions would have a material effect on Russia’s ability and willingness to sustain the war against Ukraine. Battlefield attrition and economic attrition would combine to force Moscow to sue for peace. This, of course, depends on actually making a serious dent on the Russian economy. Six months into the conflict, how far that has been achieved is hotly contested.
As Zelensky knows, the stakes could not be higher. If, at the six-month mark, Ukraine now faces a long war, then stability is crucial. And that stability must be secured, not just on the frontlines, but on the home front as well, which is “highly contested too”. Otherwise, when Kyiv comes to mark the 12-month anniversary and the 18th-month anniversaries in 2023, the narrative may be less up beat than it is today."
https://adamtooze.substack.com/p/chartbook-146-the-russia-ukraine
34. This is an immensely disturbing trend from Korea that seems to be showing up all over the modern world.
"The only think I can think of is that women’s entry into the workforce may explain most of this, childcare is a high additional cost as opposed to a social default. Whatever the answer is, the west may stave off the consequences of the population crunch for a while with its willingness to import foreign workers, but the same can’t be said of advanced Asian nations.
We’re peering into the biggest selection event humans have faced in some time. I’m not normally worried about much but I am worried about this."
https://sotonye.substack.com/p/bloomberg-south-korea-crosses-a-population
35. Good read if you are considering doing angel investing in startups.
https://mikegreenfield.substack.com/p/why-im-an-angel-investor
36. Focus on comparing yourself to global maximum not the local maximum.
https://chrisneumann.com/blog/can-you-beat-my-friends
37. "In Vietnam, Afghanistan and many other conflicts, the stronger power lost because it could not win, and the weaker power triumphed simply because it did not lose. So shall it be in Ukraine, where the same process is playing out rapidly."
https://thehill.com/opinion/international/3606352-putins-on-the-brink
38. "The war in Ukraine has shown how a well-led, motivated and well-supplied defending force can effectively disrupt or even defeat an adversary with superior size and military means. At a minimum, the strength of contemporary defensive regimes means that defenders can significantly inflict significant costs, and prolong the duration, of an aggressor’s military aggression.
Lessons in areas such as leadership, multidomain integration, signature management, closing ‘detection to destruction’ time against an adversary, massed use of crewed and uncrewed systems, information operations and industrial scale warfare are likely to be prevalent in these studies. These will all drive institutional adaptation."
https://engelsbergideas.com/essays/how-ukraine-is-winning-in-the-adaptation-battle-against-russia
39. "But the real lesson of recent days is that events are spiraling out of the Kremlin’s control. Not one element of the original plan to attack Ukraine has survived contact with reality.
Morale has not fractured. Neither has Western support. Attrition and bad leadership steadily weaken the Russian forces while Ukraine’s military is becoming stronger, with better training and more modern equipment. Whether by sabotage, or through drone and missile strikes, Ukraine is hitting targets that the Kremlin did not think it would need to defend.
Retribution indeed: these attacks undermine a crucial Kremlin narrative about the conflict’s limited geographic and military scale. Russia thought it could limit the fighting to Ukraine. But nobody asked the Ukrainians about that."
40. Investing in climate tech is hard. Important but hard for generalist VCs like me.
"I’ve sadly come to the conclusion though that in order to be successful, you need some billionaires to back you eventually. This is by no means a bad thing (yes a lot of billionaires get negative press) as I couldn’t be happier that they are focusing their efforts and resources on a HUGE problem. It’s just that in my limited knowledge and quest to find something early pre/seed I find investable, they will need to continually raise capital and there aren’t many options as they grow."
41. Ukraine will win because of people like this: James Vasquez (and due to the indomitable will of Ukrainian people). Slava Ukraini!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OaESL5WeMsk
42. Go NAFO! Down with brain dead Vatniks!
Feast or Famine: Know Where you Are in the Cycle (Copy)
2022 has in some ways been one of the more debilitating years for many people. Yes, we are coming out of the pandemic. But right into an inflationary & commodities/ energy-driven world recession, exacerbated by a massive land war in Europe (May God curse Putin and his cronies). The money printing boom times of 2020-2021 are over and truly was “the best of times and the worst of times”.
It’s interesting being in the tech ecosystem these days, talking to founders and investors who are literally in shock. Especially new and young ones who have never been through a downturn.
Valuations have gone down, due diligence has gone up, rounds are smaller with a few certain exceptions like founders with massive previous exits.
The lesson is that World works in cycles. Life is in cycles. Cycles always turn. The eternal parable of ant and cricket still holds. For anyone who is wondering as per Wikipedia:
“The fable concerns a grasshopper (in the original, a cicada) that has spent the summer singing and dancing while the ant (or ants in some versions) worked to store up food for winter. When winter arrives, the grasshopper finds itself dying of hunger and begs the ant for food. However, the ant rebukes its idleness and tells it to dance the winter away now.”
The point: enjoying life during the summer is fine but winter always eventually comes, so you need to prepare.
Personally, I’ve always wondered whether it’s better to grow up in good times or grow up in bad times. And the implications of either growing up rich or growing up poor?
Growth is good as a rising tide lifts all boats, almost everyone is happy making money. But the downside is you end up learning really bad habits and your spending and cost structure goes up as you expect this to last forever. You get sloppy, fat and usually spoiled. And this is especially lethal for investors in bull markets as the much repeated comment stands: “The four most dangerous words are ‘This time it’s different.”
On the other hand, growing up in recession, you end up in survival mode which makes you scrappy & to abhor waste (ie. Become very efficient). But you end up with a mindset of scarcity that is hard to grow out of, something I’ve personally struggled with. You tend to think win lose (not win-win) because you are literally getting a scarce resource over some else.
And many times, using a poker analogy, when times turn good and you have a strong hand, you tend to play things Tight ie. more cautious and defensive which limits growth versus being more aggressive as the new situation calls for.
Everything is a double edge sword. Having been fortunate or maybe just plain old, I’ve been through about 5 downturns now. (Ie. “Be wary of an old man in a young person's game”).
So I tend to be somewhat paranoid in good times but also know for a fact that bad times don’t last. You need to try to avoid being overly exuberant/ optimistic or too depressed/ down. As long as you keep fighting and trying, you can outlast bad times which I hope everyone out there takes to heart. Cycles always turn.
The Breaking of the Modern Mind: The Curse of the Attention Economy
There are many accusations that we are getting dumber. I actually think it’s more that our attention spans are shorter and thus our ability to do deep thinking and focused work is declining. Which maybe is another way of saying maybe we are getting dumber.
The internet, the smartphone & social media have overall been a boon. We have access to unfathomable amounts of information from all over the world. But like all technology, it’s a blade that cuts both ways. We have too much information and it’s easy to get distracted. In fact during small breaks we are drawn to our phones to fight boredom. Yet boredom also allows your brain to ponder things it would otherwise not think about.
I remember in the 1999 and even early 2000s I would just spend hours reading a book. I’d finish 3-5 books in a weekend. I find it hard to do now. Maybe it’s due to old age or just being a parent. Or a busier work schedule and duties. But I don't think that's it. I find my attention span being so much shorter now that I can’t focus for more than 20-30 minutes straight.
Actually according to an old study by Microsoft back in 2015 actually, “people now generally lose concentration after eight seconds, highlighting the effects of an increasingly digitalized lifestyle on the brain.”
(Source:https://time.com/3858309/attention-spans-goldfish)
I can’t imagine how much worse it is now, 7 years later with more social media, more devices and just so much more of everything.
This is a pretty big issue if you want to thrive. Especially in a world of work that requires deep work and clear thinking. This is kind of the only work that matters now. We need more thinking, not less. In fact, I worry about this upcoming younger generation like my daughters that does not know anything different. It’s digital screen time from a young age.
In fact, French philosopher Pascal Blaise so wisely wrote in the 1600s, "All of humanity's problems stem from man's inability to sit quietly in a room alone."
So how am I combating this? It’s through a few specific tactics and activities that have massive benefits in the rest of my life. It’s stuff you should be doing anyways, but it’s another good reason to do more of the following:
Exercise
Meditation
Time away from screens Ie. Read more books
More writing but through use pen and paper not typing
Time in nature
It’s just a start but I know that if I don’t try to conquer this issue now, it will be a much harder habit to build as my brain ages.
Marvin’s Best Weekly Reads Sept 4th, 2022
“Our dilemma is that we hate change and love it at the same time; what we really want is for things to remain the same but get better.” -Sydney J. Harris
"Fear is a costly source of fuel.
We tell ourselves we are keeping ourselves safe by being mindful of our fears. I often hear from clients, “If I keep the thing I am afraid of in front of me, I can be sure of avoiding it.”
In my experience, this is a bit like driving a race car staring at the wall. If you talk with a racecar driver, they will tell you, “If you look at the wall, you will hit the wall.”
https://www.mattmunson.me/fear
2. "Moscow appears to wish to incorporate seized territory into Russia, for which they are preparing some dubious procedures that will impress nobody but themselves. Deep down for Moscow the war may now be all about denying NATO the satisfaction of a Ukrainian victory and saving Putin’s face. There is nonetheless something increasingly desperate about Russian rhetoric and behaviour.
The Russian military position is deteriorating and the West’s backing for Ukraine has yet to slacken. The trends therefore favour Ukraine. At some Putin and his cronies will have to work out how long they can continue to pretend that they have a credible path to victory."
https://samf.substack.com/p/winning-through-attrition
3. I am a proponent of remote work btw: but there are advantages to being in office too.
"Remote work for young people is often … a bad idea. The office is where you build relationships and find mentors. And mentors are the people who become emotionally invested in your success. That same Harvard study of call center workers found that, despite greater productivity, working from home decreased the probability of getting a promotion by 12%.
Another study found that people who work from home are 38% less likely to receive a bonus. There are usually several people qualified for each promotion. The job will typically go to the person who has the best relationship with the decider. And relationships are a function of proximity. If this sounds unfair, and just bullshit facetime … trust your instincts. The corporate world and small injustices will be synonyms for a long time. This isn’t to say young people shouldn’t have opportunities for remote work. However, the conversation coming is … “OK, but you will make less money.” In some cases, it may be worth it. Some.
If you’re an employer, the office is your primary tool for facilitating culture.
In contrast, for those of you starting your career — before you collect dogs and spouses, find an employer who offers an increasingly important benefit, an office. My time at UCLA was rewarding. But my first job, at Morgan Stanley, was more educational.
In two years I found a mentor who was irrationally passionate about my success, learned (sort of) how to read a room, navigated around a senior exec who kept asking me out (yes, this happens to men), and learned how to succeed, or not, in a society called the workplace. If you do not enter the physical workplace early, you’ll miss opportunities and stressors that will make you stronger and more capable."
https://www.profgalloway.com/work-from-office
4. "The Russian military has been on the defensive and been bleeding terribly—literally and metaphorically. Yet, the Russian regime keeps increasing the political objectives of the war. Simply put, as the Russian capabilities decrease, its objectives increase.
Here we can learn from history. This is what Kaiser Wilhelm did during World War I. His military capabilities were shrinking, and the German people knew about it and were forced to bear additional burdens so war resources could keep coming. So the kaiser presented the troubles caused by the war as an investment: The more you sacrifice, dear German people, the more you will get in the end.
In other words, to keep the Germans happy, he kept promising more. It was a domestic political gamble. And it worked for a few years, but, eventually, the German people revolted, and the German Revolution of 1918 ended his rule."
https://shaykhatiri.substack.com/p/the-russian-revolution
5. "An intelligent global energy policy with nuclear power as a foundation can provide abundance to all humanity with minimal impact on the environment. Without hyperbole, there is no path to a decarbonized economy that avoids mass starvation and economic collapse without nuclear power, and the hardest opponents of the technology know it.
As uncomfortable a thought as it is, the history of the funding, propaganda, and influence around the anti-nuclear sentiment was born out of a non-fringe belief that the preferred solution to the population “problem” was not more abundant energy to support such growth, but rather, fewer people to compete for available resources. Proselytizing nuclear waste as a meaningful issue became a convenient, palatable vehicle used to veer the discourse until it took hold generally. Today, this is done either by those who are victims of such propaganda or are knowing architects of it."
https://doomberg.substack.com/p/malthusian-malarkey
6. "That discipline teaches you things about your mind, and all this is really important. I think it's no different from jumping in ice cold water. It stresses your mind out and you have to slow it down. You have to actively slow down and control those things.
Food can be an addiction. Sugar is an addiction. Our phone is an addiction. All these things need to be cleansed out of your life in some way—it helps your mind get stronger and it helps you become stronger as a person. It helps you help other people; it helps you become more mindful of what's going on for others.
You can help other people who are struggling with things, and you become aware and get epiphanies about while you're going through these processes for yourself. That should be number one importance for people: One’s own personal health ahead of everything."
https://www.gq.com/story/real-life-diet-kelly-slater
7. I really have to watch this movie. Good interview with Dakota Beavers who plays Taab.
"If anybody can take any advice from Taab, you don't have to be a jerk to be tough. You can be kind. You can love your neighbor. You can love your family, and you can still be a warrior. You don’t have to cut your heart off."
https://www.gq.com/story/prey-dakota-beavers
8. Expanding and paring back. This is a process that never ends.
"We’re all involved in this that we probably shouldn’t be. At a point in the past, you signed up for something that you thought was a good idea at the time. It could be a volunteer position or group that you’re a part of. It could be a business venture or a part-time job. It could be a hobby or some other ongoing commitment.
The only reason that you’re still doing it is because you made a decision a several months or years back that it was a good idea. You would never sign-up for it again today, but haven’t stopped doing whatever it is because you perceive that the pain of maintaining the status quo is less than the pain of making a change."
https://www.mattpaulson.com/2014/11/why-you-should-say-no-to-side-projects
9. "But recently, as the dust has settled a bit, I am seeing the best entrepreneurs realize that now is the time to play offense. The “play offense” playbook is well known to many, but hard to execute during a downturn.
Funds have raised an enormous amount of capital in the last two years. Never before in the history of entrepreneurship has there been this extraordinary amount of committed capital designated to invest in startups. If you have built a good business with promising prospects, you can stand out from the crowd far more easily today than ever before. Yes, your valuation may be 20–40% lower than you had hoped, but you can still raise plenty of money to buttress your balance sheet and execute more vigorously on steps 1–5 of the “play offense” playbook outlined above."
https://medium.com/@bussgang/now-is-the-time-to-play-offense-4a5e6d0e9f1a
10. "Although we live in an extremely prosperous world, the simple fact is that most people are still struggling financially. They’re either working two jobs just to make ends meet, or have been hit so harshly by inflation that they can now barely afford the new cost of living.
When a person is living in survival mode, they don’t have time to wonder if the narrative they’re being fed is true, or to spend time trying to change the world around them—their mental energy is dedicated to survival alone. Scientific studies show that living in poverty or financial stress affects the mind so heavily that it can even lower one’s IQ by 13 points.
Basically, when you’re struggling, your mind simply doesn’t work as it should. And to me, that’s why so much of the deceit in our world is allowed to exist. Because critical thinking and questioning require a lot of brainpower.
To me, it isn’t a conspiracy that people are kept broke, dumb, and sick. It’s a tactic that’s been used for thousands of years to deflect people’s attention away from the grand machinations that keep the world exactly as it is, to benefit the few at the very top."
https://abundantia.substack.com/p/apes-together-strong
11. YES! Slava Ukraini!
"Forced to fight front and rear, distracted and attacked on all sides, Russian morale will continue to deteriorate. When Russia’s logistical lines are stretched to breaking point and combat effectiveness has reached its nadir, Ukraine will unleash hardy offensives. The first blow may come in Kherson, or it may fall elsewhere, but the offensive will come.
Russian combat forces will be attacked by units of the Ukrainian military, and Russian support and logistical units will be besieged by partisans. Donetsk and Luhansk will be liberated, and Russia will be driven to the border – just as they were driven back from Kyiv.
This war will not end soon. Russian and Ukrainian losses will continue. And make no mistake – Putin will not suddenly realize the error of his ways and pursue peace. He must be defeated on the battlefield.
And right now, that defeat is more possible than ever."
12. Good perspective on SF Bay Area ie. Silicon Valley: its a bit underwhelming.
"Don’t get me wrong, the climate is great (and that’s the only thing Californians will tell you for a reason why they’re there), and although I miss the spring blossoms and deep red leaves in the fall, there’s nothing wrong with redwood trees everywhere.
But as a naive lad coming into Tech Mecca, I was fucking expecting Blade Runner’s dystopian Los Angeles. I mean, where are all the tech integrations with the infrastructure? Maglev train? Smart sentient cities? Robots delivering mails? Ok, there are cars strapped with lidars everywhere to see, but they have nothing to do with the general public, do they? A bit dystopian is Silicon Valley, sure, but not at all high tech. It feels just like New Mexico with Safeways and many more strip malls."
https://pancy.medium.com/dont-go-to-the-bay-area-53dfe1a9d59c
13. "Knowledge work can be done from anywhere but rarely in a vacuum. We all need regular inspiration, feedback, and social interaction. One part is individual work, as deep as possible, and the other is the rub and constructive input from select parts of the rest of the world.
So my response to Malcolm Gladwell perspective is:
We need spaces (not necessarily offices) for serendipitous and intentional meetings with people within and outside our fields of interest and competence but we also need to carve out time and attention to channel our creative energy into deep work (not necessarily from home) that can make a real impact."
https://fewerbetterthings.substack.com/p/hybrid-work-outside-home-and-office
14. B2b Software sales basics.
https://tomtunguz.com/how-to-structure-land-and-expand-ae/
15. Ignoring the man's (Barbaric Disciple aka Resavager) angry and racist vitriol (thus not posting the link but the actual good and cogent passage). His message otherwise is quite right.
"His argument was the pathfinders movement west was driven by a desire to escape entrenched bureaucracy in the east towards greater opportunity and freedom in the west. This he called democracy, but I don’t agree with this. We feel the stifling nature of the East throughout America today, now that the frontier has been closed. These men just sought freedom and power. They were after what JFK called the “vigorous and adventurous life.” Our people survived in early colonial America by learning how to survive and thrive in nature again. They learned self-reliance and a freedom far greater than what we pass as freedom today.
You had to find a way to live off the land because there was no way to completely prepare yourself for the journey west. Our ancestors were in every way to superior men and women to the stock we have today. If we don’t find a way to collectively bring back this frontier power, nature will favor some better people in the future. It’s the pathfinder, not the statesman, that’s the true symbol of the American. What the leftist tries desperately to escape from is the reality of nature. They’re trying to escape it at all costs. To acknowledge nature is to acknowledge their own shortcomings and unnatural nature.
What I seek is a pathfinder and cowboy nationalism. It is these pioneers our men should look to emulate. American ingenuity and excellence came from the example set by these men. Men who were thrown back into nature and forced once again, to master their conditions. We are in the same position they once were. Our people have been dispossessed and removed from power. It must be reconquered by new pathfinders and cowboys. The parasites must be removed from power and only men of power can do this."
16. Yikes....crime does not pay it seems.
"Arabi, Shokouhi, and Taneja now face up to 20 years in prison and forfeiture of all property acquired from their corporate fraud scheme. Arabi’s sister, Sheida Alan, has also been charged with conspiracy to commit fraud. She was arrested in Canada and the Justice Department plans to extradite her to the US to face trial."
https://www.pcmag.com/news/qualcomm-duped-into-buying-startup-secretly-founded-by-company-exec
17. Writer is an ultra right wing shill & a--hole but I share his concerns on woke Blackrock & the elitist WEF Davos crowd.
"For the uninitiated: Blackrock is the chief promulgator of the environmental, social, and corporate governance (ESG) movement in the financial world. If the World Economic Forum is the think tank and narrative shop of the global elite, Blackrock is the asset manager of this class. Notably, the two parties share the same goal in implementing the enviro authoritarianism scam popularized by WEF founder Klaus Schwab, which they refer to as “stakeholder capitalism.” Essentially, Blackrock pretends to care about the environment, but the purpose of the ESG charade is to grow an anti-competitive economic mafia, and make it very difficult for financial institutions to move their money around in the economy without pledging an oath of fealty to Blackrock’s pseudo advocacy. If you don’t play Blackrock’s game, well, you will own nothing and you will be happy, as the saying goes.
Not being ESG compliant on Wall St is a death sentence for firms, so companies make sure to play along with Blackrock’s game and pretend that they too truly care about the environmental statist agenda. It’s one giant charade to make sure the same handful of firms stay atop the hierarchy."
https://dossier.substack.com/p/the-blackrock-biden-admin-behemoth
18. Very important discussion on the future of America, the cultural discourse right now. End of incompetent elites in America and why the CCP is the enemy of the west.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-xfqtkO6HQU
19. A great discussion by one of the best writers and thinkers of global macroeconomic trends. Lynn Alden.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CPCnbK96oNw
20. The new emerging centers for expats. Only surprise is Rio de Janeiro. It's a very cool and beautiful city but it's dangerous (crime wise).
https://www.linkedin.com/news/story/expats-flocking-to-host-of-new-cities-4896937
21. "The first thing Wuhan’s coronavirus made clear was decades of globalist policy had destroyed America’s ability to provide its own furniture, let alone sustain a technologically-advanced economy without the rare metal mining, processing, and manufacturing that took place almost entirely in autocratic prison states. Cheap global trade was no mere perk of contemporary life, it was our oxygen.
Now, a couple years into the realization, all eyes are on Taiwan. This is not only because Taiwan is a free country at risk of being swallowed by the Chinese mainland, which I’m sure everyone will feel very bad about for the couple weeks following Xi’s invasion, but because Taiwan produces nearly all the world’s advanced microchips, the first and most important building blocks of our entire technological reality.
Fortunately, politicians across the ideological spectrum have finally realized U.S. resource insecurity is a problem, and no one is mocking “bring the jobs home” hicks today. Unfortunately, the single tool in our tool chest continues to be ‘spending absolute shit tons of money and hoping things happen.’
https://www.piratewires.com/p/american-hustle-microchip-edition
22. Net net: we are at war on so many different vectors that its hard for most people (myself included) to really understand.
"So, if you don’t have the imaginal tools to understand MAGA, Q-Anon and the various conspiracy theories that underpin the Pro-Trump view of the world, start with Izabella Kaminska’s (former FT Alphaville Editor), video, which offers a deep dive into what today’s gamified and “game jacked” realpolitik conspiracy theory landscape.
She points out that the current situation sounds similar to Poland's inter-war period. Józef Klemens Piłsudski was the leader of Poland’s resistance and opposition. He cut deals with everybody. It didn’t matter who won as far as he was concerned. He got all sides to agree to let Poland come back to life as a nation-state, whoever won. These days incredibly bright, efficient and well-armed former US military members seem to be leaning toward Pilsudski’s position, as Kaminska explains. Geopolitics is dark and messy stuff. Welcome to the realpolitik of our times."
https://drpippa.substack.com/p/clash-of-civilizations
23. "The fact is that in some ways we still live in the world that was conceived in the Middle Ages. According to Eco, we have inherited most of our problems from this era. This is when the Western legacy emerged in the form of merchant cities, a capitalistic economy along with banks, checks, and double-entry bookkeeping.
“In the Middle Ages, we witness the rise of modern armies, of the modern concept of the national state, as well as the idea of the supernatural federation (under the banner of a German Emperor elected by a Diet that functioned like an electoral convention); the struggle between the poor and the rich, the concept of heresy or ideological deviation, even our contemporary notion of love as a devastating happy happiness.”
Money is a medium and also information. Bitcoin and Ethereum are new credibly neutral mediums that could settle trade globally without local authorities doing anything about it except for banning their subjects from using them.
Bitcoin and Ethereum are the New Empires of The Cloud - universalist forces that fundamentally change the pattern of human coordination. The future will tell us if these universalist forces will drain funds Romewards just like the pope did in the Middle Ages (crypto becoming the new Rome).
To make sense of the world today, observe the technology-enabled power struggle of universalism and particularism unfolding. Native digital money is unbundling the concept of a ruler’s sovereignty over many things. Today, the two authorities overlap, but ultimately, structural change to patterns of human coordination cannot be resisted."
https://wrongalot.substack.com/p/empire-of-the-clouds
24. An excellent discussion on macroeconomic climate and why China is shooting itself in its foot (just like the USA is doing but in a different way).
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vVT8i1jkBY4
25. Slava Ukraini.
"After half-a-day of driving, we finally arrived at the Polish border. It was clear that more people were entering Ukraine than leaving it—a good sign that some are able to return home despite the country still fighting a vicious war. We even had time to help some Red Cross workers set up a tent to receive refugees fleeing the fighting in the east of the country.
What struck us, as we waited for our driver to pick us up at the border, was the culture of volunteerism that permeated this war. Even though they know there was a long road ahead, morale seemed high, at least for the moment. War upends daily life. Drivers, snipers, logisticians – everyone pitched in to do their part for the war.
The lesson of Ukraine is clear: Wars are no longer fought solely between regular armies."
https://www.sofmag.com/in-ukraine-two-us-army-veterans-see-the-new-face-of-war
26. I hate driving personally. Thank goodness for Uber/Lyft.
"Americans have a 1 in 63 chance of getting into a car accident, one crash happens every six minutes. There’s nothing that most of us can do about this reality except drive defensively and keep our loved ones in the car as infrequently as possible. But I long for the day when either I can live like a real Nigerian prince and have someone do my driving-bound tasks for me, or until fully autonomous vehicles become a real, common thing. Whichever comes first."
https://sotonye.substack.com/p/the-case-for-literally-never-driving
27. "In summary, Ukraine looks like ultimately emerging victorious from this conflict, and strong and better able to defend itself as a result. NATO and Western Liberal Market Democracy likely will be energised, with new focus.
But the outlook for Russia is nothing but grim. It will remain an international pariah, subject to sanctions and with its economy in decline, and on the losing end of an arms face with the West, which will diminish its military and international prowess. Putin has accelerated Russia’s decline as a result of this war. Let’s see how long Russians come to this realisation and opt for regime change at home."
https://timothyash.substack.com/p/big-picture-take-outs-from-putins
28. This is the fundraising process blog post I wanted to write. (but never got around to, but Chris did). Recommend for all startup founders who want to go down the VC route.
https://chrisneumann.com/blog/high-velocity-fundraising
29. This is a fun learning experience from a professional crypto trader. From dishwasher to 9 figure whale.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=elTUJO7Blkc
30. Neat new VC fund focussed around helping founders with storytelling.
31. Scratching my head over this one. A16Z is crazy or crazy like the fox. I guess we will find out soon enough.
When I asked rival investors whether they kicked the tires on Flow, I received answers like “hahaha” and “No — it’s good to know there’s still a place for utter insanity though.”
"As a sort of scholar of Andreessen Horowitz thinking, I find the troll theory of the case fairly compelling. This whole saga has been great strategic positioning for the firm. What Andreessen Horowitz has always understood better than anyone else is that the main audience for their marketing is founders. So even if the masses find investing in Neumann distasteful, this sends a clear message to prospective founders that a16z wants to back the bold. And founders are the ones who can generate the billions in returns for Andreessen Horowitz that the firm needs to be successful.
This is the contrarianism that is so often talked about.
(Of course, it is also a sort of amoral nihilism.)
One Silicon Valley insider observed, “It sends an f-you message to the press — your reporting didn’t really matter and a message to founders that they’ll always be supported.”
https://www.newcomer.co/p/can-a-zebra-change-its-stripes
32. I appreciate the sarcasm here.
"People sometimes say that Silicon Valley is too obsessed with ‘saving the world,’ but as I write this from my soulless and friendless apartment, I for one am grateful for firms like a16z. It takes a great deal of courage and bravery to write your biggest check ever to a disgraced founder whom many believe to be a charlatan because you care that deeply about uplifting the lonely masses and solving America’s housing crisis.
Some might say this is a deluded fantasy and that $350 million could be better spent on affordable housing, housing justice groups, or a founder who did not previously blow up a multibillion-dollar company. These people lack vision. Our nation has a housing crisis and it requires an Adam Neumann-sized solution. As Andreessen says, “Only projects with such lofty goals have a chance at changing the world.”
https://oversharing.substack.com/p/marc-andreessen-goes-with-the-flow
33. The case for Crypto & Web 3, it's a very good discussion.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RXHITeaGB8Q
34. Shaq is a good dude. A very generous man & model.
35. We need to rebuild the US industrial base asap!
36. "Europe has been so focused on climate change and reducing emissions that now with the war in Ukraine and gas from Russia has been reduced, Europe is facing an energy crisis.
If only more nuclear reactors had been built instead of unreliable wind and solar power...But no, the climate change fanatics did not like the sound of that!
So now we are facing an energy crisis instead."
https://petersweden.substack.com/p/germany-energy-rationing
37. This is grim reading. China & CCP are a clear and present threat to US and liberal West.
https://mobile.twitter.com/Fritz844/status/1560088576875851776
38. The Semiconductor giant no one knows about. ASML.
https://twitter.com/TrungTPhan/status/1560290568499892224
39. Good! Slava Ukraini!
"Speaking from the presidential offices in Kyiv, Podolyak said: “Our strategy is to destroy the logistics, the supply lines and the ammunition depots and other objects of military infrastructure. It’s creating a chaos within their own forces.”
40. "Again, for me personally? I don’t buy it. I wouldn’t have made this bet. But I try to avoid raining on anyones hustle (though sometimes it’s hustle and sometimes it’s A hustle.) I know the housing market is incredibly riddled with problems and I would love to see it improved.
The idealistic dreamer in me remembers the spiritual experiences I’ve had walking through the ethereal halls of the Disney kingdoms. I would love to see a revolutionary new way of living and connecting with our community. So I wish them the best, and pray they do as little harm to the little guys and gals.
One parting thought from me. I think overall we could do a better job of building companies that meet reality between the atoms and the bits. There are plenty of problems in the physical world that could benefit from digital solutions.
Software is eating the world. But every once in a while some of the people cooking it feel like a millennial hipster who googled "ancient chinese recipe" and are doing their best with what they have in their Brooklyn apartment. And somehow Doritos made it into the meal.
Instead? We could do a better job of understanding the physical world we want to impact before diving in with a “revolutionary” solution. When I look at the “tech-enabled” businesses tackling the real world there are definitely some phenomenal and exciting solutions.
But there are a lot of “slap some software on it” solutions. When they represent a fundamental misunderstanding of the “state of the state” you’ll often not only make bad solutions but hurt a lot of people in the process."
https://investing1012dot0.substack.com/p/the-rise-of-the-cash-man
41. More on Zeihan's view of deglobalization. Always interesting.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wRT7P-VKM0k
42. One of the best analysis of macro economic environment and history. Lyn Alden is one of the best observers out there.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XaHuwUDd1C8
43. A dangerous game being played by Turkey.
"So, Turkey is both up in Svalbard and down in Cyprus. It is working with Russia in its efforts to secure greater control over assets on the ground in both places. Russia too sees an energy/resource supply chain that runs through the Arctic and one that runs through the Eastern Mediterranean.
But, this is not only about extraction. It is about power projection. Turkey still dreams of being a great regional power again, as it was during the Ottoman Empire period. Turkey knows that all the nations in the Eastern Mediterranean are jockeying for access to and control over the gas fields to the south - Egypt, Greece, Israel, Lebanon, Palestine, Syria, Italy, and Libya. It’s a long list. They’ll need help.
They clearly think Russia will help more than NATO will if it comes to a fight. So, best to align with Russia across the board, from the Artic to Africa. Notice that Turkey is also restoring diplomatic ties with Israel. This matters because Israeli firms control the production rights for much of the Cypriot gas fields.
Then there is China. Turkey is aligning with China too. NATO has repeatedly declared that China is a serious and growing threat. But, China sees Turkey as a partner that will help in the Middle East, the Mediterranean and the Arctic as well. If Turkey can be persuaded to back away from their support of the Uighurs, that would be advantageous to Beijing as well.
The landscape in Svalbard is realpolitik. It would behoove investors and observers to pay closer attention to these seemingly unrelated and unimportant islands like Svalbard and Cyprus because whatever we may mean by geopolitics, this is where it’s unfolding as fast as the weather changes."
https://drpippa.substack.com/p/cold-turkey
44. Wow, big move for YC. I'm so glad I'm not in the accelerator game anymore. Competition is crazy.
Garry is amazing and the right person for running YC & taking them to next level.
https://www.forbes.com/sites/alexkonrad/2022/08/29/y-combinator-names-garry-tan-as-next-president
45. This is a good overview of what’s happening in Ukraine. Net net: by whatever measure Russia is losing & in bad shape.
This is from a geopolitical analyst who was negative on Ukraine's chances in the long run until recently. So very pleased to hear.
Slava Ukraini!
The Right Way to Look at Personal Finance: Lifestyle Cash versus Building Equity
Silicon Valley folks has long derided “Lifestyle businesses” which i find dumb, ignorant and close minded. I have friends who either run agencies, IT outsourcing companies, Amazon FBA (Furnished by Amazon), Dropshipping or ecommerce businesses that clear $80-100k usd a month in net cash flow to themselves for very limited amounts of work a week. They are living the ideal of “Four Hour Work Week.” Who does not want this?
A big part of the decision comes down to priorities, your focus and the type of life and business you want to build. It’s all personal preference. Do you want to work the 110 hour work week to build the “Growth at all costs” multi-billion dollar business that Silicon Valley loves? Or do you want to do this at a more sustainable and cash-flow driven business?
Key considerations:
Cash flow versus Equity which is the Exit value at sale or going public: it’s based on the time of Short term versus Long term
Liquidity versus Illiquidity: coldly speaking, it comes down to when you extract value.
The way to wealth is owning and building equity: that’s absolutely true. And it is something I wish I learned much earlier in life. But there is a huge portion of the economy that does not meet this criteria. There are probably more bootstrap businesses than VC funded businesses, as many do not fit the super growth business model that VCs look for. Things like Agency businesses, CPG (Consumer Packaged Goods) businesses like energy drinks or food bars, software business targeting super niche communities or the like. These businesses do build equity value but in my opinion, it’s focus should be about extracting cash flow & dividends.
The Microacquire platform changes some of these dynamics for software businesses. And if you do real estate well, something I have admittedly have not, you can get both equity growth as the value of your property goes up as well as the cash flow from the rental income of tenants. Private Equity has traditionally been like this too, extracting value from cash flow & fees, and massive return and cash at exit too. We also see the rise of the micro-Private Equity firms like Codie Sanchez and Alex Hormozi hoovering up many cash flowing small businesses.
In the future, a key piece of personal finance is balancing this long term monetization versus short term. Balancing cash flow versus equity value. You need both to make it big.
We need to be thinking of short term cash flow needs whether that’s a 9-5 job, consulting on the side or even a cash flow generating bootstrap software or agency business as side hustle. But this also needs to be counterbalanced with parlaying this cash into equity stakes either from investing via angel deals in startups, LP-ing in VC funds, public stock stocks/401k/ROTH IRA or real estate investments. These are all assets that take time to grow and are super illiquid or untouchable until a certain age.
You are basically building a barbell in personal assets. One which is focused on good predictable cash flow that lets you live and support your family. Ie. less risky and liquid.
The other side of the barbell is on the high risk, high gain, long term value that could be life changing wealth down the road. And i should add super illiquid.
My big mistake was an undue focus on building the long term illiquid wealth but not managing my cost structure properly. Basically I did not keep my personal burn as LOW as possible. Something everyone needs to do without wrecking their health and life. I had lifestyle creep and mistook the difference between needs versus wants. I compounded this by not shoring up my short term cash flow and liquid assets.
All it takes is a “Black Swan” event like the GFC (Global Financial Crisis) or a Pandemic to wreck you and cause the cash flow issues that make it hard to survive, so you can realize the value of all the assets you built up. And I should add as we move into the de-globalizing and emerging multipolar world, these shocking surprises are only going to be happening in higher frequencies. Building a balanced portfolio of assets helps make you more “antifragile” and better able to weather the storm. So word to the wise.
The Real Point of Life: The Search for Beauty
Back in May, while in Istanbul for a business trip, I found myself tired & jetlagged in my hotel room. Not feeling particularly good & somewhat listless after a very busy day of work. As an introvert, I always need some alone time.
I started watching this Japanime movie called Bubble (check out the teaser here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WItvH4Hoyag) on Netflix. The story is about young orphans who compete in parkour team battles in the wastelands of a future Tokyo. It is based loosely on the “Little Mermaid” story. I love Tokyo and the art was beautiful. I mean, really lifelike and magical.
I felt so much better and happier after watching it. And it made me realize that the real spark of life is beauty. In fact, I would argue the real purpose of everything we should do beyond survival is the search for beautiful things.
These could be beautiful landscapes, beautiful cities, beautiful buildings and architecture, beautiful people, beautiful ideas. Beautiful food. Beautiful pictures. Beautiful cars. Beautiful animals. Beautiful stories. Or beautiful moments like the birth of your child or her smile of happiness. What is more amazing than that?
Beautiful is defined as “pleasing the senses or mind aesthetically” or “of a very high standard; excellent.”
The whole point of making money, of surviving is to get the chance to see and experience beautiful things. Yes, it’s a bit esoteric but this literally should be the whole point of living. It’s humanity’s eternal search for beauty in whatever form it takes. Beauty sparks joy. Joy in life is the point. Maybe the only point if you think about it.
As Ralph Waldo Emerson said: “Never lose an opportunity of seeing anything beautiful, for beauty is God's handwriting.”
Marvin’s Best Weekly Reads Aug 28th, 2022
Come what may, all bad fortune is to be conquered by endurance― Virgil
This is an important discussion. Taiwan will be a key flashpoint & the reality is both Taiwan & US are behind the ball here.
Especially Taiwan, They are under an existential threat from China, yet completely complacent. If they don't prepare, they are toast.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7mYnoHTyuCw
2. James Bond is the man. Good to learn from the man (yes, I know he is not a real person but a character).
https://www.thegentlemansjournal.com/being-as-cool-as-james-bond
3. This is worth watching. Breakdown of present global economic order.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kPZ2L6SGK1c
4. The De-globalization of the world but there will be lots of opportunity. At least half of the world will still thrive until the rest of the world comes back.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tjYDcuOlK_M
5. I'm not Filipino but I'm looking forward to this movie.
https://www.gq.com/story/jo-koy-easter-sunday-interview
6. "Junger believed you needed more than action, you needed conviction. The will to kill and step over the corpse of your enemy, to head further into the battle. The men of his time didn’t lack men of action. Our time does. A great cowardice seizes good people from doing what’s right. This is where nature shines its ugly head. Just because you are on the side of “moral rightness” doesn’t mean you will prevail.
The west had its own hubris, made its own mistakes, and we must understand how those mistakes were made. Establish traditions to prevent those mistakes from happening again. We must be in the business of forming a new people. New barbarians who survive and thrive behind enemy lines. New barbarians who win the time comes will take power, who will have the Mandate of Heaven.
To do this, you must embrace and embody the virtues of nature. You must be strong, have DARING. Be driven by some powerful warrior religion. You must have Junger’s Will to kill and step over the bodies of your enemies deeper into the battle. Above all, be a man of action and conviction. This type of man will be foreign and deadly to the men of our time. They will be barbarians in every sense of the word."
https://resavager.substack.com/p/action-and-conviction-are-everything
7. Such a massive, insight dense interview. Big brain Balaji's view of the future (and present). The man is right more than wrong.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0LOr2qBcpns&t=202s
8. This is a worthwhile conversation for macro investors. Dollar Milkshake theory.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NnsqBbymayQ&t=0s
9. "Lots of down, flat and bridge rounds through the end of the year. So many startups raised because they could, at very high valuations based on competition or rev multiples. Right now cash is king and runways/burn are very important (in my professional VC voice).
Huge influx of experienced talent. As the FANG and other major public tech companies' stock falls, it will be very difficult to retain and hire new talent. A huge problem for late-stage, highly valued private tech startups as well — a major boon for early-stage that still has the BIG upside.
Just be cognizant that most of the funding news you’re reading now is generally delayed and not a good indicator of the current funding environment."
https://medium.com/@trace-cohen/the-current-state-of-2022-pre-seed-investing-862dc028d305
10. "He and Aronow were the creators of the Bored Ape Yacht Club, the internet’s hottest NFT project. Yuga Labs — the company through which they launched the Bored Ape Yacht Club in April 2021 — is currently valued at $4 billion.
The Bored Apes are a collection of 10,000 unique digital head-and-shoulders drawings of simians, each with a unique combination of traits, ranging from the common (“bored” mouth) to the ultra-rare (“solid gold” fur). Last October, a rare Ape sold at Sotheby’s for an eye-watering $3.4 million. That same month, Guy Oseary, a veteran talent manager who represents Madonna and U2, came on as a BAYC business partner.
Today, the Apes are everywhere in popular culture, from T-shirts sold at Old Navy to a VMA-nominated music video by Snoop Dogg and Eminem. Celebrities like Steph Curry, Justin Bieber, Gwyneth Paltrow, Post Malone, and Seth Green own them. Other high-profile holders include Jimmy Fallon and Paris Hilton, who in January engaged in an infamously cringe exchange about their Apes on The Tonight Show. (Solano and Aronow, who say they weren’t aware of the Fallon segment in advance, found it “very surreal.”)"
https://www.inputmag.com/features/bored-ape-yacht-club-greg-solano-wylie-aronow-profile
11. "The technology in Dune is made to enhance the man, not replace him.
This makes the men in Dune full of powerful vital force. There aren’t computers. Guns have been rendered obsolete by personal shields, forcing men to go back to using swords and knives again. You can’t survive in this world as a fatty. If you want glory, it must be won by the strength of your body and will.
That purpose being to make men who can survive and thrive in the time they’re in. It should be the means in which vital force is put back into the man.
Modernity has been a disaster for men. Violence is looked down upon. The skills and traditions men used to get to the top of the food chain have been lost. Mankind is a couple serious disasters from being knock back a couple cycles. Technology and progress have been put ahead of the excellence of man. They have become the new gods, the new faith, and it’s a faith that is misplaced. Technology is necessary, but don’t let it destroy what makes you great.
Technology is the realm of the regime. It’s used against us on a scale most don’t yet realize."
https://resavager.substack.com/p/the-vital-force-of-the-warrior-religion
12. This is pretty much one of the most insightful interviews and discussions I've heard with Balaji. It's a long one but it’s like all his interviews: very dense with insights. The man from the future.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NlY8HICFiRs
13. "His axe firm in hand. He will fight the leviathan. He will not back down from the heroic struggle before our kind. His iron will won’t be dissuaded by the arguments of weak men who want only to crush his will to fight. Demoralization doesn’t work on him because he’s stayed true to the ancient rites.
The only way is the way Nature has deemed right and just. These pencil necked bookworms will talk about tolerance and progress, but the disciple of violence knows the truth. Force rules the world and only force can turn the wheel of mankind. The axe wielder is a breaker of wills and chains, for the free man is a warrior.
He exists on the frontier. In the threshold of civilization and barbarism. It is the frontier that gives him power. It is the frontier that powers his will to master, conquer, and destroy. Will you follow him?"
https://resavager.substack.com/p/the-axe-wielder-the-disciple-of-violence
14. One of the few great adventurer investors out there.
"From my value stock research around the globe, I found sub-Saharan Africa was the ONLY place you could then buy a large number of wonderful businesses at fair, or even cheap prices. The valuations nearly everywhere else in the world were distorted by ultra-low interest rates since the late 2000s. The air is coming out of those valuations a little bit now, but the relative values on the stocks we own at African Lions Fund are still far more attractive.
Even though the Fund is up over 40% since inception, earnings and dividend growth have largely kept pace with that for many stocks we own, and valuation multiples have not yet expanded across the board. It remains a fertile hunting ground."
https://ideabrunch.substack.com/p/idea-brunch-with-tim-staermose-of
15. "But here’s the thing: the less you’re personally invested in this system, the easier you’ll find it to endure any financial storm. Regardless of whether it originates from China or elsewhere.
In times of a downturn or crisis, cash, bonds, and stocks will usually be the first assets to feel the pinch. And while real estate remains generally more stable, even it isn’t immune to bubbles and busts. The 2008 housing crisis, and the weird state of the global property market right now are proof of this.
So for me, when times are turbulent, I always acquire more of the one stable asset that’s stood the test of time. The thing our civilisation always falls back on.
Gold and silver almost always endure financial flux better than other asset classes. At times when inflation has been above 3% (like right now), gold has returned an average of 15% per annum to those who hold it.
Of course, like with any asset class, it’s important not to place all your
bets on precious metals. But as a safeguard against some of the economic battles the world is currently taking part in, now might be the time for you to get your hands on some. Or, some more."
https://abundantia.substack.com/p/money-pox-has-returned
16. "Specialization can offer the perfect niche fit but also lead to a loss of individualism, limited experiences, a narrow mindset, and a misdirected focus on what really matters: doing the things you really love with simplicity and meaning towards personal growth, fulfillment, and extraordinary adventures. Just like kids do."
https://fewerbetterthings.substack.com/p/stuff-for-all-eventualities
17. Still very bullish on Mexico for the long run.
"Mexico has another huge advantage that its South American counterparts lack: close proximity to a major economic center. More than 75% of Mexico’s exports go to the U.S., its behemoth neighbor to the north. Just as Poland, Romania, and Turkey benefit from their proximity to Europe, Mexico is part of a continent-sized economic agglomeration. The economic integration of Mexico with the U.S. is helped by the existence of a free trade agreement, the USMCA (formerly NAFTA).
In other words, Mexico is a technically sophisticated and highly diversified manufacturing nation that makes and exports large volumes of complex, high-value-added goods. That is almost always the description of a rich, industrialized country, or at least a fast-growing near-rich country like Malaysia or Poland. And yet Mexico is a middle-income country that’s growing more like a natural resource exporter."
https://noahpinion.substack.com/p/mexico-a-development-puzzle
18. The story of constant reinvention, we can learn from this.
"What Gelman does—be it the Six Bells or The Wing or a political campaign or a TV show—has never mattered as much in drawing people’s interest as the fact of Gelman doing it. She is an astute reader of rooms, a generationally gifted flack, a connector of people, willful enough in her control that before I had made a single call for this piece, I got a call from a mutual friend telling me that Gelman heard that I was writing a story about her. She is a storytelling capitalist and a builder of worlds who understands what her customers want before they know they want it—Don Draper if he’d put himself in the ads.
She is pretty and rich, unfailingly pulled together, and friends with everyone you hate-watch on the internet. She is not a household name, but if the name Audrey Gelman does ring a bell, you have an opinion about her. She is highly conductive, radiating heat in the current era of guilty pleasure. “I can’t explain it,” she tells me when I ask her why she thinks people have such a strong reaction to her. “I guess I am just not for everyone.”
https://www.vanityfair.com/style/2022/07/audrey-gelman-six-bells-interview
19. This is what makes investing in frontier markets so exciting....and difficult.
"More generally, the inefficiencies of frontier markets, the slow dissemination of information, the frequency of “price insensitive” sellers, and a whole host of other ingredients, make for a heady cocktail of potentially huge profits."
20. Great discussion with Tim Staermose: investing in frontier markets.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x__5bHsR9jA
21. "Yes, the United States supports Taiwan because of democracy, freedom and human rights; the biggest reason why that support may one day entail aircraft carriers is because of chips and TSMC.
Time will tell if the CHIPS Act achieves its intended goals; the final version did, as I hoped, explicitly limit investment by recipients in China, which is already leading chip makers to rethink their investments. That this is warping the chip market is, in fact, the point: the structure of technology drives inexorably towards the most economically efficient outcomes, but the ultimate end state will increasingly be a matter of politics."
https://stratechery.com/2022/political-chips
22. Educational story on one of the worlds best but relatively unknown investors: Martin Ebner.
"When asked for his #1 factor for success, Ebner would point to his ability to spot structural changes and ride them for years.
What does he mean by that?
"Everyone is focussed on short-term cyclical trends. Everyone is an 'expert' in doing that. However, the much more demanding task is to recognise large-scale structural changes before they happen. If you focus on that, you'll have less competition."
23. "Roditi is a man to my heart's content when it comes to taking a global view and travelling in order to research opportunities.
"He studies the world, searching for investment opportunities. … He travels endlessly to places like Japan, Russia, and India, which are not exactly luxury locations. …. On one day in June 2003, when he came by our offices, he was long Japanese banks, Russian equities, Treasury bonds, the euro, and Korean equities. …
He is a very curious, inquisitive man. He operates almost like a secret agent. … He isn't just content with the usual fare of company meetings and government officials in Moscow and St. Petersburg. Instead, because Russia is so much about oil, last year he went on a gruelling trip for a week to Siberia, visiting the Russian oil companies. With the Japanese banks he employs a number of unconventional sources and I know he has long-time contacts with the senior management of two of them. He goes to Tokyo probably four or five times a year."" (Hedgehogging)
During his active years, Roditi reportedly visited over 100 companies each year."
24. I'm a proponent of remote work but there are challenges with it. There are some advantages of being in the office for sure.
“It’s very hard to feel necessary when you’re physically disconnected,” the Canadian writer said.
“As we face the battle that all organizations are facing now in getting people back into the office, it’s really hard to explain this core psychological truth, which is we want you to have a feeling of belonging and to feel necessary.”
https://nypost.com/2022/08/05/malcolm-gladwell-slams-working-from-home/amp/
25. "A GP fundamentally needs to do eight things:
-Source companies to invest in.
-Pick companies which outperform.
-Win access to those companies.
-Value a company well and enter at an appropriate valuation
-Construct a portfolio of these companies sized to maximise LP reward and minimise LP risk.
-King-make their portfolio companies.
-Raise capital for subsequent funds.
-Sell positions to Return capital to LPs*
It is a rare VC who can do all eight exceptionally - h/t Sequoia. Most funds can do two or three fairly well and the rest only averagely. If a fund is among the best in the world at even two of these, that fund will likely yield top-decile performance."
https://jordsnel.substack.com/p/unbundling-one
26. I think we are all for diversity and inclusion but the wokes have taken this too far. This will probably disappear in recession as we all go to survival mode anyways. Woke is a luxury belief.
"At this point, most people have internalized a sense the tech industry is run by crazy people. In fact, the industry is run by cowards terrified of a very small fraction of their employees — a legitimately crazy subset of political activists with many friends in the activist (establishment) press. For the last couple years, we’ve spent a great deal of time criticizing tech leadership for ceding authority to the deranged excesses of cultural authoritarians.
But there’s a larger story we haven’t yet explored: what about the greater majority of tech workers, terrified of being targeted by their most unhinged colleagues, who just want to do their jobs?"
https://www.piratewires.com/p/hostile-environment-techs-dei-disaster
27. "Quick Step by Step: Assuming that you expect food prices to go up, you want to reduce the amount of pain by either buying up front or *investing* in the area with the most pricing power.
1) Farms: this is not investable for the majority. Unless you’re Bill Gates or an actual farmer this is going to be quite difficult so your first option is to purchase non-perishables up-front. Something we have recommended for quite a long time. And. Continue to recommend since it’s a sunk cost.
2) Distribution: gets dicey here. There is no guarantee the distribution company can immediately pass along all costs - food price increase + gas increase.
3) Food Processing: slightly better than a distributor. Processing food can pass along the costs as there are *less* input costs with swinging variables. Exception would be European plants that are seeing triple digit electrical price increases
4) Packaging/Logistics: a bit of a mix between 2 and 3. Depends on the company and what their input costs are (likely “alpha here”) and
5) Wholesale/Restaurants/Retail Here it gets pretty clear. Since you’re selling to the end-consumer you can pass along the pricing. With a catch. The catch is that people will be forced to look for substitute goods and save money by getting closer to the source - wholesalers vs. small grocery stores.
In short, the easy way to hedge your personal expense is to buy bulk up front and freeze or by investing in farms/large wholesalers. If you want to beat the food industry performance wise you have to look at 2, 3 and 4 for companies that are misunderstood."
https://bowtiedbull.substack.com/p/downstream-effects-of-rising-food
28. "What we want to focus on today is the utterly evil plan to expand the IRS's power by hiring 87,000 new agents to zerg rush the American people and shake them down for every penny they can find. Not only does the bill include hiring a new fleet of demon agents, but it plans to increase the number of tax audits throughout the country by 1.2 MILLION. A detestable number of audits that will increase costs on small businesses and middle class Americans and waste hundreds of millions of hours of time that could be spent... being productive throughout the economy.
These poeple will be armed with weapons and a mandate from the thieves within the Federal Government to make the lives of ordinary Americans - who are simply trying to mind their business and enjoy their limited time on this planet - a living hell.
What you're witnessing, freaks, is one of the tell-tale signs of a dying empire. When bread, circuses and entitlement programs begin to falter under the weight of their own stupidity it's time to send out the tax collectors to squeeze the populace dry of every penny possible and any joy that may be left lingering in their lives. It's like Joe Manchin and demonic Chuck Schumer opened up a history book and decided to plagarize the 4th and 5th century Roman playbook."
https://tftc.io/martys-bent/issue-1247-an-irs-zerg-rush-could-be-on-the-way
29. "When you’re out in the desert, what matters become clear. Cell service is shit or non-existent. There’s nothing other than SURVIVAL and the thrill of ADVENTURE on your mind.
Out there in the desert is LIFE. You don’t realize how much you have to supplement or medicate just to get through the modern world.
The desert unleashes POWER you didn’t know you had in you.
The desert sun gives you power. It raises testosterone. Your will for adventure overrides your desire to ESCAPE the modern world through wasteful and addicting distractions. All the shit you think you needed to get through the day — caffeine, supplements, whatever — you realize you don’t really need them. Their crutches to get you through your shit life. You also get to feel the danger our ancestors on the frontier faced out in the arid desert. The desert can kill you if you’re not prepared."
https://resavager.substack.com/p/reflections-from-the-desert
30. Slava Ukraini.
"The time when incremental support was sufficient has passed. Ukraine’s needs are known. The United States needs to lead an allied surge to provide a massive U.S. and allied heavy weaponry support package to Kyiv while the Ukrainian military is able to further degrade the Russian forces. The $1 billion defense aid package reportedly being prepared is a welcome step, as would be the decision to give Ukraine American fighter jets, but these tranches of support must come more quickly and more often.
The sooner we can help Ukraine defeat the Russian military, the sooner the killing of innocent Ukrainians will come to an end. The sooner that happens, the safer other parts of Europe at risk of Russian aggression will be. And then, perhaps, Putin’s grip on power might be challenged, which would be a welcome relief for many Russians who have suffered under his increasingly fascist rule.
It is up to Ukrainians to decide when or if to negotiate with Russia, but it is in our interest to strengthen their hand as much as possible right now. We should prepare for the possibility of escalation by the Russian side, not be paralyzed by fear of it. Thanks to the heroism of the Ukrainians, we have an opportunity to deal the Putin regime a serious, maybe even fatal, blow. It will not last long."
https://www.thebulwark.com/with-enough-help-ukraine-can-win
31. "Conclusion on IRS: Unless you’re entirely W-2, better be prepared for more oversight and more documentation for all of your audits. No one is going to waste time auditing someone with a $100,000 W-2 and $100,000 brokerage account. That has never been the case.
The goal is to go after two sections: 1) the fake transactions that are really payments - Venmo, PayPal, CashApp etc and 2) small business owners. If you are a mega corporation congrats! All of your potential competitors now have new expense line items to deal with as they will be forced to pay for their audits."
https://bowtiedbull.substack.com/p/87000-irs-agents-inflation-reduction
32. Yes, it is time for the West (US, CA & Western Europe) to start taking the threat of China seriously.
"Arguably, if Russia were the only challenge, such talk might not be necessary. The Ukraine War is far from won, but one can imagine how we might muddle through without disrupting Americans’ everyday lives. But the reality that China won’t easily be contained in Asia—and that’s what Pelosi’s trip underscored for me—means that this kind of pose is irresponsible. Time to start planning for a world that takes an invasion of Taiwan as a given.
Since the end of the Cold War, we have had it easy. We have been coasting on glib assumptions. It’s time to get serious."
https://wisdomofcrowds.live/we-need-to-get-serious-about-tawain
33. Important and fascinating discussion on media and culture in America.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gbOwzImwAYc
34. "doesn’t mean newsletters have gone away. At all. Just some of the hype surrounding them. And in its place, there’s a more realistic attitude about the format and the business you can build around it: Newsletters, it turns out, are just like blogs and podcasts — they’re super simple for anyone to create. But turning them into something beyond a hobby — let alone turning them into a full-time job — requires talent and sustained effort.
“I don’t think it’s an easy path to fame and riches,” says Judd Legum, who has been writing his Popular Information newsletter since 2018. “But that was a thing that I never believed.”
35. "The Anatomy of a Digital Vending Machine
I’ve effectively replicated this business model using the Internet. I will do a lot of up-front work to identify a market need, built out a digital product or service, create an automated sales funnel to acquire new customers and setup an automated checkout and delivery system. After the product or service launches, the business will effectively run itself since all of the customer touch points happen using software and automated processes."
https://www.mattpaulson.com/2014/10/i-build-digital-vending-machines-for-a-living
36. Really enjoyed this interview. This one was a specifically good interview with Balaji Srinavasan. Well worth the almost 2 hour discussion.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NEoxETtJ67Q
37. "Each “war on…” is an Industrial Complex that begins in the same romantic wishful tones a young couple contemplates their future family. The conception is finely crafted, precision engineered, made in the workshops of think tanks, PR agents, lobbyists and bureaucrats-in-waiting."
https://www.adamtownsend.me/how-to-win-the-war-on
38. "Fashion may seem ridiculous, ethereal, and unreliable to many in the markets. After all, most of the people on trading floors or in asset management are hard-nosed quantitative rationalists who don’t care much about fashion. But, fashion is art and artists detect trends before everybody else."
https://drpippa.substack.com/p/fashion-signals
39. Very important discussion. Fossils fuels have a place as transition to cleaner fuels. Nuclear is key as well.
We are much further away from Wind & Solar being reliable energy sources than people think and the environmental & academy demagogues claim.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=of9GGzeBth0
40. “The UAE is a big hole in the bucket,” Karen Greenaway, a former FBI agent, explained. “The movement of money — and we can’t see it — allows Russia to continue to run its economy and its war economy.”
"The Emirates is a global financial center that is built on freewheeling regulations. “Dubai basically started out as a pirate cove,” Sarah Chayes, author of the book Thieves of State: Why Corruption Threatens Global Security, said. Several dozen financial free zones and free trade zones provide havens for foreign money to avoid taxes, and the country’s loose regulations make it a particularly fruitful place for expats and foreign companies. There is no income tax; value-added tax was only introduced in 2018; and its first corporate tax regime is set for 2023.
Dubai has become home to illicit finance and other valuables like gold, art, and, more recently, crypto. Chayes recalled seeing what appeared to be heavy suitcases full of cash arriving in the UAE’s airport from Afghanistan when she was working as an adviser to the Pentagon, and later learned that millions in cash was coming into the UAE from Afghanistan per year.
It’s a center for American and international companies, often their base and port of call for Middle East business. There’s also the golden visa program, where luxury property buyers can get extended Emirati residence permits (which are short of impossible for international laborers to receive)."
41. "Every manager in the market today was emerging at one point, and behemoths like a16z just formed thirteen years ago.
Getting into a fund with a firm early in life is often critical to reserve a seat at the table in later funds. Firms such as Forerunner Ventures, Craft Ventures, IA Ventures, Ribbit Capital, Initialized Capital, and Felicis Ventures are some of the most sought-after funds in the world today and are incredibly access constrained given the breakout performance they've experienced.
While it's clear that emerging managers provide an enormous opportunity for outsized returns, a higher probability of co-invest, and the chance to get on the ground floor, many LPs struggle with this part of the market, given the hundreds of new managers that have formed each year over the last half-decade. Emerging Managers have a higher degree of performance volatility, so discovering and picking the right firms is paramount in achieving the outsized performance that is possible.
Picking is also tricky as many emerging managers have limited or no identifiable track records."
https://ventureunlocked.substack.com/p/why-emerging-managers-are-a-critical
42. "I guess remembering back to Erdogan over the past 20 years, it’s all about the now, and he always assumes that something will break to his advantage in the future. Do everything to stay in power now, and let’s worry about next year, next year. That’s terrible for business, longer term growth, etc, but it has kept him in power for 20 years.
Maybe all this will catch up with him in 2023. I seem to think the catch up will be either he loses the election, or the mother of all systemic crises will happen in Turkey post election, assuming an Erdogan win.
Bottom line, current policy settings are just not sustainable - the question for us all has been the time frame of sustainability, is it 1 month or 1 year? But it is certainly not 2-3 years, that’s for sure."
https://timothyash.substack.com/p/expectation-around-turkey
43. "For Ukraine to win this war, its not all going to be about guns, but about keeping the economy, its banks and financial system working. So far the Ukrainians have done a remarkable job in incredibly difficult circumstances, but the West is at risks of failing them unless it fast tracks disbursements to help fund the Ukrainian state. And now."
https://timothyash.substack.com/p/the-west-is-short-changing-ukraine
44. "Cheryl says she’s always looking for headliner-potential in any artist she signs. Strategies may differ artist to artist, but the goal is always the same: build longevity.
That comes from the small venue performances. It also comes from giving artists resources to amplify their live performances — adding performance coaches or production people to the team. Cheryl wants her artists to eventually sell their own shows, not just open for others or rely on festivals.
“If you’ve reached a point when you can only play festivals, you’ve hit a ceiling.”
https://trapital.co/2022/08/12/post-malones-agent-breaks-down-strategy-behind-his-success
Travel as a Tool: Why You Need to be Global
I’ve long been a global business person. And even though I think the globalized world that we know and love is ending (read Peter Zeihan’s work), it’s still worth thinking beyond your own home country. I’ve been very fortunate to have a global career since I left Canada and blessed with parents who gave me opportunities and encouraged me to travel around the world as a young child. I spent time in Taiwan as a young kid, traveled to Japan for a school trip and through playing violin and viola for youth orchestra got me trips to England and Wales as a young high school kid. It stuck and showed me how big the world really was beyond Canada and the USA.
It’s a tool to get you out of your routines and comfort zone and helps drive creativity in your brain because of the new inputs of new environments, cultures and language. You are literally blind, deaf and dumb as you can’t read or understand the language around you. It’s a forced discomfort. This is helpful to practice your skills of adoption and being comfortable with being uncomfortable.
It’s a tool to get you a new perspective and reframe your thoughts and ideas. In fact, if you end up with a massive disappointment in life like the break up of a romantic relationship, business failure or whatever it is, it really makes sense to leave the environment you spend all your time in. Go to a new city or country and this distance can help you deal with it.
It’s a tool to help you manage your personal finances. You don’t need a lot of money to do this unless you only travel first class, eat at Michelin Star restaurants and stay at 5 star hotels. I try to keep my needs very low, have limited interest in luxury goods and basically am just not that fancy. As long as a place is convenient, clean and I can safely leave my stuff in the room it’s fine. In many of the places I go to, the US dollar goes much further. So I get more stuff for less costs. Geo-arbitrage at its finest. San Francisco is ridiculously expensive, so while it's important to be there for my business some of the time, when I travel I usually end up spending less money in general. I can take the savings and invest it. It also enables me to put more money against the charities I support.
It’s a tool to help you increase your quality of life. I don’t look at relocating or traveling for tax advantage, although it can be. But this is not my goal. I travel because I set up my business specifically to be able to do this. I love living in San Francisco (most of the time) but I have a set routine & habits there which leads to a drop off in energy and creativity if I am there for too long. I basically get bored.
I love a wide variety of foods, nature, ideas and frankly seeing and talking with people from different cultures, economies and industries. These things give me energy but also give me new ideas and perspectives. Being a good investor means you literally have to “Think Different” as per the old Apple advertisement back in 1997 (yes, I am old). Hard to think differently if you are seeing the same things as others and talking with the same people, especially in a cultural bubble like Silicon Valley.
Travel is an incredibly valuable tool for business and it’s a great way to make your life better.
The reason travel is important in life is as Marcel Proust said: “The real voyage of discovery consists not in seeking new landscapes, but in having new eyes.”
And I would add from Saint Augustine: “The world is a book and those who do not travel read only one page.”
Travel can become a great advantage for you career wise as most people just want to stay where they are due to the comfort of home. It is also one of the most fulfilling and fun things you will ever do in life. So get your passport and get on it!
Recreating 2006: My Magic Year of Personal HyperGrowth
As a history guy, I try to learn from the past. The past of societies and civilizations but also my own. Reflection is a valuable tool. When I look back, I believe that 2006 was probably the most productive year ever from a career, health and personal fitness perspective.
I was a salaryman at Yahoo! and a rising executive running Sales strategy and Ad products launches globally. It was an amazing time to be in Yahoo! business was growing like mad from a revenue and user perspective, it was seen as the place to work as we had yet to really get crushed by Google. The place was full of energy and amazingly smart talented people who are now found to be running significant businesses and organizations across the world.
I made the decision at the beginning of the year to sign up for the Tournament of Masters, a one week Systema fight training boot camp. Systema is a martial art used by the elite Russian Spetsnaz special forces, some of the toughest elite soldiers in the world, equivalent to American Special Forces/Delta/Navy SEALs. So to prepare for it, I had 8-9 months to get fit. I spent a lot of time in the gym but more importantly ended up taking Muay Thai Kickboxing, Brazilian Jiu Jitsu and Krav Maga all at the same time. I literally trained 2-3 hours every day, 7 days a week. 1 Hour in the morning, 1-2 hours after work. Couple hours on Saturday & sunday. After a couple months of this, I started to see some unexpected benefits that bled into all aspects of my life at that time.
My health and sleep were better than ever. This was reflected in my work, the clarity of thinking and my energy levels. The discipline it helped instill in me was also incredible. I still had a job to do but limited time. So I became very good about just focusing on 3-4 key things that I had to get done in the day. I was relentless at getting these done so I could make the shuttle bus back to San Francisco from Sunnyvale at 6 pm.
The results of this work led me to get promoted, got good stock option grants and good raises twice that year. I made my bones in the organization and it put me in a position to do whatever I wanted. I took so much vacation time, my boss at the time laughed about my accrued Vacation day count time being in the negative (it was). But I could get away with this because I handled my business & got SH-t done which is all that matters.
Additionally, that training regime made me super tough and confident in almost every aspect of life. I knew walking into a room or restaurant, I could have taken out 99% of the guys in the room in a fight. Confidence and energy are important, especially for someone aspiring for leadership. And I had it in spades that year until I got injured with bruised ribs in a Muay Thai class later that year. My career and travel schedule also took off then, which ironically gave me less time with my training which I credit for putting me on the path upwards.
Now it’s been over 16 years later, I’m looking to recreate this regime with a different impetus. The barbaric Russian invasion of Ukraine, the Covid pandemic, the idiotic Government policy overreach, growing inequality, inflation and economic mismanagement, growing extremism on both the Right & Left of America have me concerned for the immediate future. Call me a Doomer Optimist. And it leads me to think that rebuilding my self defense, fighting and shooting skills may be a good idea. I think of it as insurance, something good to have that you hope you never have to use. And you have the benefit of becoming more confident, being in better shape, and attain good health and energy levels. What’s not to like about this? It’s a no lose result whatever happens.
Marvin’s Best Weekly Reads Aug 21st, 2022
Scars are not signs of weakness, they are signs of survival and endurance― Rodney A. Winters
"I have no idea how to find the perfect balance between internal and external benchmarks. But I know there’s a strong social pull toward external measures – chasing a path someone else set, whether you enjoy it or not. Social media makes it ten times more powerful. But I also know there’s a strong natural desire for internal measures – being independent, following your quirky habits, and doing what you want, when you want, with whom you want. That’s what people actually want."
https://www.collaborativefund.com/blog/lifestyles
2. "The equilibrium that keeps Putin in power -- mastery over rivals, soft support in the population, the integrity of the army -- is challenged by the realities of an unpredictable, costly war. Putin has been good at keeping us all in a fog. But now he himself seems lost in the fog of war.
No one can say what exactly is happening inside the Kremlin. But a general predicament does seem clear. The trap laid before Putin (willingly or unwillingly, consciously or unconsciously) by rivals, by the public, and by the army looks like this: we will all agree with you that we are winning the war — and we will all have no one to blame but you if Russia loses it. This is all quite vague, half-unsaid, clouded by emotion, displacement, taboo, and fear. But it is the general picture. And in its fundamentals the trap was laid by Putin himself.
War is politics by other means; Putin himself chose this war and its atrocities. For the war to end, Putin must feel the politics change around him; and so for the war to end, Ukraine must win. For the West, this means patience and firmness and the consistent supply of the weapons Ukraine needs."
https://snyder.substack.com/p/putins-rule-is-weakening
3. I'm a big fan of this guy's show and the amazing support he provides to Ukraine. He is in Kyiv right now.
https://www.gofundme.com/f/send-money-directly-to-ukrainians-for-food
4. “We find ourselves in an interesting spot because we’ve always been cash flow-positive, and we don’t need to do those things,” said Notion COO Akshay Kothari. “So we’ve been thinking the last six months a lot about ‘Well, if everybody is zigging, how do we zag?’”
Instead of pulling back on investing like many of its peers, the productivity startup has gone on the offense. It acquired calendar app Cron in June and brought on the Flowdash team earlier this month. Notion also leaned into more marketing by launching a global ad campaign — the kind of spending VCs are cautioning against."
https://www.protocol.com/workplace/notion-flowdash-acquisition-tender-offer
5. "Look, I’m not attacking the current administration in the US specifically, or France’s sitting economic leadership—to me, this isn’t an issue that defines particular political parties. Instead, it’s a perfect example of how political leaders as a whole will say whatever they please, even changing the very definition of what a recession is, to avoid taking the blame for an economic situation that exists while they’re in power.
And just like France’s government did during the revolution, they’ll keep making the same financial blunders as always, while manipulating us into believing that nothing is wrong, as they speak falsehoods with silver tongues.
They don’t care about the economic success of the people, or providing the truth. Instead of delivering the difficult news that we should hunker down for an economic slowdown, and make financial choices to prepare for that, they instead tell us it’s all nothing to be concerned about.
Mostly, I believe they only do this in an attempt to save their own skin, so they don’t have to take the fall for a situation they’ve helped create, due to the insane amount of money printing that’s gone on these last few years.
Or in other words, we’re on our own."
https://abundantia.substack.com/p/off-with-his-head
6. "Even with these illiquid challenges, for startups that work out, illiquidity is a feature. Why? When a startup succeeds, there’s a tremendous amount of compounding value. If there were opportunities to regularly sell shares, like with a public company, it’s too easy to do so and lose the upside. Compounding value is one of the most powerful forces. Forced deferral of selling startup stock, in scenarios where the startup is successful, is a feature because it creates the most value and wealth for the team.
Illiquid startup equity is a feature, not a bug, when the startup works out as there aren’t daily distractions of the stock price and the team benefits from compounding the value of their equity at a high rate for the life of their tenure. The next time someone laments about not being able to sell their startup stock, focus on the upsides."
https://davidcummings.org/2022/07/30/illiquid-startup-equity-as-a-feature
7. VC investing principles from the best in the biz.
https://www.readthegeneralist.com/briefing/timeless-investing-lessons
8. This is worth watching. Energy is Life. Great interview with Doomberg.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=65z2cG0QDRo
9. "The most difficult problem still to be solved is how to create in Brussels a common power that can be genuinely independent from French and German interests. The lack of such a power was responsible for Brexit, with Britain having concluded that inside the E.U. it would remain excessively dependent on its old European rivals in Paris and Berlin.
In the longer term, enlargement should be able to take us there. With Ukraine as a member, the simple combination of Polish and Ukrainian votes will exceed the German share. Have no illusions that this is the reason both France and Germany are looking for a solution to postpone Ukrainian membership, temporarily replaced with a different kind of arrangement President Macron called a “European Political Community.”
In the shorter term, we need new alliances between the South, Scandinavia, and Central Europe. But the balance of power is already shifting."
https://time.com/6202299/ukraine-invasion-european-union-becoming-union
10. Consumer startups are really really hard.
https://techcrunch.com/2022/07/22/mark-cuban-hasnt-profited-from-his-shark-tank-investments
11. I've been pretty vocal publicly about what a crap business the micro mobility space (ie. scooters) has been for at least 5 years now. 5 billion dollars poured into this garbage.
https://news.crunchbase.com/transportation/scooter-startups-vc-public-market-lime-brds
12. "But we’ve gotten to a point as a society where there is too much knowledge and it’s outpaced our ability to filter people with that knowledge. There are hundreds of blog posts for how to get into an Ivy League school, but only so many spots available. There are millions of people starting companies but investors are still only funding people in their network, because of the trust filter. Job positions get so overrun with candidates that recruiter doesn’t even reject anyone anymore; They just don’t have time to reply. All of this is a consequence of the world having more knowledge than ever before. This is a good thing, but enough is enough! It’s time we move on to the next economy of the internet; The Access Economy
What is the Access Economy?
If the knowledge economy gave everyone the opportunity to be experts in a field, the access economy is the ultimate human organizer. It matches up the qualified individuals with the right opportunities while using a completely new framework for evaluating and identifying talent."
https://words.seedscout.com/p/the-3-economies-of-the-internet
13. We are in the middle of this Gray war, like it or not.
"The scale and nature of the task is determined by the capabilities of the opposition. In World War 2, the Axis powers had advanced manufacturing prowess, but small populations and a lack of access to fuel. In the Cold War, the Soviet bloc had a lot of fuel and a population similar to ours, but had a small and dysfunctional economy and struggled with advanced manufacturing.
In contrast, a potential “New Axis” of Russia and China would control enormous population, vast fuel resources, advanced manufacturing capabilities, and a combined economy of enormous size. Except for the fuel part, this is all just China."
https://noahpinion.substack.com/p/the-war-economy-sizing-up-the-new
14. "It’s ironic to think about the touring grind given the remote work vs in-office debates in Corporate America. Many 9 – 5 workers will never go back to a job that requires them to commute 200+ days per year again. Imagine doing that in a different city every night?! Artists’ travel is on another level.
The dream is for artists to have the autonomy to do live performances on their terms. But to get there, they have to shift the business model for how they operate and take a few risks.
The best way for artists and creatives to get off the grind is to build or invest in successful companies. Artists have a distribution advantage given the audience they have built through the content they create and the shows they’ve performed in. Media and content businesses are most lucrative when used as a platform to sell other products. Look at beats by dre, Ace of Spades, Fenty Beauty, and Verzuz. The artists behind those companies grew them and sold at least part of them."
https://trapital.co/2022/08/01/why-artists-should-build-sustainable-businesses
15. I'm ultra pro Taiwan (although I hate the absolutely corrupt Pelosi) but the timing of this trip seems really stupid. (altho I detest the CCP too). We are run by unserious clowns.
"Sure China represents a hegemonic threat to the US but over the medium to longer term. But if the US does not ensure Ukraine’s victory over Russia in Europe then it will have zero chance of countering China over the long term.
Second, Xi faces a difficult leadership battle later this year and surely Pelosi has handed him a nationalist win on a plate. Surely he will react with vigour and China and will rally behind their leader at this time of stress."
https://timothyash.substack.com/p/pelosi-visit-to-taiwan-is-madness
16. "The reason why tech companies have cut first is two fold: 1) many are unprofitable already and they are worried about cash burn and 2) they are the fastest to react to changing interest rates and market conditions. The Tech sector is telling you what is happening in the broader economy and most are in denial about this. If the highest earning people take a hit, why would the services economy (IE. the United States a whole) do better? It doesn’t make any sense at all.
Conclusion: You now have verifiable proof that the major high-end chips are made in Taiwan. Not on US soil. Not on China soil. Taiwan. If China takes over Taiwan and TSMC as a whole, it means all important high-end chips will be controlled by China (hint: spyware!)."
https://bowtiedbull.substack.com/p/watching-the-news-what-mid-curve
17. "Computer chips are essential in both delivering precision weapons and evading them. They are a crucial part of guidance systems, cameras and computer vision, other sensors, and so on. And computer chips have become an essential component of modern military vehicles themselves. Of course this all goes double for drones, which are playing an increasingly central role in warfare. And computer chips are absolutely indispensable for lots of other aspects of modern war — electronic warfare, satellites, communications, encryption, you name it.
Given the centrality of computer chips to modern war, a nation would leave itself nearly defenseless if it ran out of supply of high-quality chips in wartime. If computer chips had to be shipped from Taiwan and South Korea, they would be vulnerable to a Chinese blockade. Thus there is a strong national defense argument for promoting and protecting a high-tech, high-volume semiconductor industry here in the U.S. And at least in the U.S., national defense tends to override other concerns.
This is why we’re finally getting our national rear in gear when it comes to government support for the semiconductor industry."
https://noahpinion.substack.com/p/industrial-policy-starts-with-semiconductors
18. "Basically, Pakistan invests very little of its GDP, so it can’t build up capital over time. Low investment is probably a result of various bad economic policies, but it’s also probably due to political instability — Pakistan frequently alternates between military and civilian control, and civilian administrations tend to be chaotic and fractious (as in the current turmoil). That’s not a very good climate to invest in!
Instead of investing, Pakistan keeps its population on life support with constant external borrowing — from international organizations, from China, from Saudi Arabia, from whoever will loan it money. It uses these loans to fund consumption of basics like fuel. Mian discusses how this has resulted in a perverse fuel subsidy — a pretty common practice for governments that want to keep their populations pacified, but one that Pakistan is particularly ill-equipped to afford.
So Pakistan constantly limps along at the knife-edge of desperate poverty, decade after decade, as generals and politicians fight over who gets to be in charge. Currency crisis or no currency crisis, that is a long-term recipe for disaster."
https://noahpinion.substack.com/p/pakistan-is-in-big-trouble
19. "It has all created what I call an infinite front: a digital surface area that exposes nearly every single hard aspect of human civilization to cyber risk. Tractors with firmware. Power plants that can automatically adapt to changing power grid dynamics. Warehouses that automatically pick, pack, and ship. Air conditioners that know when you are on vacation.
The world of atoms, not just bits, will soon need robust cybersecurity platforms well beyond current offerings."
https://steinman.substack.com/p/tales-from-the-infinite-front
20. "The safest strategy is to be diversified. And with diversification comes more exposure. At any given point something, somewhere in your portfolio will be going belly up.
The days of stashing everything in Singapore or Geneva and feeling 100% safe are gone. The "new world" we have to live in will be marked by tension, betrayal, and extremely aggressive governments and people."
https://mailchi.mp/1b0552af0181/true-safe-havens-do-not-exist-anymore
21. Andrew Tate is always entertaining. Don't agree with everything but he has a great take on life in general which we need more of.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uq4cDv2cUoE
22. "YCombinator has cut the number of startups it is funding and training this summer by about half compared to its winter program, a spokesperson confirmed. The famed Silicon Valley accelerator responded to a downturn in the economy and in venture capital funding in reducing its class size.
The move means as many as 250 companies will pitch themselves to potential investors in early September at Y Combinator’s virtual demo day, a biannual rite of passage that helped launch DoorDash and Coinbase. A smaller class could make it easier for graduates to raise money by lowering the competition for investor attention. The downsizing also follows mounting criticism that Y Combinator had grown too large, damaging its reputation for churning out Silicon Valley’s best startups."
https://www.theinformation.com/articles/y-combinator-slashes-startup-accelerator-class-size-by-40
23. Always a good conversation. So many good insights from Balaji.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dXHbToq1SDU
24. This actor was great as Storm Shadow in Snakes Eyes. Total bad ass.
https://www.menshealth.com/entertainment/a40707524/andrew-koji-bullet-train-interview
25. "You should be getting into boxing, BJJ, and other martial arts. You should train with weapons of all kinds, from knives to guns. Help your friends get on the path and pass these skills on to your children. One aspect of forging a warlike nature however, is not talked about nearly enough.
Americans are involved in the fighting arts. Many own weapons and train with them, but the bar continues to slide left, accumulating speed as it goes. It’s not enough to train if you don’t have the Will to Fight.
Ok — I’m not here to tell you to make stupid tactical decisions. The title of this is SURVIVAL. You must begin thinking with strategy and tactics in mind. Have the courage to fight where you can without risking the religion. Where you do fight, let it be in the shadows, away from the mainstream. Study the strategy and tactics of the enemy. Formulate superior methods to both avoid detection and dominate when conflict is inevitable."
https://resavager.substack.com/p/survival-in-the-warrior-religion
26. "Sanctions used to be a bit of a joke, but no longer. The financial sanctions that the U.S. and Europe have leveled against Russia since the invasion of Ukraine have been absolutely devastating. A new paper by Sonnenfeld et al. shows just how devastating, leveraging independent data sources to paint a grim picture of just about every aspect of the Russian economy.
So the question then becomes: If we had to, could we level similar sanctions against China? The likely answer is that yes, we could, but the effect would be somewhat less devastating, and the costs would be much higher.
Anyway, the upshot of this post is that China’s massive and diversified manufacturing prowess simply makes it a lot less vulnerable to sanctions than Russia. But computer chips are one area where — for the next 5 to 10 years, at least — export controls might actually hurt China. So if they seize a Taiwanese island or start a blockade, that should probably be the first economic weapon we reach for."
https://noahpinion.substack.com/p/could-we-sanction-china-if-we-had
27. "So long as Beijing finds Taiwan’s de facto independence intolerable then war is a serious possibility. Taiwan will become more of an armed camp ready to make China pay heavily should it try to occupy the island and will become even more determined to resist coercive pressures, including by a blockade. US prestige will become more attached to Taiwan’s defence and it will look to allies to play a role, especially if the issue is one of freedom of the seas.
It is not obvious that there is a good outcome for China if it pushes too hard, in the same way that there is no good outcome for Russia in Ukraine. Russia’s experience should warn Xi of the pitfalls accompanying any military action even when the odds look very favourable, including the risk that in the effort to take territory it wanted badly it would end up devastating the land and its people, let alone the possibility of war with the United States.
This is the peril of autocracy – a conviction that a supreme leader, beyond challenge at home and presiding over vast armed forces, should always be able to get what he wants and never needs to compromise."
https://samf.substack.com/p/russia-and-china-perils-of-autocracy
28. Super good interview with Andrew Wilkinson of Tiny Capital from Canada (Victoria!). Lots of great stuff here.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R9GWxg7Z3Ok
29. Slava Ukraini!
"After over five months of its full-out war, Russia is employing close to 100% of its conventional military power against Ukraine, with only limited results to show for it.
Russia is steadily losing military power as the country struggles to generate high-quality reserves. It has spent the last month refraining from large-scale operations in Donbas and elsewhere, trying to recover from previous battles.
For Ukraine, this hiatus is a window of opportunity.
While Russia is still coming around, Ukraine's military has the chance to deliver a decisive strike that would allow it to gain an edge over Russia and define the course of the rest of the war. In other words, this could be the war’s turning point.
This third phase could determine the rest of the war. If successful, it could lead to a fourth phase in which Ukraine defeats Russia."
30. Best stuff from the edge of the internet. Not Investment Advice.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=syYl_v36H2U
31. "Venture investing has also historically been very hard to do well (though a little less so over the last few years.) We're likely returning to a point where venture investing is much more difficult if you want to drive outsized returns that justify the inherent fees.
So ensuring your value-add is tangible and measurable is more than just a nice to have, and not only is it an element of long-term survival for a fund, but it should also be something investors are laser-focused on in hopes of improving their outcomes. In a world of well-measured value-add you should start to see more definitive correlation between support and outcomes.
When I talk to folks who are either building newer firms or those who are attempting to improve the way their current firm offers value I often see this sentiment: "The idea that founders shouldn't expect their investors to add value should change. There should be a reaction to actually delivering results.""
https://investing1012dot0.substack.com/p/the-tales-of-their-usefulness-have
32. "From the Ukrainian side, they are only going to get stronger with more Western kit and financing arriving, and no shortage of motivated soldiers - surely Moscow realises now that time is not on its side. The longer it fights this war, the stronger Ukraine and the more impact that Western sanctions will have on its military capability. And remember on this latter front that for Putin the war in Ukraine is just part of the broader war with the West. And we are now entering an arms race, with NATO set to go +2% of GDP spending on defence, and Russia simply cannot match that.
Just do the maths, Western states now reigned against Russia have a combined GDP of what $40 trillion, 2% of that is $2 trillion, which is more than Russia’s entire GDP. Putin needs now to replace half his military destroyed in Ukraine, and spend even more than pre-war just to maintain some kind of military parity with NATO. The longer he continues the war in Ukraine, the longer sanctions and the less able he will be to maintain any kind of military parity with the West - at least in conventional weapons, as nukes are a separate story. Winning in Ukraine is important to Putin but would he want to jeopardise Russia’s broader security vis a vis the West by eroding its conventional military capability so much that it will struggle to counter possible NATO threats (not that I see them). And if Putin is going to try and maintain any kind of military parity with the West, surely this puts Russia back into a guns versus butter (or I-phones) scenario.
Just as an aside here on the energy crisis in Europe. Putin will play the gas card for sure, but he does have to be a bit careful. If he forces Europe, and the world, into recession as seems likely now he collapses global demand for energy and with it energy prices. He will then face the double whammy of lower export volumes and prices, so it will be ironic if only with peace comes the collapse of the Russian economy - guess you might say there it gives him an incentive to try and maintain tensions.
So summarising, my base case is a European energy crisis, brought on by Putin desperate now to get a Ukraine peace deal before year end. Big risk here is that Zelensky might not be able to sell that domestically - polls show 90% want the war to continue until all territory is regained - but lots of Western cash will be deployed to entice Ukraine to the table. But Ukraine will get big Western financing flows anyway, given the need now to build Ukraine as a defensive buffer state against Russia. And in the Schroeder peace offer, there is no way NATO would now accept a demilitarised Ukraine.
The good news for Ukraine in an early end to the war is that the economy is likely to bounce back quickly, as a result of the low base effect, the innovation shown in the war, and the huge Western financing likely to flow into Ukraine."
https://timothyash.substack.com/p/putin-is-on-the-back-foot-in-ukraine
33. "You saw the frontier power of the white devil. Their experiences helped make America the world power we know today. Not only did they make the lands safe for civilization, they excelled at farming and industry, basically supplying war material for both world wars. Americans were often noted in both world wars as being much bigger than their European counterparts as well as better equipped. The American’s warlike nature is in the blood and what’s most important for our people today is remembering that strength of blood.
Early Americans not only had to know how to shoot a gun, but also hunt and fight should they situation call for it. They had to be able to transverse the wilderness. Match savagery with savagery. The True American is a warrior.
You owe it to your ancestors to not be the ignoble ends of your bloodline and country. Make yourself a warrior. A True American who knows the ways of nature and how bad things can get. Take pride in what your ancestors accomplished, don’t buy into the leftist hogwash that you should be ashamed of them. The idea that you should hate your ancestors because of racism is retarded. Everyone is racist, it’s natural, get over it. Step beyond it.
An American Warrior Religion would have the values of the frontiersman and settler, who’s very existence depends on his ability to defend the perimeter and snuff out his enemies. A Kit Carson who followed frontier code of vengeance, whenever he came upon the remains of pilgrims mutilated by Indians. Men who were hard and understood just how far the human body could go. Don’t underestimate the warlike nature in your blood. A warrior religion is first most concerned with the strength and survival of its race. Theology comes after."
https://resavager.substack.com/p/american-warrior-religion
34. This was a thorough and fascinating discussion on the future network state. Worth watching.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5Vsv2tqy1Bs
35. Always a good conversation. Yes, I agree CCP is evil & needs to be destroyed but Pelosi's trip to Taiwan was self indulgent and terrible timing wise & not good for anyone. Good convo on the world economy as well.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jlK5tsUuEP0
36. "Scalable revenue comes from selling things that don’t depend on your active time to make that sale. Josh doesn’t like the phrase “Passive Income” because so-called passive income requires a lot of upfront work to create the product, and some ongoing operations, maintenance, refinements, and monitoring, of course.
But, it is scalable. Once you’ve created whatever it is you're going to sell (especially digital products), you can sell it millions or even billions of times with little extra effort required. Or, once you’ve invested in something you can “rent” (e.g., property, ad space), you’ll make money while you’re sleeping."
https://newsletter.invinciblesolopreneurs.com/p/daily-tip-create-scalable-revenue
37. "Set Up for You: As usual, the only person who matters is you since the goal is to save yourself first. From the above and by using the general framework you can probably pick up a good suburban home over the next 6 months (rough range). Let rates go up, survive your round of cuts (Sept/Oct) then purchase in one of the areas that is seeing pricing pressure.
What happened is people pulled in their move to suburbs/homes. Since your goal is to work remote anyway (we hope) by doing WFH + WiFi on the side, it means you’ll be in a great position to get outside the major city and live in a nice place. As demand dries up, people holding the bag will be more and more desperate to sell.
By way of example, now that we know Tech cuts have moved first (Layoffs.fyi), you can see some weakness in Nevada as sales slowed and prices have come down."
https://bowtiedbull.substack.com/p/eth-update-cpiunemployment-read-housing