No Margin of Error: Lessons from Small Countries and Smaller Companies
Singapore, Georgia, Armenia, Estonia, Israel, Kazakhstan, all tiny countries surrounded by large geopolitical powers. Small populations, poor in natural resources & energy. They have very little room for error. Hence the folks who run these places really need their Sh-t together or they will get eaten. They have to play the geopolitical and diplomatic game better than anyone else. They have to have good long term planning and proper execution and investment in their people and policies.
Contrast this to the United States. A big massive population, the biggest economy, the most powerful military. A place rich in money, resources & energy and food. Geographically secure and well positioned with plenty of margin of error. Because of this, the place operates with a level of dysfunction intolerable in most countries. We have grossly incompetent, ignorant and venal people running the place. The reason for this is that we have no near and present threats. So it’s easy to become complacent and overly tolerant of incompetence. There is Nothing to make us wake up and force us to get things in order. At least not until we face some real massive pain. Small countries, like the ones I mentioned earlier, do not have that luxury.
This is also the reason why Big tech companies are not ones you should emulate. Bad management & dysfunctional cultures are a feature not a bug in Silicon Valley. Go down the list: Salesforce, Google, Yahoo!, Oracle, Uber, Netflix etc. etc. are all fat, bloated and poorly managed companies.
They can get away with this because they have amazing business models and crazy good profit margins. All this allows them to get away with incompetence.
The only well managed FAANG companies are 1) Facebook because Zuckerberg is a great operator and probably sociopathic & 2) Amazon under Bezos (also a great operator and probably sociopathic) with the addition of massive offline components & complexity. Thus by nature they have to get their stuff sorted well or the model breaks. Just like an airline or complex industrial manufacturing company. Running these kinds of companies smoothly and efficiently is incredibly hard.
The point I’m trying to make as I’ve stated before is that Silicon Valley giants are probably the wrong model for top exemplars of management. We overlook the importance of business models which turn them into de facto monopolies in their sectors. Their cultures are a result of the business model, not a driver of their business model.
There is so much bloat and fat at these companies, I reckon they can fire 50 percent of their staff and have little impact on their overall business. In fact, margins may even go far higher after.
This is why I believe in startups. Small is beautiful because there is almost zero margin of error. Startups have to operate at a crazy high tempo to survive. If something is not working, they have to fix it right away or they die!
So the analogy of small countries does work with small startups. The future belongs to the small and focused, not the big, powerful and shockingly dumb.
Efficiency & Over Optimization: the Path to Neurotic Unhappiness
I got along very well with my bosses when I was at Yahoo! Many of them became good friends and mentors of mine.
I remember when one of my bosses told me: “we get along because you have extremely high standards & work ethic”. This really meant something to me because he was Japanese and was known to be an incredibly dedicated and tough boss. We would work through the night sometimes or definitely very late.
This definitely seeped into the rest of my life as it happened at a very pivotal time in my life and career of mid-20s. It’s served me very well as this perfectionism, these exacting high standards helped me become a pretty good operator. I overly optimize everything, my diet, my schedule, my meetings, almost everything. I show up for meetings on time, I follow up and do what I say. Religiously. And it’s shocking how this puts you ahead of 99% of the people out there which is a sad comment on people but also explains much. Simply by just doing the basics and working hard.
It’s all about the mission and goal. This is the reason I “Get Sh-t Done” like a machine.
Unfortunately this trait has also turned into a very sharp double edged sword. I am highly intolerant of people who don’t do the work, have a crap work ethic and frankly, unreliable. I try to cut them out of my life quickly & have no time or patience for them. Unreliable people drive me berserk!
I also tend to over optimize my schedule and be incredibly intolerant of deviations from my plan. I get so much angst and if I am honest, deep anger and rage when things don’t go as planned.
I am so task-driven to get things completed that I ignore everything around me: my health, my family and many times my peace of mind and happiness. How can you have peace of mind when there is another goal on the horizon?
Don’t really have an answer here. I’m trying to ring fence my calendar and not over-schedule myself. I’m trying to keep open blocks of time and learning to say NO to opportunities. I should add that as I am writing this, I am not doing a good job in this department. Still overcommitted to too many things. I still drive myself crazy when things inevitably do not go as planned. I need a high level of predictability which is impossible in the world we live in.
Thus, to help myself, I try to meditate as much as I can, breathe calmly when things don’t go according to my plan and repeat “Inshallah” (God’s Will) to myself.
Efficiency is great for business. It makes you a great operating executive but not sure whether this is an asset in your personal life. But better to have than not I guess. Another conundrum to wrestle with. Life is messy and you need to just accept it which is hard for a Type A like me.
Marvin’s Best Weekly Reads March 12th, 2023
“Life is an adventure, not a package tour.”--Eckhart Tolle
"These trends have resulted in an overhang of companies that either (1) lived without product market fit and survived well past their natural expiration point, or (2) hired way ahead of progress and burned large sums with high valuations and now are stuck with little progress per dollar and a large preference stack.
When will companies run out of cash?
Many companies are likely about to meet a hard reckoning. This is likely to start end of 2023 and accelerate through end of 2024 or so. The likely timing is +/- 6 months. It is based on when companies last fundraised at scale, 2021, and how much runway they raised."
https://blog.eladgil.com/p/startup-decoupling-and-reckoning
2. "The joy/sexiness/luster of being a venture capitalist is starting to fade right now for so many people new to the business. When I say ‘new’ I mean people that started in the venture business between 2018-2022.
I believe the best seed and vc funds know how to treat both founders and LP’s as customers and shareholders at the right times."
https://www.howardlindzon.com/p/venture-capitalist-customer-shareholder
3. "The next time an entrepreneur excitedly shares their idea, ask questions about the market, and encourage them to doggedly pursue customer feedback, while being open to better, adjacent ideas during the process. Pursue great markets and find the best ideas within them."
https://davidcummings.org/2023/03/04/fall-in-love-with-the-market-not-the-idea/
4. "Ukraine has a path to victory still - I can see better Western armaments giving its scope to launch counteroffensives to recapture sizeable chunks of occupied Ukraine, even to the point that devastating defeat and the collapse of Russian forces in Ukraine is possible, even likely, but certainly more likely than that of Russian victory."
https://timothyash.substack.com/p/time-is-not-on-putins-side
5. "The reality is that if the Russian do capture Bakhmut, they are seizing rubble. It is a town with minimal strategic importance, with almost no remaining infrastructure to support an occupying force. That the Russians have invested so much in its capture speaks volumes about their poor strategy in this war.
For the Ukrainians, they will be withdrawing into defensive zones in the Kramatorsk areas that they have had eight years to prepare. And the city sits on higher, more defensible ground than Bakhmut. Any advance on the Kramatorsk region is likely to be every bit as bloody for the Russians as its campaign for Bakhmut."
https://mickryan.substack.com/p/the-battle-of-bakhmut
6. "As a society, we’re very attracted to the idea of “grit” and “gutting it out”. Meanwhile, there’s a huge stigma around “quit” (related terms include include backtrackers, chickens, defeatists, deserters, dropouts, wimps and anytime I try to do 20 burpees in a row).
But if you think about it, “grit” and “quit” are two sides of the same coin. By sticking with a project, you are choosing not to quit and vice versa."
https://trungphan.substack.com/p/grit-vs-quit
7. I do love glamping.
https://www.thesisdriven.com/p/staying-outside-the-rise-of-glamping
8. "You couldn’t ask for two better representatives of the NBA’s current divide.
In one corner, Draymond Green, the self-anointed leader of what he terms the New Media, an insurgent generation of players-slash-content creators (mostly podcasters and analysts) who aspire to cover the game by, in his words, “actually analyzing the game of basketball” and giving players their flowers while they can. It’s a noble pursuit, at least on paper.
Perkins, on the other hand, is the traditionalist, an avatar for what Green sees as the Old Media (mostly TV analysts) and everything wrong with it: hot takes, clickbait, and easy soundbites that flatten appreciation for the game. What makes Perk especially disappointing to Green is that he’s a former player, someone who should ostensibly know better."
https://www.gq.com/story/nba-generations-media-war
9. "The toll was so high, that the British came to understand that they had no hope of exerting strategic control over Massachusetts, and pulled out entirely in 1776.
Greene understood instinctively why Bunker Hill mattered and was not a British victory. When the results of the Battle became known, he answered with the quote above—that he would gladly sell the British another hill at the same price. And in a way he did. Though I dont have time to have too much of a historical digression here—Greene would later be sent by Washington to command colonial troops in the south, where he would ‘lose’ most of the battles he fought, but in such a way that he exhausted British forces in the South (led by Cornwallis) who became so worn out by Greene that they retreated northwards to Virginia.
There the British forces found themselves trapped at Yorktown—and I’m sure many of you know the result.
Nathaniel Greene would have known how to understand the importance of the Battle of Bakhmut—and his understanding remains the one that matters."
https://phillipspobrien.substack.com/p/weekend-update-18-the-end-of-the
10. Good advice for solopreneurs or aspiring sovereign individuals moving to Latam.
https://bowtiedmara.substack.com/p/the-sovereign-individual-stack
11. "Where Bankman-Fried effectively (but still allegedly) stole billions of dollars from regular people around the world, Hayes has never been accused of taking anything that didn’t belong to him, or lying to his customers, or running a crooked business. “He’s absolutely one of the good guys of crypto,” says Nic Carter, the co-founder of Castle Island Ventures, a blockchain-focused investment firm. “BitMEX never screwed over their clients, never got hacked, never lost money.”
If anything, Hayes has become something of a bitcoin martyr. “He’s not the typical bad actor who embezzled money or stole money or did something really nefarious,” says Daniel Bresler, a partner at the law firm Seward & Kissel, which specializes in crypto and financial crime. “He didn’t follow rules that some people say shouldn’t exist in the first place.”
https://nymag.com/intelligencer/article/arthur-hayes-bitmex-crypto-interview.html
12. "Despite spending less than 24 hours in Singapore, the journey was successful: The airline miles propelled Coy into platinum status on Delta, putting her in an elite group of frequent flyers and qualifying her for several perks.
“Sacrificing that one weekend was absolutely worth it,” said Coy, who also made a similar trip to Budapest.
Trips like this are known as mileage runs.
These are flights where the mileage is the purpose, not the destination. Travelers take them to earn or maintain elite status with airlines like Delta, United, American, Southwest, or Alaska.
But are the miles really worth the trouble? And how do mileage runs stack up in a post-pandemic world of higher prices and fewer flights?"
https://link.thehustle.co/view/5f3b700a2c81bf63140abd4biai76.dr3/6cd8a10d
13. "It is powering moguls and mini-moguls, supporting budding empires like The Free Press, Letters from an American, Not Boring by Packy McCormick, Lenny's Newsletter, Platformer, The Ankler., and many more. It is overvalued and underestimated, intolerant and permissive, loathed and adored.
Kleenex, Velcro, ChapStick, and Coke are all brand names that have come to define a category; Substack has wiggled its way into this distinguished, stuffy club as a precocious little urchin. Newsletters are not simply newsletters anymore; they are Substacks – sometimes even if they are not on the platform.
It is, in short, news, in every sense of the word.
Substack is not a publisher nor a simple tool. It is a network, an ecosystem, an engine alive with word and culture and thought; an empire of narratives."
https://thegeneralist.substack.com/p/substack
14. "Make no mistake: moves are being made right now to limit your personal freedom, your freedom of movement, and your freedom of choice. Moves that will target your finances, your ability to earn, and your ability to spend your money the way you see fit.
Since starting this newsletter, my big focus has been on personal freedom. But the centrepiece of that is always getting your financial house in order.
Growing an independent income that you have full control of. Creating investments that pay you regardless of what is happening in our world. And having the financial means to be able to move to the city, state, or country you choose to live in, to acquire new passports and residencies, or simply to go somewhere else you can experience more freedom."
https://abundantia.substack.com/p/the-monster-is-here
15. This is wacky. An ancient shark attack.
https://bigthink.com/the-past/ancient-shark-attack
16. "In the past few months alone, Japan has pledged to double defense spending and acquire long-range weapons from the US; South Korea has acknowledged that stability in the Taiwan Strait is essential to its security; the Philippines has announced new US base access rights and is talking about joint patrols of the South China Sea with Australia, Japan and the United States.
Those might be the biggest initiatives, but they are far from the only events that have left China increasingly isolated in its own backyard as it refuses to condemn the invasion of a sovereign country by its partner in Moscow while keeping military pressure on the self-ruled island of Taiwan."
https://edition.cnn.com/2023/03/05/asia/ukraine-war-us-pacific-alliances-intl-hnk
17. Albania is amazing and I look forward to exploring this beautiful country more (and eating their delicious food).
https://www.cntraveler.com/story/in-albanias-tourism-revival-food-plays-a-central-role
18. Must read and follow.
"In this blog post, we’ll explore 7 different streams of income that can help you achieve financial independence and build long-term wealth.
From passive income streams like real estate income and dividend stocks to more active income streams like entrepreneurship and royalties, there are a variety of ways to increase your earning potential and secure your financial future."
https://ofdollarsanddata.com/7-streams-of-income/
19. "One of the best decisions we can make is to reject the cultural expectations that shift and change with the wind. And to accept the fact that we don’t need to run with the cool kids to be happy.
We can choose to be ourselves instead."
https://www.becomingminimalist.com/much-cooler/
20. This is critical and a must read. Also very timely. How to manage your startups cash.
https://www.codingvc.com/p/cash-management-for-early-stage-startups
21. Good interview here. Peter Zeihan on geopolitics.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4jMQ-azCtv8
22. Luke Belmar dropping some knowledge bombs.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JPnpoq3tVOk
23. "We kick back and expect this to be a Bond film. Pass the popcorn. We are failing to understand the implicit message in all this. The line between civilian and military is blurring. China and Russia are both making it clear that they see everything and everyone is “dual use”. Militaries have long argued that technology could be used for either civilian or military purposes.
But, these days, the most valuable technologies have become dual use. Just as a car can kill you or drive you home safely, so it is with modern technology. The most sophisticated computer chips ARE the weapon. IP theft and patent trolling has been a battlefield with China for years for a reason."
https://drpippa.substack.com/p/you-are-the-combatant-in-this-war
24. Good discussion on innovation. Yes, her funds are not doing well but this is a cogent discussion on investing in innovation.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=44QUsV376GI
25. "If you must panic, panic early.
That’s the conventional wisdom ricocheting around Silicon Valley right now as technology institution Silicon Valley Bank looks precarious.
One founder at a venture capital event in San Francisco relayed that investors were fleeing to the edges of the room to call founders and warning them “not to be last in line at a bank run.”
https://www.newcomer.co/p/panic-erupts-as-venture-capitalists
26. "The Battle of Bakhmut is illustrative of one final difference. In Bakhmut, as it has through this whole war, Russia seeks victory through destruction – destruction of towns and cities, destruction of lives and Ukraine’s economy and will to exist. Ukraine, on the other hand, seeks victory through building.
It has built a unified Ukraine that is sovereign and able to defend itself, while also building for the world an example of how free people can join together to defend what they value."
27. This is really sad. End of a Silicon Valley icon. Also emblematic of the boom and bust cycle of Silicon Valley too.
https://www.newcomer.co/p/breaking-silicon-valley-bank-fails
28. "The longer-term effect of SVB’s collapse on the broader tech sector is likely to be negative, but not catastrophic. This episode and the general disruption and uncertainty it causes will add to the general air of pessimism that has prevailed since early 2022.
SVB also provided a lot of other financial services to companies, and it will be annoying and dispiriting to have to find new providers. And SVB was itself an important tech investor, so its demise will exacerbate the overall startup funding crunch.
In a way, this is just one more shoe dropping in the slow deflation of the Second Tech Boom. (On the bright side, more pessimism probably means higher returns for those who are both willing and able to invest while others are shunning the sector.)"
https://noahpinion.substack.com/p/why-was-there-a-run-on-silicon-valley
29. What a mess. Like startup founders had nothing to worry about before this, now just one more crisis to sort out.
“Some of the companies that seem to be panicking may have had all their deposits sitting in cash with SVB rather than sweep accounts [that were not on the bank’s balance sheet], which is kind of stupid anyways,” he said.
Startup executives were also grappling with the broader legacy of Silicon Valley Bank, which had a reputation as a partner to tech firms that wouldn’t “put you out of business when you struggle to pay them back,” said Pat Kinsel, chief executive of Notarize, a Founders Fund-backed digital notary startup, which has worked with the bank at his previous startups.
“SVB going under means that many, many more startups will die when the going gets tough when they otherwise would have survived and thrived with their help,” he added."
Yellowstone Wisdom: Life is One Long Lesson
I love the television series Yellowstone. I think it’s a great modern American story. They live in a harsh unforgiving world. A place where only the strong survive. I love the tough Duttons and their cowboys. Living in savage & raw nature, defending their land from Indian tribes, hedge funds, real estate developers & militiamen.
“The people who are trying to take our place are evil. And we aren’t evil for trying to defend it.”
They have no mercy for anyone who attacks them. The Duttons will literally do whatever it takes to take out their enemies. This is the way. Probably how you should think about your life, business and property in my opinion. It’s a world where trust is earned not given. Anyways, it’s a great show.
But speaking of characters, Love her or hate her, Beth Dutton is one of the toughest individuals in the Get Sh-t Done way. Usually with ruthless & amoral methods. As stated in the show: “Behind every milestone of human history, stands a monster. That’s our monster!”
She is also surprisingly wise. As shown by the advice she gives to her young ward:
“I’m gonna tell you something. It is a universal truth. It doesn’t matter where you live. Man or woman. It is as true today as it was tens of f—ing years ago.
You want nice things? You want to the best? There are only 4 ways to get rich, kid. 4. That’s it.
Inherit it. That ain’t happening for you.
You steal it. You do not have, my friend, the patience, the power and honestly, the intellect to steal anything of substance.
Work really f-cking hard. Okay? You learn. You fail. Learn more. Fail more. And don’t let anyone outwork you. Ever.”
Option 4: well bit too crass to quote here.
There is so very much to all this. So to finish this off, i’ll end this with a quote from the show:
“There are two roads in life. One, You are either winning or learning. The other is that you are losing all the way to the F—ing grave. Better choose quickly or life’s going to choose for you.”
Worth thinking about.
The Modern Way of Escaping Your Problems: Working, Over-scheduling & Travel
Americans are accused of overworking and focusing too much of their time on work and business. We take very few holidays. It’s like we hate vacations or empty time.
I think part of this is due to the crazy competitive nature of the culture. Another part is the pure need to work so we can survive. This is also driven by the consumerist debt trap that many of us are caught in. But I actually wonder if the real reason is that we just don’t want to have the empty space and time to think.
Thinking is scary. Thinking forces you to face yourself and reality. Reality can be grim. I found myself in 2022 crazy busy, over-scheduled and traveling like mad. And in retrospect, if I am honest, most of this was not necessary.
Financially and business wise, I felt like I was in good shape. But my home and family life was in shambles. All these issues were caused by me and how I dealt with things back in 2020. In fact, I am still totally enraged by the incompetence I saw from our gov’t & the elites, how poorly served our kids were by the schools and how I was cheated by my tenants & business partners at that time. I will never forgive them or myself, nor will I forget.
I had a very hard time confronting this. I still do. Also not knowing what to do in these situations. It’s my worst nightmare. Therapy or no therapy, It’s just much easier to be away and escape.
That’s exactly what I did. I over scheduled myself. I traveled like crazy speaking at conferences all over the world. I didn’t have to but I felt compelled to get away. I probably took at least 19 business trips with 9 of them just from September to December. Crazy. But I needed the time and distance. I was basically hiding.
Sometimes you just need time to absorb it. And to acknowledge your guilt and ponder ways to fix things. But you can’t hide forever.
I know putting off solving problems leads to larger problems. You have to eventually deal with them. I normally face my problems head on. It’s something I pride myself on and preach about. And the good news is that I was finally able to deal with things. But only after I faced them down & took responsibility and action.
So my point is: busy schedules are great up to a point. But don’t mistake activity with results. You should always keep an open calendar and carve out substantial time to think. The more you think, the faster you can see the reality, however harsh it is. This way you might be able to do something about it.
Marvin’s Best Weekly Reads March 5th, 2023
“Adventure is Worthwhile.”--Aesop
"Ultimately, the clearer the message, the better people will understand it and the faster they’ll be able to know if they need it. Messaging and positioning are harder than they appear. Entrepreneurs would do well to lean on customers and better understand the value from their perspective."
https://davidcummings.org/2023/02/25/ask-the-customer-to-describe-the-value/
2. "Japan’s corporate leaders are much better than their reputation. Yes, they do lack the Davos-Jet-Set swagger, fly commercial, and still proudly print the office fax number on their meishi name-cards; and no, they have no social media presence and prefer to stay silent in investor- or press meetings.
But if you’re looking for extraordinary resilience and all-around competence to get the job done, Japan’s Salaryman CEOs - and their teams - deliver. And yes, by “job” I mean a razor-sharp focus on delivering corporate economic value and profitability.
Don’t believe me? The data speaks for itself: since 1992, top-line growth for economy-wide non-financial corporate Japan has been flat. Yet despite this three-decade-long stagnation of sales, corporate profits surged more than 5-fold."
https://japanoptimist.substack.com/p/japan-reality-check-4-in-praise-of
3. "Root breaks a bunch of VC orthodoxies. You went all in on hard tech. You have stayed close to your seed roots. All the partners are engineers. No one’s ex-banker or consultant! Your new website is fun and weird. All of this says a lot about Root’s ethos. Root has thrived and gone against the grain in the world of VC, which is a sea of sameness."
https://sarharibhakti.substack.com/p/breaking-orthodoxies-in-venture-capital
4. Hope this is truly the case. We need to support Ukraine to the hilt.
"So the Biden trip, the follow up, and the political imperative all make it very likely indeed that, as long as this administration is in power, US support for Ukraine will remain high. The commitments wont be walked back because they matter symbolically, the represent the views of the president—and they are good politics."
https://phillipspobrien.substack.com/p/weekend-update-17-biden-to-kyiv-china
5. "Five decades ago, Hot Wheels were America’s hottest new plaything. Today, the children of the ‘60s are fueling a small but mighty collectors’ market that wheels and deals in obscure corners of the internet.
Pascal is one of a handful of super collectors, dealers, and middlemen who pay top dollar for the rarest cars. It’s a colorful group that includes an ex-BMX stunt rider, an auto mechanics teacher, and a man who owns a geese-removal business.
How did one-time 59-cent toy cars become 5-figure collectibles? And what drives grown men and women to spend princely sums chasing them?"
https://thehustle.co/the-collectors-who-spend-thousands-on-rare-hot-wheels
6. "An alliance may be formed between the military capitalists and the hawkish part of the semi-autonomous state. They may be wiling to accept such “costs” if they enable the US to curb China’s rise.
The pure geopolitics would dominate economic interest. Historical experience helps such an alliance too: US has won all big wars (the First, the Second, and the Cold) and every time its victory has led it to the peak of geopolitical and economic power. Why should not that happen again?
This is how we should regard the future of globalization, at least from the point of view of the western calculation: as a trade-off between unconstrained geopolitical power and higher real domestic incomes. The economic arguments as well as the usual (and at times perhaps facile) assumption that the state does what capitalists want it to do overwhelmingly point in favor of continued globalization.
Yet the “bellic alliance” may be just sufficiently strong to keep the other side in check, if not to entirely overturn globalization and shift the country towards autarky."
https://branko2f7.substack.com/p/capitalists-the-state-and-globalization
7. "I can’t guarantee that stepping on the gas will get you that next round. What I will say is that if you’ve lowered growth to preserve capital, and you haven’t cut it down to the point where you’re on a path to breakeven without needing new capital, you need to think hard as to whether or not a having a little bit of growth is worth not being “default alive”.
Too many companies think they’re going to get a participation trophy for just hanging around longer than expected—and in a world where VCs will have spent more of their most recent fund propping up their own portfolio, there isn’t going to be as much capital for mediocre growth as founders are hoping.
Maybe the middle ground is not putting away your experiments.
I would figure out a way to default to breakeven while holding on to at least 2-3 real attempts at finding a growth hack that could change your story—one you could lean into hard if it worked."
https://ceonyc.substack.com/p/grow-fast-breakeven-or-die-how-moderate
8. So much wisdom here. Worth reading the whole thing.
"In Short, it isn’t enough to stop caring what people think, recognize they never even spend a second worrying about you in the first place. This should allow you to mentally take more risk. No one is going to care if you fail anyway. They will forget in 24 hours. Similar to when an employee gets let go and people forget he/she existed in 3-6 months. Everyone is replaceable.
If you’re trying to make plans 3-5 years is a good time frame. Beyond that life gets in the way.”
https://bowtiedbull.substack.com/p/random-life-lessons-in-no-particular
9. "The simple answer is Putin’s forces have failed, and the battlefield situation is extremely tenuous for Putin: it’s not clear that this new offensive is going to work, and there is a real danger, from the Chinese point of view, that Putin might be in some way defeated on the battlefield, that he might have to withdraw — but even worse, that if he withdrew and then people within Russia were angry about this, that he could be toppled from the government.
And nobody knows what kind of Russian government would come after Putin; it’s very difficult to predict what the succession would be like.
The Chinese very much want to find a way to keep Putin in power, because Xi Jinping feels very comfortable with Putin. They are now looking at, I think, how they could get Putin the kind of help he needs."
https://www.chinatalk.media/p/will-xi-arm-putin-has-a-cold-war
10. This is a very good primer for startup investing. This guy is a very good investor.
11. "Amid leaks that Marcus was hemorrhaging money, Solomon finally decided to pull back sharply on the effort that he had once championed to investors and the media. His checking account would be repurposed for wealth management clients, which would save money on marketing costs.
Now it is Ismail, who joined a Walmart-backed fintech called One in early 2021, who will be taking on the banking world with a direct-to-consumer digital startup. His former employer Goldman would largely content itself with being a behind-the-scenes player, providing its technology and balance sheet to established brands.
For a company with as much self-regard as Goldman, it would mark a sharp comedown from the vision held by Solomon only months earlier.
“David would say, ‘We’re building the business for the next 50 years, not for today,’” said one former Goldman insider. “He should’ve listened to his own sound bite.”
12. This one never gets old. Startup life!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_WRGu6Zr5tQ
13. This is a valuable discussion on when to quit and when to keep grinding. Worth listening to.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q8jgetflxUA&t=1s
14. "How about just spelling it out - the rouble is weaker because of Putin’s failed invasion of Ukraine and sanctions."
https://timothyash.substack.com/p/russia-the-rouble-is-weak-for-lt
15. "As a VC, I obviously want to see every company I invest in succeed, but I know that will never happen. So while it’s hard not to admire the grit of those founders determined to give it their all, it’s difficult for me as a former founder to watch some of them continue down a path that I know has little-to-no chance of success.
If you’re a founder reading this, I hope you win. But please know that it’s okay to quit. To quit something that’s no longer worth pursuing isn’t a failure, it’s a success."
https://chrisneumann.com/blog/when-to-walk-away
16. This is a great discussion: business and investing is where these guys really excel.
You Self Select When You come to America: A Harder life Equates to Greater Opportunities
When you immigrate somewhere outside your home country you are making a decision about the kind of life you want to live. You are trading off lifestyle versus opportunity. The opportunity for a new start and a new you.
As Louis L’amour’s “Flint” speaking about the Wild West frontier said:
“All Western Men Are from somewhere else when it comes to that. At the stage station in Alamitos I heard Swedish, German and Irish accents in just a few minutes, but I believe a Western man is a matter of psychology. The mere fact that a man chooses to come West indicates a difference of temperament or attitude, and then there’s bound to be changes due to the landscapes and the conditions.
I suppose the basic difference is that men want to survive, to mate, and to have security….and out here the other conditions are outweighed by the necessity to survive.”
I cannot think of a better description of America than that.
This is what I specifically am looking for when I meet startup founders from Europe and Canada. People willing to leave their home countries to come to America and compete. They are leaving places that are truly wonderful places to live. In all of my travels I notice the deep contrast of the much better quality of life in these places compared to the USA.
I’m not saying the USA is awful. It’s not but it is a much bigger, much more competitive and harder place to live. In fact, I’d say it’s ferociously competitive.
People around the world say that America has no culture. I would strongly disagree with this view: America does have a culture, a culture of aspiration & ambition.
It’s also a tough place that exemplifies the term “Extremistan” where the outcomes are very extreme. You end up being super successful or end up on the street.
“Many people have doubled (or lost all of) their net worth in a single moment: a company goes public or announces bankruptcy. A stock quintuples or crashes.
Vast man-made empires have been toppled by a single event—the storming of the Bastille, the signing of The Declaration of Independence. These individual events are what change looks like in Extremistan.
Sudden, violent, irreversible. Most of all, unforeseen.
As technology continues to evolve, we are, increasingly, living our lives in Extremistan. As more and more of the world around us goes from biological to man made, the degree to which our reality is defined by Extremistan is increasing.
In Extremistan, risk doesn’t live in the past; it lives in the future.”
Source: https://taylorpearson.me/extremistan/amp/
You self select when you choose to come to America. I see this in Silicon Valley. If you want to be the best, you have to be around and compete with the best. You discover what is the global maximum. Until that changes, America will still be the best place for business on the planet.
Risks are a Fact of Life: Take More of Them
I loved the show “Person of Interest” and there is this scene where two of the main characters are caught in a situation where they are losing badly against the main enemy. The lead character is playing it safe but his friend goes on to say:
“Our only option is to take risks. Big ones. We have to be willing to do whatever it takes now or we’ve already lost. It’s No Risk, No reward.”
It’s interesting when I play back all my decisions in my life and career. I cannot lie that I don’t regret anything. I regret many things and they all stem from being too careful and not taking any risks in my life. All for fear of looking stupid, fear of failure or being rejected.
The girls I should have approached and asked out in high school or University. The jobs or companies in my career I should have aimed for. The investments I should have done. The apologies I should have made before it was too late. So many regrets & so many questions.
And in retrospect so many of these risks were what we call asymmetric risks: defined as by Andy Liu: “Asymmetrical risk is the concept of taking a risk that will produce a return that far surpasses the risk taken. This is a really important concept that can change your quality of life greatly.“ Basically: Low downside but massive upside.
Who knows where I would be in life now if I had been smarter and not played it safe. It’s not that I have anything to complain about. But still. Safe is Unsafe in our unstable world. This is why you have to take action. Do stuff.
To quote the great Silicon Valley philosopher Naval Ravikant:
"Asymmetric opportunities:
Invest in startups
Start a company
Create a book, podcast, video
Create a (software) product
Go on many first dates
Go to a cocktail party
Read a Lindy book
Move to a big city
Buy Bitcoin
Tweet."
Source: https://mobile.twitter.com/navalbot/status/1076568269685956617?lang=en
So the point: take more asymmetric risks in life. This way you will have less regrets & questions of “what might have been” in life. This is the only way you can truly live.
Marvin’s Best Weekly Reads Feb 26th, 2023
“Cultivate the habit of being grateful for every good thing that comes to you, and to give thanks continuously. And because all things have contributed to your advancement, you should include all things in your gratitude.” —Ralph Waldo Emerson
"Economic growth policies work best when they seize upon a natural trend. And inside Japan, the most powerful megatrend is the unlocking of Japan’s enormous household sector financial assets because of inheritance.
Specifically, it is estimated that of the famous Y2,000 trillion of household financial wealth, as much as 50% is owned by people aged 70 or older. This implies that somewhere between Y400-700 trillion will get “unstuck” due to Japan’s natural demographic destiny over the coming 10-15 years.
While the exact numerical estimates may be subject to debate, there must be no doubt that here we have an unprecedented opportunity for policy makers to become creative. The goal is simple: let us try to channel these funds towards investments for Japan’s future."
https://japanoptimist.substack.com/p/from-inheritance-liability-to-investment
2. "Put together, the internal combustion engine, the microchip, and the shipping container permanently changed both the possibilities and expectations for standards of living. Consequently, much of what we label “globalization” or “globalism” isn’t due to a particular political order but to advances in technology.
That’s not to say that political decisions don’t matter, of course they do. What this means is that technological progress plays a greater role in the human existence than many geopolitical theorists care to recognize.
The reality of technological progress is the end of globalization doesn’t mean a total collapse of global living standards. The world today is too interconnected for that to happen. Instead, the more likely scenario is for trade to become less globalization and more regionalized. A decline in the global order means a rise in regional orders.Power abhors a vacuum. Systems will seek a new equilibrium.
The great challenge facing humanity is that this transition from globalization to regionalization takes time, and typically times of transition are punctuated by acute chaos.
We are now entering a period of geopolitical chaos and uncertainty."
https://shatterpointgeopolitics.substack.com/p/a-roadmap-to-globalizations-end
3. "I had to learn how to build towards financial wellness operating at early-stage startups and working on my own micro fund as an entrepreneur the hard way. Navigating startup liquidity was a scary experience because no one before me had gone through this experience.
Frankly, I’ve never seen wealth transfer between generations. My family has only experienced loss in the form of war, the Cultural Revolution, and immigration. I know I’m not alone in these experiences as so many of my first gen founder friends have confided in me their anxieties around money and a sense of never having enough."
https://bosefina.substack.com/p/the-psychology-of-money-for-first
4. Scary new world we are entering. Autonomous weapons coming.
https://johnrobb.substack.com/p/balloons-and-autonomous-weapons
5. This is a disturbing but incredible interview on the war happening in Mexico right now between the drug gangs and the government there.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9PIOoJMMptA
6. Woke is a joke. This is an important presentation. We need to wake up from this stupidity.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zJdqJu-6ZPo
7. A critical concept for startups. Language market fit.
"It’s language/market fit at work — when you find the exact right words to explain your product or service to prospective customers, words that resonate with goals and struggles that are already in their brains.
When you talk about your product, a lightbulb in their heads switches on that says, “That is EXACTLY what I’m looking for” — they feel like you’ve read their minds.
I myself didn’t realize until I jumped the wall from operator to VC and saw hundreds of early-stage companies, but now it’s clear as day: language/market fit is the most under-appreciated concept for early-stage startups."
8. This is a great and very honest discussion with Chamath. But so many self help, business and investment insights.
One worth listening to. This really makes me like him again.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dz6mfGFri9U
9. "The struggle with the Soviet Union, he calls the “first Cold War.” The second has already started, and the West, he insists, is not the aggressor. “This is not something we chose,” Gallagher said, “the CCP, with their junior partner Russia, have been waging a new cold war against us for the better part of a decade.”
That conflict will remake the world, he warns, “and we are just waking up to that now.”
“We’re not trying to take territory. We’re not trying to reshape a foreign country in our own image. We’re trying to defend the free world from communist, totalitarian aggression,” he said summarizing the emerging power conflict that will define the next century and the mission of his new committee. “That’s what it’s all about.”
https://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2023/02/14/mike_gallagher_a_new_cold_warrior__148856.html
10. "Speed is the single best way to de-risk a startup. The way to survive the unforgiving marathon that is startup life is, paradoxically, to sprint as fast as you can. Speed is a startup's best friend.
Almost everybody in the startup ecosystem agrees that speed is a good thing. Almost nobody acts like it.
We’ve been socialized to believe that going too fast is risky. We fear launching too soon; we abhor looking sloppy; we shy away from criticism; we look for side-quests; we think ‘one more feature’ will save us; we bike-shed. All these tendencies slow us down, but we think they reduce our chance of failure, and more importantly, the appearance of failure.
We forget that for startups, not going fast is riskier still."
https://pivotal.substack.com/p/the-perils-of-prudence
11. "So we have a situation of skyrocketing Russian losses on the offensive for corresponding declining gains. This is the Russian Army declining as an offensive force and the Ukrainian gaining as a defensive force—this is the big story of the last two months—not some ‘massive’ Russian offensive."
https://phillipspobrien.substack.com/p/weekend-update-16-russias-massive
12. Fascinating tweet thread of an obscure but brilliant general in Hapsburg Europe.
https://twitter.com/LandsknechtPike/status/1627303219528359936
13. "But applause can become addicting. And I’ve noticed something unsettling in my many years around musicians. The more they get the acclaim, the more they start needing it. You might think that after all the big paychecks and standing ovations, they would eventually have reached some sense of self-satisfaction that would allow for an easy retirement.
But that’s not true. In fact, the opposite is the more typical case. The more the artists are rewarded, the more they still want. I’m reminded of the quip of Roman epigrammist Martial who said: “Fortune gives too much to many, but enough to none.”
https://tedgioia.substack.com/p/why-musicians-cant-retire
14. Enlightening and sobering lessons in geopolitics from history. This is a great discussion.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3ww4ofe0v70
15. "In our conversation last year, we delved into the nature of the Putin regime, his decision to invade, and what the war could look like as time unfurled.
Now we know: the Russian invasion has been a catastrophe in every sense. There have been hundreds of thousands of casualties––it is folly to attempt a more accurate reckoning––and much of Ukraine’s infrastructure is in ruins.
Once the Russian military failed to achieve its early hope of taking the capital, Kyiv, and supplanting the Ukrainian leadership, it has prosecuted a vicious war of attrition, in which more and more human beings on both sides are sacrificed to Putin’s pitiless ambitions."
https://www.newyorker.com/news/the-new-yorker-interview/how-the-war-in-ukraine-ends
16. A list of the many reasons people hate VCs. I get it.
"Truth be told, you have to find the right fit for your company. Maybe you really need hands on guidance to build, but realistically you can get just as much value out of a VC who makes a few good warm intros, wires you the money, and leaves you alone, as you can from one who wants to call you every week.
VC-Founder fit is majorly underrated. I personally try to let founders in our portfolio build but provide the right safety net and guidance so that I can be the first person off the bench if ever needed. Either way, VCs should be honest about their value adds, and never claim to provide services they don’t. Doing otherwise is just pure deceit to win a deal."
https://medium.com/dam-venture/the-lies-that-make-people-hate-vc-3-3-cf902f91e1f6
17. "In the PLG zeitgeist, founders must not lose sight of the importance of professional services in moving upmarket to enterprise. Services like implementation, training, maintenance and support are paramount to driving retention, expansion, and second order revenue (e.g. referrals, references).
The same principle applies to how professional services are a bridge to multi-year recurring revenue contracts; 'lower' quality professional services revenue begets high quality subscription revenue."
https://akashbajwa.substack.com/p/professional-services-beget-high
18. "My views have not changed, Russian cannot win this war militarily and more likely is still a Ukraine win thru this spring counteroffensive.
But, the most interesting development this weekend was a) talk of a Chinese peace plan, after hints of such by the Chinese foreign minister visiting the Munich security conference. b) Blinken warning that China was about to step up arms supplies to Russia.
I think all this is linked. Russia is losing the war in Ukraine - China does not want Russia to suffer a crushing defeat in Ukraine, which could threaten political stability in Russia itself and thereby weakening the use of its own security pact with Moscow.
And the offer of pe
ace talks is basically China now saying “stop, or else we arm Russia”. Likely this much was communicated to Blinken in Munich by the Chinese. This is meant to get the US and Ukraine to peace talks."
https://timothyash.substack.com/p/war-in-ukraine-china-stepping-in
19. Really solid interview. I always learn from Chamath (both positive and negative)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UQXjZq0D-uA
20. Saudi Arabia is awesome and underrated. Its worth visiting: amazing culture, great food and nice people. I've been here 5 times in last year.
https://www.afar.com/travel-guides/saudi-arabia/guide
21. "Symbols matter: a Kennedy or a Reagan at the Berlin Wall, a Churchill with a cigar and a bowler, for that matter a green-clad Zelensky growling, “I need ammunition, not a ride.” Simply by taking the hazardous trip to Kyiv, Biden made a strategic move of cardinal importance.
The Russia-Ukraine war is not merely a humanitarian calamity, a monstrous collection of crimes against humanity, a gross violation of solemn agreements and international law. It is also a watershed, in which much will be determined about the future of the international system.
It could lead to a very dark place, not different in kind from that of the 1930s and 1940s, if the dictators get their way. But if the liberal democracies unite and display the resolve, enterprise, and military capacity that they have shown before, that outcome can still be avoided."
https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2023/02/biden-ukraine/673135/
22. "I guess also if Chinese threats to arm Russia if the U.S. fails to push Ukraine to the peace table are to mean anything the US has to think that China is serious.
But therein it knows if it goes all in in providing military support for Russia it really will be a new Cold War with the West with Europe forced firmly into the U.S. camp against China and Russia. China will lose whatever remaining leverage it might have with Europe against the US.
And the world would then appear a very dangerous place with two entrenched armed camps marching to the drumbeat of war. Does China em really want that? I don’t think so. So China is not negotiating here from a position of strength either."
https://timothyash.substack.com/p/ukraine-china-and-the-biden-visit
23. "Your workday is comprised of thousands of decisions ranging from very broad to very particular, but each one is a decision that needs to be made. This leads me to a conclusion:
Your job is about making decisions regardless if you are an Individual Contributor or a CEO.
The best products make decisions for me, so I don’t have to. They are opinionated and have sensible defaults. This is because the companies behind them put in the work to make these decisions instead of abdicating them to their customers."
https://substack.piszek.com/p/the-universal-unit-of-work-is-a-decision
24. Good basics for understanding how bonds work. It should be some part of your portfolio.
https://bowtiedbull.substack.com/p/bonds-for-newbies
25. "Some of the sharpest, hardest-working people I know are my tax advisers. No joke. I pay these people six figures, and they routinely save me seven. It’s a great ROI but a drain on society. We’re paying some of our best and brightest to solve problems of our own making — helping rich people navigate a maze other Americans can’t afford to enter. Am I a hypocrite for engaging in these strategies? Maybe. But I’m not going to disarm unilaterally … said every wealthy household.
Substantially reducing tax evasion and corporate tax avoidance could save us $1 trillion per year. That could go a long way toward closing the $1.4 trillion gap between our spending and revenue in 2023, without “raising” taxes at all. Indeed, it would more than pay for our current spending — it’s the $640 billion in interest costs on the debt that drags us back into the red.
Collecting the taxes we’re owed and aligning what’s owed to what’s paid is fundamental to building trust in the government and our institutions — something lacking in the U.S. Edmund Burke, a founding father of conservative thought, was deeply concerned about the stability and legitimacy of government."
https://www.profgalloway.com/taxes/
26. Cogent and sober discussion from US SOF military vet who has also fought in Ukraine recently. #slavaukraini
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r4KsF0DQ_0Y
27. "The thing about jumping through your window when it opens is that it causes it to stay opened longer. Hiring great people raises the bar internally on execution. Growth sustains if not accelerates. Things start to compound more and more. A window that might be open for a few months can stay opened for several.
But eventually the window will close. This is not to say your business isn't still thriving, but the universe has just retracted its cosmic help, moving on to new younger startups whose stars are about align. You'll look back and miss that time when gravity loosened its grip. But hopefully you won't regret not acting on it."
https://sarahtavel.substack.com/p/taking-advantage-when-a-window-opens
28. "In other words, full Chinese support for Russia’s war effort has ominous consequences — both because it commits the West to a slow proxy war in which it’s currently at a disadvantage, and because it signals China’s determination to continue its push to overturn the existing order and rewrite the boundaries of nation-states according to its liking.
In other words, the New Axis is no longer just a hypothetical term; it appears to be a real thing. Very little good will come of that."
https://noahpinion.substack.com/p/china-goes-all-in-on-russias-war
29. "The irony if Putin invaded Ukraine with ambitions to create a Greater Russia, but the end game might prove to be a Lesser Russia with new states emerging across the Russian Federation, mimicking events after 1991 and the collapse of the USSR."
https://timothyash.substack.com/p/putins-war-brings-russias-decline
30. "Looking to the immediate future, there can be no end save victory for Ukraine over Russia. The United States and its allies have committed themselves to Ukraine for the long haul, and they can’t waver now. That means backing Kyiv as long as it takes to win back all of Ukraine’s territory, whether through liberation or negotiation. It also entails membership in NATO (or some other concrete security guarantees) and the European Union, both for geopolitical stability and reconstruction once the war ends.
More broadly, though, the United States and its allies need to act on their understanding of a world changed by the war in Ukraine. Increases in defense spending and production are a must, of course, but we need to reinforce other ties as well — or at least manage disputes and differences on issues like trade far more collegially than we have to date.
Neither the United States nor its allies around the world can delude themselves into thinking that the world will snap back to the way it was a year ago. The post-Cold War world is dead, and there’s no reviving it. We’ve got to forge ahead into this uncharted territory with confidence in ourselves and our values, knowing that we can succeed — and that Ukraine’s fight is truly our own."
https://www.liberalpatriot.com/p/kyiv-stands-strong-proud-tall-and
31. Defensetech is here.
https://andrewglenn.substack.com/p/defense-is-big-business
32. "If we have learned one thing the last year is that all players have moved forward on their intents and ambitions, but only incrementally. The goals have not changed. Russia still wants Ukraine, Ukraine wants its territory back, the West wants that too while boxing in and defanging Putin, while China wants a weaker West and a stronger but not overly dangerous Russia.
None of these objectives are compatible or bridgeable which means there is not even a basic blueprint for a peace deal on the table. The people of Ukraine are thus paying an incredible toll for a shifting global order. It has been a terrible spectacle to watch over the past twelve months and there is no end in sight."
https://pieterdorsman.substack.com/p/one-year-in-ukraine
33. The guys are great when they are talking about tech, VC and SaaS.
I think they are very misinformed when it comes to Ukraine and geopolitics. They are clearly not very international. #Stayinyourlane
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OKshpRGOY0I
34. Good discussion, Ukraine is on the frontlines of the free world, defending itself against an autocratic aggressor. It's sad that many people seem to have forgotten this.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ab24tDK9pV0
35. "This is a major paradigm shift. Companies are selling to the lifestyle, instead of the moment. They’re creating products to help you prove that you’re a member of the community.
And when there’s a new product drop, the community will swarm to purchase and deepen their identity."
https://latecheckout.substack.com/p/why-people-really-buy-your-products
Business and Family, Family and Business: Neither do They Meet
After almost 6 years hiatus (F-ck Covid and the brain dead bureaucrats who shut down the world), I was so happy to meet up with an old friend and Yahoo! colleague who was one of my best mentors and patrons. It was so wonderful to catch up on business and family life. And also to know that I was not the only one with major family challenges. Like myself and many others, Covid lockdowns exacerbated many family issues which we still struggle to fix so many years later.
I’ve long struggled with my so-called work life balance. One of the problems of growing up poor and being an insecure type A with a massive chip on his shoulder. I threw myself into work because it was simple. The scorecard of status and far more importantly, money. So easy to measure how you are doing and in comparison with others. So more work, more money.
The problem with family is there is no clear score card like money or status. You can’t quantify how well you are doing. And if you are a parent, those small issues and traumas of your child could seep into major ones. Ones that you unintentionally exacerbate.
It’s doubly frustrating for someone who used to have the reputation of an effective operator, trouble shooter and fixer in his business career. I’m MR GSD aka “Get Sh-t Done.” Being so focused aka super mission or objective-oriented, that you ignore everything and anything that does that doesn’t help you with hitting your goal.
But you can’t use these tactics and strategies for your home life. In fact, it tends to make things worse as I’ve learned over the last 2 years. It took me a lot of time on the road to hide from family and to process it. Also took a lot of therapy to understand this.
My big lesson: if you want to repair your home life, you have to unlearn all your business thinking, training & instincts. You have to have deep reserves of patience. And you also have to learn to ask good questions and listen deeply. The answers usually aren’t what you want to hear, especially from an angry teen. They say some pretty harsh and painful things I can tell you. It hurts especially bad as you do everything for them and love them so much.
But If you genuinely want to make things right and for them to heal, you have to take responsibility and face up to it. As Ryan Holiday wrote: “Ego is the Enemy.” So crush your ego and focus on improving your family life. Your kid is more than worth it. If you do help your kid, ultimately it’s your second chance to resolve some personal issues of your inner kid too.
Kingmaker: Executing Ruthlessly in the Shadows
Watched this Korean movie about politics during the 1960-1970s, where this brilliant man partners with an opposition politician to rise to the top against an entrenched dominant political party (actually based on the real life story of Kim Dae Jung and his political strategist Uhm Chang-rok). He is ruthless, amoral, orthogonal thinker and does whatever it takes to win. He does it because he believes in his friend who truly wants to make Korea a true democracy. Everyone calls him the Shadow.
To illustrate his tactics: he has his people pretend to be opposition party members and goes around insulting local people to turn them against his opponents. Because his party has no money, they also go back and collect the bribes and gifts given by the dominant party which enrages the people. They rewrap the gifts and then give them out again. He is so cynical and proposes ideas that are so vile and beyond the fold of decency. His tactics are cruel and brutal. But they work. He is a master at reading a situation and understanding the psychology of the people. He says: “A raging bull only sees a waving red flag” as he shapes the people’s perceptions.
I find it interesting that this is more than relevant in our technology, internet and media driven world. We lurch from crisis to crisis, while most of the people are distracted by the “new current thing” whatever it is. Our brains are overwhelmed by the noise and also by dopamine hits.
It’s so hard to think deeply about anything these days. And the powers that be, whether politicians, bureaucrats, media & corporate leaders, banksters, The World Economic Forum; this is exactly where they want the populace to be. Reacting, running to and fro, barely surviving and barely looking past the next weeks or months.
There is a way out for all of us: Do a digital detox, spend time in nature, reading real paper books that meet the “Lindy Effect” of being around for a long time. Learning to think critically and for ourselves.
And frankly speaking, chasing our own goals and ambitions with the ruthlessness that the Shadow engaged in to get his candidate to the top. I realized I lost political games in the past because I had limits while my opponents had none. They beat me because they were more ruthless and amoral. Also probably because they wanted to win more.
There is a great but painful lesson here and it’s wrapped up well by a quote from the movie:
“Doesn’t the word justice belong to the victor. So a successful coup is called a revolution. Our side won so we have justice.”
Marvin’s Best Weekly Reads Feb 19th, 2023
“As we express our gratitude, we must never forget that the highest appreciation is not to utter words, but to live by them.” —John F. Kennedy
Europe needs to wake up & ramp up on defense spending and their militaries. Unfortunately, USA is an unreliable ally, thanks to soulless, evil individuals on the hard left and right. ie. Tucker Carlson et al.
"Militarily, Europe will be able to outmatch Russia — if it tries to do so. The Ukraine war has shown that NATO’s military equipment, culture, and doctrine is superior to that of Russia. The only reason Russia looms so large as a military threat is that commits far more of its economy to its military than European countries do — even East European countries that are under immediate threat from Russia.
In order to stare down Russia over the next two or three decades, Europe must change this mindset completely. The invasion of Ukraine caused the region to unite politically around sanctions and military aid in a way that it hasn’t been united in its entire history. But this isn’t enough; Europe must unite to increase defense spending substantially, and wean itself entirely off of Russian energy."
https://noahpinion.substack.com/p/europe-has-to-stand-against-russia
2. Lots of great insights from a VC who started in 1985. Lots of cycles and lots of learning.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X73seiJW3L8
3. "Of the two leaders – Zelenskiy and Putin – it’s clearly the Ukrainian who is heeding most of the warnings. Perhaps Putin needs to read my book so he can learn this history for himself. Although, since we all hope he keeps performing incompetently, maybe it’s best if he doesn’t."
4. "Layoffs: Unsurprisingly, cuts are still occurring. It’ll be Wall Street cutting more through end of March and the Main Street effects will be seen in the second half of the year. This is how it goes historically: Tech, Wall St. and Mainstreet"
https://bowtiedbull.substack.com/p/2019-vs-2023-more-sec-regulation
5. "In any case, with the Treasury flooding the market with debt and the Fed talking out of both sides of their ass, I would say this future is negative at the margin for risky assets.
That means that, if you are planning to buy risky assets now, you need to be prepared to watch the market very closely and be ready to pound the sell button as soon as the TGA has been completely drawn down to zero but before the debt ceiling is raised."
https://entrepreneurshandbook.co/be-present-aff45d6421b4
6. A must read here. About entrepreneurship and life in a war zone: the Baghdad Country Club.
https://magazine.atavist.com/baghdad-country-club
7. "A strong bridge financing ask paints a clear picture of what the company will do with the money that will change the company’s trajectory and answer some of the big outstanding questions about the business.
In many cases, a strong bridge financing ask explicitly calls for changing something about how the company operates – reducing burn rate, focusing more energy on generating revenue, improving unit economics, or shipping key features or products that will unlock new customer segments."
https://www.charleshudson.net/tips-for-talking-to-your-investors-about-bridges-and-extensions
8. "If you’re bad at picking winners…well, other than considering another line of work, you could eliminate the effect of your decision quality by indexing the market and allocating capital randomly. But, again, it depends on your goal.
If you want to just achieve 1x and avoid losses, create a large portfolio. If you want to achieve 2, 3, 5x, you either need to improve your decision quality or invest in fewer companies and hope for the best."
https://pulse.moonfire.com/972-billion-portfolios-how-to-design-the-optimal-venture-portfolio
9. "So, does this mean venture capital is taking a couple years off? Definitely not. But what becomes more likely is an exacerbated bifurcation between companies that can and can't access capital.
Now just apply that same dichotomy to private companies, and assume its like we're in ~2011-2012. The more pressure there is on capital, the less fluid it is, and the more dramatic people's expectations are for what kinds of companies will get capital."
https://investing1012dot0.substack.com/p/dreaming-of-dry-powder
10. "Russian advances, when they are successful, are incremental, their losses in tanks and aircraft when they engage the Ukrainians are extremely high (especially for tanks) and so far we see no sign of successful combined-arms Russian warfighting which would allow for such an amazing reversal in the course of the war.
Moreover, and I know this is my constant personal bugbear, no one bothered to analyse just how such a massive force of machines would be supplied. Once again, logistics lost out to scary hordes of Russian tanks streaking forward in the popular imagination.
All I can say, is that I see no indication whatsoever that the Russians could attempt such a major, air-armor breakout and exploitation. I don’t see how they could supply it, I don’t see any indication that their army knows how to execute it, and I can't see how the Ukrainians could be caught by surprise were the Russians to attempt it."
https://phillipspobrien.substack.com/p/weekend-update-15
11. "The major things that should be highlighted are as follows:
1) there is no way you should try to retire in a bull market. This typically over-states your net-worth,
2) you should not try to cheap your way to the top since it creates a lifetime of stress,
3) most people severely underestimate how much they can earn as an entrepreneur *IF* they have a successful career based income stream and
4) within the blogosphere, FAT Fire is probably the most respectable as it doesn’t force you to live a boring life forever."
https://bowtiedbull.substack.com/p/retire-with-fire-and-guarantee-a
12. "Additionally, I believe that small businesses are going to come under even more immense pressure. Technology is empowering large companies like Amazon to eat more market share of various industries, so the small business entrepreneur is going to feel the squeeze. They are under attack from an economic standpoint and they are under attack from a competition standpoint.
The competition aspect is a net positive for the consumer, especially when you consider how much improvement to products and services happen via the free market, but the economic pressure is going to be a net negative for the consumer, particularly around increasing prices and an erosion in the quality of service.
Many people I talk to on a daily basis share stories that make you think we are in the 12th round of a title fight. We have been hit in the face over and over again. We can’t see straight and we’re not sure where we are exactly. But be very, very careful — just because we have been beat up economically for the last 14 months doesn’t mean that more pain can’t be on our doorstep."
https://pomp.substack.com/p/inflation-is-destroying-small-business
13. "How do we fix this? Simple. Fix the timing. If your company has a a quarterly business review (QBR) where next-quarter OKRs are discussed and assigned, then ensure the CSAT report arrives days before that meeting.
Better yet, make the CSAT report review a standing item on the QBR agenda. Along with a review of the win/loss report. Time the annual state-of-the-market study so it arrives a week or two before the strategy offsite.
Don’t fight your company’s cadence. Instead, slide into it. Design the surveys to be actionable and time them so they can be. Work with your vendors to move to new timing. Otherwise, you’re spending $50K to dump a report into a drawer (or a PDF into a shared drive)."
https://kellblog.com/2023/02/13/the-key-to-making-market-research-actionable
14. This is an incredibly good commencement speech by Ashton Kutcher.
"And the only thing that provided me with an opportunity to be where I am today was a willingness to throw out the master plan. Now, I didn't throw out the hard work, I didn't throw out the morals, I didn't throw my goals, I didn't throw out my ambition, my drive, my experience. I just threw out the master plan. I'm not saying you're gonna have to do that. But I'm saying having a willingness to do that goes a long ways.
You don't ever have to know what you want to be when you grow up. And the truth is, even if you think you know who you are right now, you're probably wrong. Because you're not who everyone else thinks that you are. In fact, you're probably not who you think you are. And your life will definitely not go as planned."
https://aletteraday.substack.com/p/letter-56-ashton-kutcher-2020
15. We're at war and most people don't know it.
"Today, I stand by all this and will now argue that many of the strange events around UAPs, odd lights in the sky, and other concerning events, are the result of this arms race and the ongoing invisible war that the superpowers are conducting with all this money and new tech in the places the public cannot see: near and far space, across and under the open oceans, within data/cyberspaces, and in, let’s call it, “Spygame land” where spies have returned as a “thing.”
The Chinese “Sky Lanterns” floating across the skies have illuminated a previously invisible arms race and a war that we need to understand."
https://drpippa.substack.com/p/qe-uaps-aliens-and-the-invisible
16. "Knowing that empirical evidence suggests 10 seats is a catalyst for sustained expansion, B2B software companies with PLG motions can take a leaf out of consumer growth playbooks when designing expansion processes.
The starting point is how consumer growth teams think about the adoption funnel."
https://akashbajwa.substack.com/p/consumer-gtm-insights-for-b2b-software
17. This is good news for the Canadian startup scene and most needed.
https://betakit.com/real-ventures-partners-with-panache-inovia-to-relaunch-founderfuel-accelerator
18. Always learn stuff on culture capital and leverage in discussion with Trapital & the NIA boys.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=82LIplhsyNI
19. "So let’s wrap up. If we want to ensure that our market research is actionable, then we need to:
Time its arrival
Study the right questions
Ask those questions in a way that provides action-oriented answers"
https://kellblog.com/2023/02/14/the-keys-to-making-market-research-actionable-part-ii
20. "Now the good news for Ukraine in this coming mess, is that the Russians still don’t seem to be able to patiently assemble well-trained and supported assault forces. Instead, they seem to be feeding troops into combat piecemeal up and down the line as they become available. This was similar to what they did in the Donbas earlier in the war, drip-feeding forces as they arrived.
So until Ukraine gets access to all the new NATO weapons, and can launch operations against Russian logistics and front line forces simultaneously, its probably not a bad thing that the Russians do the attacking. It wont be pretty, and Im sure the same chorus that went nuts over the suppposedly great Popasna breakthrough or the fall of the strategic fortress city of Soledar will continue their bleatings.
However, keep the aid flowing to Ukraine, increase their range and capabilities (yes ATACMS would be the ultimate) and the war is still heading strategically in the direction of Ukrainian success."
https://phillipspobrien.substack.com/p/weekend-update-14
21. Learning from investing vets. This is really invaluable. Surviving cycles.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1N3POLPxYlY&t=90s
22. "Incidentally, it’s hilarious to me that something so catastrophic (100% capital loss for all investors) is almost celebrated in the VC world. As if a zero-recovery outcome is acceptable, at all for any purpose in any scenario for investment, rationalized by the dartboard-portfolio mentality of “well we’ll have a bunch of zeroes in the book but we’ll also find the next Google!” O.K."
And then the SaaS business came along. Revisiting the 2020-2022 period of excess in public markets, several phenomena informed professional investment decision-making, combined with markedly higher interest rates, that contributed to the eventual collapse of the Unprofitable Tech Company (“UTC” as a catchall for anything that traded on a EV/S or EV/GP multiple in 2021)."
https://variances.substack.com/p/revisiting-unprofitable-businesses
23. Sounds about right.
“We expect there’s going to be an increasing number of zombie VCs; VCs that are still existing because they need to manage the investment they did from their previous fund but are incapable of raising their next fund,” Maelle Gavet, CEO of the global entrepreneur network Techstars, told CNBC.
“That number could be as high as up to 50% of VCs in the next few years, that are just not going to be able to raise their next fund,” she added."
24. His messaging can be bombastic and too certain but there is alot of good research here. De-globalization is happening.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pw9piPgOPeY
25. "Anecdotally, LP’s are really annoyed by all these data points and indicators showing how atrocious venture capital is as an asset class. And with rising rates, LP’s will definitely choose to pause or pull back the percentage of allocation they’re dedicating to venture. With the risk-free rate of return going up 225 basis points last year, and not projected to go down anytime soon, LP’s can sit on the sidelines and wait it out until better times come around.
At the end of the day, a lot of the issue here is with venture itself. VC’s are trained to think about power laws—the fact that most of your fund will be returned by 1 or a few investments. That has created a sort of power law effect in venture capital as well; 31% of funds between 05 & 2015 have a IRR above 20%, and the top 10% returned 35%+ IRR.
Over time, LP’s will start holding out for allocation into the best performing funds, and nothing else. And over time, that’ll cause a lot of funds to evaporate."
https://workweek.com/2023/02/17/lps-are-pissed-off-rightfully-so
The Pitfalls of Hero Worship & Human Models: There is Always a Price
I think growing up, and even as adults, we all have heroes we worship. Whose lives we aspire to and want to live. For me, in the last decade and half it was Tim Ferriss, GaryVee and Elon Musk of course. Which tech person does not want to be Elon Musk, the real life Tony Stark and Iron man. Billionaire Tech industrialist, social media genius with millions of followers who literally is trying to save human civilization. Whose literal tweet can shape the world that few politicians in the world can.
But like many heroes, you have to scratch much deeper. You can’t just have one part of that life, you have to take the whole thing. As much as I would love the billions of dollars, the incredible impact and influence, there is a trade off like everything in life. No more anonymity. No more just going to the grocery store or mall or local restaurant without being mobbed by paparazzi or fans. Let’s also not talk about how your entire romantic life is now under scrutiny + the 3 divorces because your waking hours are consumed by your multitude of business interests.
That’s what it takes. We only see the tip of the iceberg. Or better put, we only see the culmination of their success and not the whole journey. We see the last year of their 20 year journey.
I think about my own life on social media. I get to travel around the world for my business interests and to speak at conferences. I get to invest and work with awesome people and companies. I get to see amazingly beautiful places in the world. How lucky am I?
But I should add this life came at a cost. It took at least 16 years of working 80 to 100 hour work weeks. It took lots of time away from family and home, missing critical years and events in my daughter’s life that I can never get back. It’s led to fractured and challenging home life which is maybe why I continue to travel so much (we’re all cowards sometimes).
Yet I’m very grateful for this life that I have, I have to take personal responsibility for this. No one put a gun to my head to do this. And overall, I’m where I am and who I am, because of these choices. But for anyone reading this, especially if you are young, “Hero Worship” and modeling can be a useful tool.
Yet you also have to make sure you recognize its limitations too. Understand the price you will have to pay to reach their heights. You will pay a price for whatever you want. Make sure you do it knowingly and intentionally.
The Best Things in Life are Surprises: Overturning Mental Paradigms
2013 was a magical year, it was the second year of my sabbatical post Yahoo! & i was spending the time angel investing, mentoring at various startups and speaking at a bunch of conferences around the world. As travel is a big part of my life, I did spend a large portion of the time on the road. And this was the year I ended up visiting Tehran, Iran; Tbilisi, Georgia and Minsk, Belarus for the first time in my life. These places blew my mind and overturned everything I thought they were.
It’s so easy to have misconceptions about a place and people in your mind. You have personal bias but also a lot of media-driven biases on what a place is like. This is thanks to the overall big media and Hollywood using stereotypes that get seared into our brains. How many people remember that the bad guys at least through the 90s and 2000s were Arabs or Iranians. Or all the stereotypes propagated about the ex-Soviet Union countries, that the cities were bland, the people were boring and or oppressed. Or worse, that they are all criminals, terrorists or scam artists who hate the West. It takes travel to these places & meeting people there to quickly overturn these outdated and frankly jingoistic views.
I found myself in a similar situation in 2022. I went to Saudi Arabia twice after a lot of cajoling by my friend and business partner Fares and it was amazing. You have those views that the place is austere, colorless, oppressive and strict. It was so far away from this. Saudi Arabia has a very young and well educated population, women wearing regular clothes ie. no abaya. Plus there is a forward thinking government that banned the religious police and the austere book of Wahhabi. Such an amazing & rich culture, as well as friendly and welcoming hospitality that reminds me much of Asian culture. The business culture was changing fast and the opportunity there was massive. I was so impressed and eager to get back. This was far from the place and outdated view that most of America or the world pictures hold in their mind.
I also had the chance to visit Tirana, Albania after a 9 year hiatus. I was first there in 2013 and I will have to admit it was pretty drab and blah, to the point I felt no need to return. But fast forward to 2022, I had a chance to return to Tirana after being invited to speak at the Tirana Digital Nomad Festival (thank u Grant!). And WOW.
The Tirana of today is literally like day and night compared to the city of yesteryears. It is a thriving youth-driven city, full of modern art, cool architecture, great weather, lots of great restaurants and cafes full of young beautiful people eager and optimistic about the future. What a change and one driven by a young technocratic government and many returnee Albanians from abroad. This is going to be a major thriving place for the future. And I have definitely fallen in love with this city.
The point of all this is not to brag about my world travels, as much fun as they are. But about the importance of getting out of your bubble and trying to challenge your beliefs. The best deals I’ve done and business opportunities were ones that were unexpected. The best relationships I’ve had came out of nowhere. All my favorite places in the world came about as surprises. But they all changed my life in wonderful ways.
The reason for these wonderful surprises may be because my expectations were so low or that I had no expectations at all. Life is better when you are surprised. And it’s easier to be surprised when you have zero to no expectations. Seems to be a life lesson here somewhere.
Net net: Get out of your bubble and travel. Learn to think for yourself and be wary of media and stereotypes. Stay present and have no expectations. In fact, just be very open to the unexpected and life will take care of the rest!
Marvin’s Best Weekly Reads Feb 12th, 2023
“The deepest craving of human nature is the need to be appreciated.” —William James
"Coming from the grow-at-all-costs for several years to the current grow-reasonably-efficient times, making the leap to EBITDA multiples isn’t as dramatic, but it’s still problematic with so many software companies burning cash."
https://davidcummings.org/2023/02/04/thinking-ebitda-multiples-for-saas-at-scale
2. "My base case is Russia launches a new offensive this month, and Ukraine exploits that to its advantage - trying to split Russian forces, perhaps a thrust South thru Zaporizhiya to cut the land corridor to Crimea for Russia.
I do think we are reaching a decisive moment in this conflict though. I think the next couple of months will be critical in defining this war. This latter outcome could still have global market impact though as markets fret about a descent into a scenario where the West and NATO are increasingly brought into this conflict by Russia’s continuous aggression."
https://timothyash.substack.com/p/decisive-battles-are-looming-in-ukraine
3. "One flaw in Zeihan’s worldview is that he ignores culture, technology, and institutions. Zeihan has no model for AI or crypto or biotech or any fundamentally altering technology. Similarly, when Zeihan talks about demographics he only talks about quantity, he doesn’t talk about quality.
This doesn’t factor into account drug addiction, homelessness, fatherlessness, and other illnesses that can plague a population. In the same way a 12 person team like Instagram can outcompete a thousand-person company like Kodak, it doesn’t make sense to evaluate populations merely on a quantitative basis.
Similarly, geographic determinism alone can’t explain a country’s success: Japan is on rocks, Singapore has no natural resources, Israel is in a desert, and still they all kick ass relative to countries with lots of “young people” and “natural resources”. If Zeihan were right that natural resources and birth rates were all that mattered, Venezuela and Iraq and Brazil would be major world powers. And yet they aren’t.
Similarly, America’s geography is not only luck, it’s because of the Monroe Doctrine and many other efforts to keep Latin America a backwater. Or in other words, the product of culture, technology, and institutions."
https://eriktorenberg.substack.com/p/our-deglobalized-future
4. "The tools that Yohei is building for himself are a prime early example of this dynamic in action. He told me that, as a venture capitalist, “Time is the number one blocker. If you can unlock time, you’re instantly better at your job.”
That’s exactly what AI is enabling him to do. What might not have been possible for a small VC firm a few years ago might be eminently possible in a year or two if these tools continue to develop.
To be sure, the bots he’s building are early prototypes. They require more work and polish to function perfectly. But they’re already allowing him to spend less time on tasks that he doesn’t want to do—and more on the ones that he’s uniquely good at: sourcing deals and deciding on investments."
https://every.to/chain-of-thought/this-vc-is-slowly-automating-their-job
5. "You have a duty to the blood. To not go silently into the night. To live the American Warrior Ethos. The ethos that won’t let itself be tread upon by tyrants, even if they are our own. It ain’t so much that we dislike kings — we dislike tyrants. We get behind the right type of man who honored what’s in the blood. Washington would have been made king if he had wanted it.
Take this to heart. If you don’t own a weapon, change that. If you aren’t strong and fit, change that. The Greek hoplite spent the amount it takes to buy a car to provision himself with armor and weapons.
What should the modern hoplite equip himself with? Guns, armor, and night vision seem to be the top three. Don’t forget also to have friends who will fight at your side.
It’s important to train. To master your craft as a warrior. This world we live in sets you up for failure."
https://resavager.substack.com/p/sons-of-the-frontier
6. An excellent set of predictions for Silicon Valley & tech in 2023. Worth a read.
"Silicon Valley thrives again in 2024. While I believe 2023 will be a tough, character-building year for startups, we must remember that this is simply another cycle of creation and destruction in Silicon Valley. The bad news is that companies will be increasingly faced with difficult, sometimes existential, decisions.
The good news for me (at least) is that demand for gray hair seems to go up when the markets go down. The good news for everyone is that this is simply a cycle, one from which we shall emerge, and when we do so, the world we emerge into will be more rational and fundamentals-focused."
https://kellblog.com/2023/02/02/kellblog-predictions-for-2023
7. China and the CCP is the enemy of the west. No way around that fact.
"So Cold War 2 is a reality, and we’re all living in it right now. If history is any guide, expect at least the next three decades to be defined by mutual U.S.-China distrust and tensions rather than re-engagement or cooperation against shared challenges.
China’s leaders may wish they could take a mulligan and reset things to the trajectory of 2015 or 2017, but eventually they will realize that they can’t, and their tone will likely turn frosty again.
Meanwhile, Americans will likely continue to see events like the Spy Balloon in a more negative, threatening light than they would have in earlier decades."
https://noahpinion.substack.com/p/you-are-now-living-through-cold-war
8. Brave men here doing important work.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/feb/04/ukraine-special-forces-russia-border
9. Listening to this interview is an excellent school on seed VC investing.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4OFiYCqrzfw
10. "Look, I think investing is really simple. Buy cheap assets that are inflecting positively. That’s all you need to know. Everything else is superfluous, an own-goal; often designed to further the marketing efforts of your fund or convince yourself that you can out-think the market.
Far too often, investors dive into the minutiae around them and lose sight of their overriding goal; buy cheap assets that are inflecting positively.
I wish that more investors could be honest about how best to run a portfolio. In my opinion, you hoard liquidity, wait until it’s obvious and then pounce. Everyone knows this is how it works, everyone worships Buffett for having done it, yet few investors seem capable of following such a simple script.
Then again, if this game were easy, there wouldn’t be opportunities. When today’s buyers get pressed against the wall, that’s when I want to buy. Until then, I’m waiting until it’s obvious.
In summary, there’s nothing wrong with saying, “I just don’t know.”
https://adventuresincapitalism.com/2023/02/01/i-just-dont-know
11. This is a must watch. A Masterclass in tech investing with VC legend Bill Gurley.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HSVFZ2Qbv3I
12. And the AI race is on. Well it’s been on for a while but these are the visible signs things are happening now.
https://www.linkedin.com/news/story/google-invests-300m-in-chatgpt-rival-6154898
13. "However, as we have seen from the first day of this invasion, Putin wanting battlefield victories and Putin getting battlefield victories are two very different things. The courage, resilience and ingenuity of the Ukrainian Armed Forces (supported with western weapons and munitions) has seen to that.
Despite the influx of tens of thousands of mobilised troops, it is highly likely that there will again be a gap between Putin’s expectations for the 2023 offensive operations of the Russian military in Ukraine, and their capacity to actually deliver their results."
https://mickryan.substack.com/p/divining-russias-main-effort-in-2023
14. "If you believe you are subject to a Psy-Op one of the best thing you can do is relax. Take a break from the stress of the world enjoy your favourite hobby, a good book, exercise and take in nature. If someone or something is trying to put stress on your mind do the opposite.
Recharge constructively so you are not dependent on anything or anyone. Take care of yourself for doing so is in of itself an act of rebellion. Remedy the stress if possible, preferably at the root cause."
https://medium.com/@Kairon/defending-yourself-against-psychological-operations-dcc116c6cf0b
15. Lots of knowledge bombs here. It is a good discussion to understand the world we are in. Many folks really are stuck in the matrix.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3B-qQ96ytqs
16. "The story of the seemingly innocuous balloons is also taking place against the backdrop of substantial military positioning in the Pacific between the US and China. I flew over the Pacific twice this week from LA to Hawaii, Hawaii to San Fran and San Fran to Seoul. It seems to calm and peaceful, but the reality is that there is a massive build-up of military power underway by China and by the US.
This is The Invisible War that we occasionally get brief glimpses of. China’s Sky Lanterns illuminated this fact."
https://drpippa.substack.com/p/sky-lanterns-fu-go-wind-ships-drones
17. Web 3 could be the way forward for Japan.
"Japan has been struggling with how to regain the tech primacy it enjoyed in the later decades of the 20th century, when it was widely seen as the world’s most high-tech society. As the world copes with a new wave of digital technologies, Kishida sees a fresh opening for Japan to reassert itself."
18. Words have power. This is well worth reading. For startups and for life.
https://deepgreencrystals.com/2021/12/09/9-everyday-words-that-fck-up-your-life/
19. Lots of breaking points in de-globalization process. This is an in-depth presentation from Zeihan.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DXtScb_IZdg
20. Interesting conspiracy theory: just because we can does not mean we did. Guess we will never know.
https://seymourhersh.substack.com/p/how-america-took-out-the-nord-stream
21. "People love any technology that enables laziness. I remember when Starbucks went public I called a friend of mine who was an investment banker and asked if I should buy it.
He said, "They're selling a legal addictive drug that you pay like 20 times what it costs to make at home because it's convenient..."
Though you can make coffee at home that is cheaper, people can pick it up via drive-thru and are literally addicted to it.
It's the same with Amazon, PayPal, or Docusign. Any company which enables people to be lazy can potentially be a phenomenal business."
22. An excellent episode on the edge of the internet. NIA.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nrmbvzXobBY&t=2477s
23. History does seem to repeat itself.
Amateurs Versus Professionals: You Need Both on Your Investing Team
You can tell the difference between amateur and professional when it comes to investing. It’s in the attitude & energy levels.
An amateur brings enthusiasm and energy as they are learning. They come with new ideas because they don’t know what works as they have no experience. But because of this they are unpredictable and honestly erratic. Hard to count on them. But the right & good amateur sheds a new light on problems. And usually brings energy to make up for their lack of experience. Hopefully also a good attitude and openness to learning. Without this, they are NGMI (Not Going to Make It)! They definitely will not last long enough to make the transition to a professional in the business.
A professional has a “been there and done that’ mentality and wide body of knowledge and patterns to tap into. They know the textbook because they wrote the textbook (or at least copied the textbook). But the danger is the world changes very fast and these textbooks can get outdated very fast, especially when it comes to technology. Also their experience can easily turn into arrogance or “know it all-ism.” This is incredibly dangerous. There are many previously massively successful investors & founders in Silicon Valley, now widely seen to be very irrelevant these days. Their previous success blinds them to the new trends and startups that are fast emerging. You have to be hustling and working on this all the time. You have to love the game.
I started off as an awful amateur angel investor back in the 2012-ish timeframe and transitioned into a so-called professional investor as a Partner at 500 Startups. But honestly, I was still a rank amateur and I threw myself into learning the venture investing business. It took doing a lot of crappy deals, a lot of reading, a lot of podcast listening and lots of mentoring from REAL VCs to get remotely decent.
But somewhere along the line, I fell in love with this business. I’ve said it before, it’s a hard business to get really good at. But it’s the ultimate “Human Potential” business, you get to meet and invest in some of the brightest young and old talent across the globe. And if you do this well, everyone makes money. What is better than that?
Self knowledge and knowing where you sit on the amateur to professional continuum is really important. So be humble, be self aware and be prepared to work your butt off. But if you do it well, the rewards in both financial, emotional and psychic impact are so worth it. I feel so grateful and lucky to be doing this as a vocation.
The Dangerous Power of Myths & Narratives: Don’t Overestimate Your Competition
I track the heinous Russian invasion of Ukraine very closely. And from day one, we have for the most part seen the Russian armed forces getting crushed. Underperforming in leadership, in logistics and in combined arms tactics. All the things we would expect in a well run modern military.
Yet before the invasion, everyone in the world was convinced the Russian army was an unstoppable horde that was going to overrun Ukraine in a matter of days. Of course Russia, being a top 3 military, was going to crush the Ukrainian military, considered by many experts to be 2nd rate and substantially weaker.
All the experts were thankfully wrong, as they underestimated the growing professionalism and morale of the Ukrainian armed forces. And these same experts, dramatically overestimated that of the Russians. But this bias has affected our policy of support and driven a lot of fear across the Western capitals and by media pundits. All this came from dangerous myths around the invincibility of Russian armed forces.
Reminds me of a story of old Russian tsar Ivan the Terrible & his Oprichniki personal guard.
Well armed, with the best technology and weapons, they terrorized the Russian nobles and peasants who despite outnumbering them by magnitudes. These masses never fought back because of the myths of superiority and fears propagated by the orthodoxy. Basically, they bought into the Oprichniki belief of superiority and toughness.
But when the Oprichniki faced the Mongol Crimean Golden Horde in war, they were absolutely destroyed, despite outgunning the tartars, who were only armed with bows and arrows.
“Kinetically speaking they had overwhelming superiority. Guns, cannons, much heavier armor or weaponry. Their defense and firepower was very much stronger. But they were routed in one day simply by arrows. Because they were used to fight people whose myth prohibited to resist them.
Within the Muscovite mythology Oprichniks were invincible untouchable demigods, as hands of Orthodox Tsar, who's kinda living God. But when facing foreign enemy they left this mythological space. And entered a new space where they are just people and can get arrow in the face.
They were not used to getting arrows in the face. The very realisation they are not demigods but mortals shocked them. They ran away dropping their armor, guns and cannons. Moscow was burnt to the ground despite having total "kinetic" and technological superiority”
(Source: https://twitter.com/kamilkazani/status/1498076089842761731)
It was because the warriors of the Golden Horde did not know the myths of the black guard and just fought with the ferocity they normally fought with. They had high morale and were not cowed, so they won.
It’s the same way of the new kid coming to a new school, who ends up beating up the bully who has never been challenged before by the previous kids. Everyone previously was so cowed by his reputation they never fought back. But once the mystique was broken, the bully loses all his power.
Check out what happened to Mike Tyson. Considered by many to be the “Baddest man on the planet” and dominant in the 1980s. But as his personal life dissolved, he stopped training and rested on laurels. Then he met Buster Douglas in 1990 where he was beaten in an upset. My recollection back then was that he never fully recovered from this.
The lesson for all of us is that overestimating our competitors and opponents can just be as dangerous as underestimating them.
I think about the common but awful question that investors ask startup founders: “What happens if Google/Facebook/Microsoft/Amazon/Apple comes into this space?”
The reality is that these are big massive companies that are bureaucratic, risk averse and unable to act quickly or even stick with things long enough to make it really work when it gets hard. The project which is small in the bigger scheme of things of their organization and thus not a priority in most cases.
So it can be much easier than you think to overtake them with your own focus, hardwork and commitment. Basically, don’t be intimidated too much and definitely don’t buy into their myth of invincibility. Have respect for your competitors but trust in your own abilities and be decisive. Do this and you will overcome and win!
Marvin’s Best Weekly Reads Feb 5th, 2023
“No matter how hard the past is, you can always begin again.” – Buddha
Pretty insightful discussion on VC investing over 25 years. Lots of learnings from investing through cycles.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y7cYktHhp0E
2. "In the 1990s, the sociologist Andre Gorz argued that most people live in what he called “wage-based societies.” What determined membership in such a society was participation in formal work. Put more simply, to be a good person, thou shall be employed. This was undoubtedly a hidden force that held the ideas in Ferriss’s book from reaching mass adoption.
But for the first time, the conventional thinking that it is taboo to question these 20th-century scripts is starting to evaporate.
Once I realized I was trying to escape work, I leaned in a different direction. I embraced a principle I now call “design for liking work.” The reality is that most people want to be useful, and that means some form of work in people’s lives.
With patience and a willingness to feel lost and take it slow, over the last few years, I started to find a better relationship with work. Inspired by ideas from internet writers, poets, books on spirituality and religion, my own writing, self-experiments, and those conversations with internet friends from around the world, I’ve been able to build a life I am excited to keep living."
https://every.to/p/the-great-contemplation
3. "Investors’ sentiment has now shifted towards looking for a faster path to profitability as sustainability is now the name of the game (don’t die)."
https://iterativeventure.substack.com/p/how-to-do-it-fundraising-in-2023
4. "We aren’t going to shrink our way out of climate change, income inequality, or any crisis. The solution is more. Specifically, more people who generate ideas that make the world more productive — ideas that let us do more with less. Stanford economist Charles Jones has shown that what generates prosperity is, ultimately, ideas — and ideas are the product of brains. More brains, more ideas.
However, we’re in danger of running out of ideas because, well … we’re running out of people."
https://www.profgalloway.com/more-babies
5. "So, is U.S. hegemony eternal? Of course not. But, if U.S. hegemony is required for the existence of globalization, what happens when U.S. hegemonic power begins to fade? It means we’re witnessing the death throes of globalization.
Here's the thing: the end of American hegemony doesn't mean the end of American preeminence. The international system is in the process of transitioning from a hegemonic, imperial structure to a multipolar system where the U.S. remains the Principate, that is the first among equals. America may face challenges from up-and-coming power such as China, but its position on the North American continent provides incomparable opportunities.
The domestic cultural, economic, and political dynamics of the U.S. have international consequences. Rising social discord, both present and future, will hamstring America's ability to project power abroad. For this reason alone, the era of hegemony is coming to an end."
https://shatterpointgeopolitics.substack.com/p/hegemony-is-globalizations-lifeblood
6. "But there is a deep irony to America's schizophrenic foreign policy: America has been so successful in achieving its core geopolitical objectives that it can afford to act like a drunken sailor on the world stage.
Think about that. American power is so overwhelming that it can suffer foreign-policy blunders without significant consequences to its status as the world's sole superpower. That's not to say these setbacks don't add up over time. Certainly, America's relative power compared to the rest the world is diminishing at an alarming rate.
Nevertheless, despite the missteps of the past few decades, America remains humanity's preeminent power."
https://shatterpointgeopolitics.substack.com/p/american-foreign-policy-interests
7. Good geopolitical overview and a case for a bright future for Brazil.
https://www.thelykeion.com/geopolitical-campaigns-and-why-we-still-like-brazil
8. Still, it’s about time we start to see some VC money here. Defense is true ESG as Ukraine has shown us.
"Even if VCs are getting more comfortable backing dual-use companies, the traditional 10-year VC fund cycle is often too short a timeframe for a defence startup to successfully commercialise its tech and exit."
https://sifted.eu/articles/vc-investments-in-defence-startups
9. The USA is behind the curve here. We need to ramp up our defense industrial base ASAP as we are already in a Gray war with China. Peace through strength.
"The U.S. defense-industrial base is not ready for a battle over Taiwan, as it would run out of key long-range, precision-guided munitions in less than one week, according to a new report by the Center for Strategic and International Studies."
10. "Given all these challenges, what are the odds for the world to achieve the rapid, massive and unprecedented increase in the production of copper that is required to make current plans feasible?
You be the judge.
The most likely outcome seems to be that we will see a mixture of these potential scenarios. We are unlikely to see the kind of copper shortage that predictions based on current demand estimates and current technologies foresee, nor will we see a quick, smooth path towards new technologies and commodities replacing copper. The chips usually fall somewhere in the middle between such extremes.
There'll probably be enough of a shortfall to exert upward
pressure on copper prices for at least a good number of years.
In which case, copper-related assets are an investment you should look at."
https://www.undervalued-shares.com/weekly-dispatches/copper-a-looming-shortage
11. When do financial sanctions work or not? An important tool of geopolitics highly relevant to today.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GqJOQT1P-7I
12. "So in conclusion, I think those in the West calling for restraint in arming Ukraine with the armaments to win this war because of concern how defeat would go down in Russia, and what this could all mean for stability in Russia, are either plain wrong or just agents of Russian influence.
We should not change our actions from what is in our interest, because of worries about hypothetical outcomes in Russia - which in the end have as good a chance of being positive as negative.
We should focus on what is in our best interests, and defending Ukraine, and the West through our support for Ukraine is now absolutely in our best interest. And if Ukraine defeats Russia, as I think it will, and Putin falls from power as one of the consequences of his actions, I think that is a positive for the West."
https://timothyash.substack.com/p/dont-worry-about-a-russian-defeat
13. These folks are the best. Random but I admire skill in whatever people do.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SBTYRrsUWgA
14. "Yes, Japan faces a tremendous re-allocation challenge. The gap between high-performers and low-performers will probably rise. Japan will give up a little bit of the “good” outlined in the previous post to my Davos-bound friend to correct the “bad” outlined to my concerned technocrat friend in this one.
I remain a Japan optimist because I trust entrepreneurs and next-generation business leaders will work hard to correct the bad while the technocrats will keep working overtime to preserve the good."
https://japanoptimist.substack.com/p/japan-reality-check-3-what-is-japans
15. "Well, you say, who would want to listen to my kitchen conversation? Well, I say, if you are an accountant, a lawyer, a banker, an investment banker, or a fund manager, you probably have exactly the sort of information about the deals that matter most.
Or, let’s say you work for a security firm, and someone wants to know the movements of who or what you are guarding. Or, perhaps, you work in a mining company, and someone wants to know about your geologist’s reports.
The list is endless. If a state wants to outbid competitors for a port in Africa for an agribusiness in Latin America, the people with the greatest insight are the target. That’s not the government officials. That’s the people working on the deal.
The bottom line is this. It’s not just Google and Apple, and Facebook who want your data so they can make a fortune from it. The fridge has become the place where state intelligence apparatus, organized crime, and hackers converge on you. Welcome to the new Cold War. It’s in your fridge. Oh, and now the following electronics, among many others, also track, record, film, and reveal what’s going on in your life:
--Rubbish bins
--Lights
--Home Connectivity
--TV Screens"
https://drpippa.substack.com/p/the-new-cold-war-its-in-your-fridge
16. This is a cogent discussion on how to invest in an emerging multipolar world and stupid ideology driven economics ie. ESG.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jkMqNa8uK1c
17. Poland is becoming a major player in the defense industry. Also a major player geopolitically in Europe. Period.
https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-covert-polish-repair-shop-patching-up-ukrainian-arms-11674920742
18. Always lots of nuggets of insight from Luke Belmar. He is a very smart dude. Learn to level up all aspects of your life.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bpVWOkX0ltg
19. Semiconductors are the new spice. This is a signal of the changing nature of the global economy and deglobalization.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fFCJoq9iaik&list=RDCMUCsy9I56PY3IngCf_VGjunMQ&start_radio=1
20. "But now in 2023, there’s lower opportunity costs to leaving/starting something new when your public company RSUs or growth stage options are blown up. Conversely, your prospects are much worse in the event that you can’t raise or the company doesn’t work out after you do.
This means that right now, the opportunity cost for pursuing a good idea is very low and the consequences of failing with a bad one are very high.
So it’s an amazing time to be a founder for the right business with the right characteristics. It’s a terrible time to start speculative businesses, bank shots/double back flips, or anything that needs capital as a differentiator. But for things that score well on capital efficiency, path to revenue, value proposition, etc., it’s an incredible moment to bet the farm and start a company.
The trick is telling them apart.
That requires extra work upfront to gather signals and data. Make this investment like any other: through rigor and due diligence. Take more time and do more work to determine if you have a winner (remember, the signal will be harder to come by but more meaningful if you do) and then hunt it down.
When bullets are more expensive, make sure you’ve got an elk and not a squirrel before you fire one. Seek out folks who can help you spot the difference."
https://subscriptions.theinformation.com/newsletters/slow-snail-mail/archive/the-best-time-to-build
21. Impressive vc fund here. So many great investors here in SV.
https://techcrunch.com/2023/01/25/kearny-jackson-sriram-krishnan-sunil-chhaya
22. "Every day we see signs in the press of ancient empires springing back to life."
https://drpippa.substack.com/p/the-empire-strikes-back
23. Talk about patience here. Guess they know about historical cycles and human tendencies.
"OIP built up a huge private arsenal, banking on there one day being demand for the weapons again"
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/jan/31/ukraine-europe-tanks-belgian-buyer-oip
24. China's CCP ham handedness is buying the West time. Let's not squander it.
https://www.foreignaffairs.com/asia/china-indo-pacific-folly
25. "Simply disbelieving the lies of our overlords is insufficient. To be useful in the rebellion, the smart dissident must take care of your own health and well-being. Rid yourself of self-destructive habits like porn, overeating, overindulgence of alcohol/drugs, or excessive social-media consumption.
Discipline yourself to eat clean, and commit to daily bodyweight calisthenics - push-ups and squats are inexpensive ways to harden your body, and a man who pushes himself to his limit every day will over time accumulate a massive advantage over our soy-swilling, internet-addicted, porn guzzling foes.
Learn to be cunning and hide your power level, while quietly identifying other allies in your neighborhood. Online friendly partisans are fine - but true friendships come from building real relationships with capable dissident men who live within your neighborhoods and willing to defend each others’ homes in emergencies.
Level yourself up for what is to come."
https://kaichang.substack.com/p/the-dissidents-handbook
26. Badasses from history.
"These men lived different lives, were born in different times and fought under different banners. But they all had one thing in common. When the time finally came, they all knew how to die with dignity. Decades of war experience prepared them for that moment."
https://aristocraticfury.substack.com/p/veteran-warriors-who-died-fighting
27. "You are betting on Google failing. If you think that isn’t a great decision on day one, then feel free to read on for why we think this is the case.
Open AI: We agree with a lot of the proof points from BowTiedSystems, if you can use it to improve sales letters and solve other complex problems it certainly has a use case. The problem to us is really this “who owns the best data”. There are really only a few companies that own the most data: 1) China, 2) Google, 3) Apple and 4) perhaps - Microsoft/Amazon
OpenAI Is effectively trying to create a new massive search system. We really doubt that Google is simply going to sit back and give up all of its market share. Google spends ungodly amounts of money making sure it is #1 in search and they do their best to expand the definition of search to newspapers and other old delivery systems to try and claim they are not a monopoly (they are pretty much a monopoly on internet search in our opinion)"
https://bowtiedbull.substack.com/p/chatgpt-potential-issues-you-are
28. Wow, this movie looks good. But also makes me angry and sad for all the Afghans the USA abandoned to the F--ing Taliban......
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=02PPMPArNEQ
29. Learning from fellow dotcom bust survivors. 2001 just sucked beyond anything I've ever experienced.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oukr4t4h8mo
30. Controversial to say the least. But a good macro view.
He has a big media following and has leveraged this to clean up investment-wise in last decade from SPACs (at the expense of the sheeple who followed him).
Lesson to learn here: watch what people do, not what they say. Caveat emptor as always.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XJXRg8xbEqo
31. More Zeihan geopolitical discussions. Jordan Harbinger is a great interviewer.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uS4Vw6cuW4M
32. Excellent episode. I agree with them that it's gonna get even more ugly in Silicon Valley.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ymo6Yzjv_KY
33. Important thread & explanation on the upcoming blood bath in Silicon Valley (it’s already ugly right now)
Better to invest in Yourself First: You are the Best Returning Asset
I learned so much from Alex Hormozi. Like many insights, this is stuff I wish I learned WAY earlier in my career and life.
I want to share some of his great tweets:
https://mobile.twitter.com/AlexHormozi/status/1486192337638150144
https://mobile.twitter.com/AlexHormozi/status/1535609572869607424
https://mobile.twitter.com/AlexHormozi/status/1524419122745864193
The idea is for the first 5 or so years, you should prioritize investing in your ability to increase cash flow and earning capacity. You invest in yourself first. You are your business and hopefully it starts to generate massive cash flow. Only then do you invest in other assets such as real estate, startups, stocks etc.
You do this by paying for classes, masterminds, conferences and access. Basically for as much learning and access to amazing people and networks as possible.
If you do this, you have way more money to invest in these other assets. I can attest because I did this exactly the opposite and wrong way.
What’s the point of putting in a few hundred or thousand bucks into the stock market? Or what I did, which was sell a bunch of my Yahoo! options and put it into illiquid real estate. The issue is that when I had the inevitable tenant and vacancy issues, it came back to wreck my cash flow. Cashflow which was severely constrained by a stupidly extravagant lifestyle at that time & one I’ve since fixed. And then on top of that being a very illiquid asset as well.
It’s about scale and leverage. More money in, the higher the level of money you get back if you get returns. Less money in, lower level of possible returns. It’s that simple. Yes, I know that whole thing about compound interest over time. But over a small amount, it actually does not matter nor is it impactful.
So net net: invest in yourself, build massive cash flow. And only then, invest that cash flow into financial assets. This is the framework for financial independence and wealth. Simple but not easy.
Good Times Create Weak People: The Reckoning in Silicon Valley
Investors, Startup Founders, Tech employees. It’s been a big party for the last 13 years, and particularly from 2019 to 2022, with the exception of the strange covid global lockdown driven lull in Q2, 2020. Otherwise it was a massive, crazy party for a long time.
Arrogance, Complacency, Entitlement. Plenty of bad behavior. That was in abundance at the peak of the bubble. But then 2022 happened, the stock market dropped, Crypto busted, and all that Hedge Fund & Tourist investor money disappeared. Valuations have dropped anywhere from 30-80%, Growth is now gone. And henceforth the layoffs across the FAANGs & startups of all shapes and sizes. Just track Layoffsfyi: https://layoffs.fyi. The bust is here.
And how are founders and investors reacting to this? Some are like ostriches sticking their heads in the sand and in complete denial. They are using 2020 as a signal that this is just a short lull and good times will be back soon. Others are in panic or fear driven paralysis. Both are leading to inaction. Inaction is the worst thing they can do and sadly leads to doom.
The best founders are trying to be proactive in managing their cost structures, re-thinking their milestones, trying to line up emergency funding sources & communicating regularly with their investors.
But one thing I see a lot of: founders & tech employees in “woe is me” mode, complaining of how tough and unfair this is. Well, sorry, life is unfair.
I have limited sympathy or tolerance these days for this. This is the game you signed up for. You got the upcycle and all the benefits, now is the downcycle with the consequent challenges. And if you think this is tough in Silicon Valley, there is at least a community of fellow founders and experienced investors here who can help you figure stuff out. Not having guaranteed VC money is a feature not a bug. It can be far worse.
I talk to Ukrainian startup founders who experience Russian missile attacks in the middle of a zoom call, where they have to cut off the call to head to bomb shelter. Founders who experience sporadic electricity & internet connections. I’ve talked to a few founders in various places in the MENA region who had to hide in their office for a week or more, when regular gun battles happened in the street & they did not know who was who doing the shooting.
The point: Shake the feeling off. Be grateful, it can be way worse. Re-orient yourself. Scrape everything you think you learned about startups in 2020-2021 out of your brain ie. Unlearn your bad habits. Go to talk to founders & investors who built companies in the early to mid 2010s. Lean on this amazing community we have here!
Be thoughtful, use the constraints and this lull to rethink your product, your business, your business model, your cost structure and your leadership team & your milestones. Take decisive action. Magic happens in times like this. This will be an amazing time for mission-oriented builders to excel.
Times of massive stress and change is when really interesting things happen. It’s when you really learn about who you are. I’ve been there myself in 1998, 2001 and in 2020. Don’t get me wrong, it sucked but I came out better and smarter out of these experiences.
And if you find that you aren’t prepared to stick out and figure it out. It’s okay, just quit and don’t waste anyone’s time here. But you will just be just like the wave of dotcommers who left the SF Bay Area in 2001 or the techies who left in 2008-2010 and missed the most amazing growth run that happened soon after in tech.
Remember this is a long term greedy game. Anything worth doing or of consequence takes at least 10 years. I am maximum bullish on tech and Silicon Valley. And I am putting my money & time where my mouth is.