Judgement Day is Coming: Better Get Fit
I love the tv show “Yellowstone”. It’s always full of wisdom and great observations of our present world.
There is a specific scene when he is talking with his son-in-law, Rip.
“You know The first Duttons who settled this valley, fighting was all they knew. It’s how they got here, how they kept the land once they did. But today, it seems like a liability. Cowards rule the world, Rip. With coward rules and coward customs. To succeed today, all you gotta know is how to blame and how to complain. I truly believe it’s the survival of the unfittest these days.”
Source: Episode 5, season 5: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dC50xkOONsQ
It feels like almost everywhere in the world, we’re seeing this. Lions led by Donkeys as I wrote before. You don’t have to look much further than the USA, Canada or most of Western Europe. China and Russia don’t seem that much better. We see aging incompetent leadership, slothful & entitled youth, distracted people. Additionally, according to Harvard University’s School of Public Health, Roughly two out of three U.S. adults are overweight or obese (69 percent) and one out of three are obese (36 percent). Credit card debt and bankruptcies are rising too.
But I don’t despair too much because this is a tipping point. As Winston Churchill famously said: “Now this is not the end. It is not even the beginning of the end. But it is, perhaps, the end of the beginning.”
This is one big wake up call, as tectonic as the Covid pandemic, the Horrendous Russian invasion of Ukraine and the ongoing end of Globalization as the world fractures and supply chains are brought home. Technology is growing exponentially and demographics are transitioning. Remote work is turning the world into a great meritocracy, it will increase the level of competition in the world. It will be a boon for the skilled from developing countries and will wreck the unskilled (and lazy) in the developed countries.
This is a wake up call for us all to get fit ASAP. When I say fit, I mean fit in every possible way. Health-wise, physically, mentally & financially. Meditate, work out & eat clean food, learn how to fight and shoot. Manage your cost structure, learn new skills and how to invest and make money. Build a business. Become financially independent.
There will be lots of pain but consequently also lots of massive opportunities. You can only take advantage of this if you are ready. So get ready now. It’s time to get into “Beast Mode” so you can pull ahead.
Have Gun, Will Travel: Why Hustlers Win Deals
Most companies say that they are “customer centric” but in most cases it’s pure BS and just a mantra that is ignored or not followed. It’s what you are supposed to say. This is clear by how they spend their time.
Yet the best founders and CEOs spend much of their time seeing customers. This is the trait of a great early stage Founder to that of a CEO running a multibillion dollar corporation. They are on the road a lot meeting customers or helping close deals. They set an example for the rest of their organization who is always watching them & what they do.
Yes, during the pandemic and the Covid lockdowns you could close very big deals or investments via zoom. Companies closed their offices and allowed people to work from home. But Covid is over, companies are trying to get their employees back into the offices.
And from what I see and hear from my companies, people are asking to meet in person now. Especially if the customers have been spending a lot of money. Or expecting to make a decision on a large expenditure. Relationships matter even if your product is awesome & solves their problem well.
If one CEO is unwilling to travel to get the business, she will lose to the one who will travel. So get on that plane. Zoom is a great way to meet first and qualify them. But you have to meet them in person to close. This is a people business and people like meeting people.
Marvin’s Best Weekly Reads August 20th, 2023
“Trust because you are willing to accept the risk, not because it’s safe or certain.” —Anonymous
Justin Waller is the man. Lots of tips for living well and accomplishing your goals.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TmESj_9hqE4&t=4219s
2. "The more frequent the touch points, the less pressure there is on any conversation or check-in. Regular check-ins allow me to get to know the founders better and for them to get to know me better. I want to be a good advisor to the founders we back, and I learn a lot from regular touchpoints with them."
https://chudson.substack.com/p/an-investors-perspective-on-the-value
3. "Most things in your life are, at best, actively stable. Left alone they’ll follow the natural path of cyclicality. But if there’s constant intervention and management – managing your expectations, managing your reputation, managing how you advertise yourself and who you surround yourself with – you have at least a shot at keeping something good going for the longest period of time."
https://collabfund.com/blog/everything-is-cyclical/
4. Don't bet against America.
"Bear markets are for building. This is a phrase that has been repeated over and over again as the US economy teeters on the edge of a recession after the Fed increased interest rates at the fastest pace in history.
But are people actually building right now?
The short answer is “yes.” There were more than 5 million new business applications in 2021, followed by another 5 million applications in 2022. This milestone represents a significant increase in new business applications over the prior decade."
https://pomp.substack.com/p/americans-are-building-new-companies
5. "If you want to make money outside of your job, you need distribution and a product.
If you want to do it as one person without the restriction of physical location, you need code and content.
Code is the back end of the internet.
Content is the front end of the internet.
Code is how you host content.
Content is how you capture attention.
You don’t need to learn how to code, because technology has advanced to the point we are at now."
https://thedankoe.com/letters/i-had-to-learn-these-high-income-skills-if-i-wanted-to-make-money/
6. "When the next angel deal or private tech investment opportunity arises, find an expert and get them to invest alongside."
https://davidcummings.org/2023/08/05/tech-investing-alongside-an-expert/
7. One of history’s legendary warlords. Skanderberg of Albania.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0TtfdLJFJdw
8. "Venture capital has been busy focused on the king making capabilities of capital, but they've lost sight of something important—there aren't enough startups to justify all that capital. But why is that?
Because (1) there aren't enough people building things that people truly want, and (2) there is only so much attention (time, energy, disposable income, corporate spend) that people have to give.
There is a finite amount of "taste" in the world. A lot of brands have thrived because there are surprisingly big niche markets, like mushroom foraging, that can sustain a certain amount of value creation and capture. But the biggest misallocation of capital is the limited understanding of taste—what do people actually want?"
https://investing1012dot0.substack.com/p/king-making-vs-taste-making
9. "Whereas even if my optimistic predictions come true, the peak of the 2010s unrest was only 2.5 or 3 years ago. The nation is still in a shaky, nervous, bitter, exhausted mood after the coup attempt, the riots, the street battles, “cancel culture”, and the surge in crime. Even under the best of circumstances, it’ll still probably be a few years before we can really begin to move on from that.
Reagan’s sunny optimism in 1984 might therefore have included an important subtext, not captured in the economic numbers his campaign cited in that famous ad. “Morning in America” might have been about the dawn of a new era of (relative) social peace, a new political equilibrium that, if not necessarily to everyone’s liking, at least meant that Americans were no longer burning down their cities and Presidents were no longer trying to assume dictatorial powers. If that’s the case, Biden will have an uphill battle convincing Americans to feel optimistic based on economic numbers alone."
https://www.noahpinion.blog/p/comparing-morning-in-america-with
10. "Luke points out a kind of blindness that afflicts many of us today. Those of us who work in tech and business see the world through the lens of the metaphorical city of "Silicon Valley." Its organizing principle is usefulness, and science and engineering are its aristocrats. "Athens" represents the humanities.
The dominance of Silicon Valley has made Athens a vassal state where only the computable are recognized. Luke gives the example of the utilitarian logic in the countless white papers that lay out rationalized motivations behind movements like cryptocurrency. The third city, "Jerusalem," represents religion. Today, Jerusalem feels distant from Silicon Valley."
https://read.lukeburgis.com/p/the-three-city-problem-of-meaningless
11. "Why look at headcount growth? It’s a proxy for financial success. Startups with more business than they can handle should be scaling their teams to satisfy market demand."
https://tomtunguz.com/headcount_growth_and_capital_raised/
12. This dude is super smart. There is so much to learn from this guy. Luke Belmar is a young king.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DlfTdYWlqXw
13. "For years, the tech media had characterized John and Patrick, 34, as boyish business prodigies who monkishly shared an apartment, rode rented e-bikes to work, and preferred reading economic histories and science fiction to ostentatious displays of their growing wealth.
John, a student of capitalism who encourages employees to read biographies about moguls like Larry Ellison and John Malone, has lately come into his own as a brass-knuckled manager who has assumed critical leadership roles as his company hurtles toward its next iteration. At the same time, he has been adding a new chapter to his own billionaire’s journey, with a much-loved phrase serving as an epigraph: “The world is a museum of passion projects.”
Two years ago, just after Stripe’s valuation had rocketed to $95 billion, Collison bought a stake in a forlorn airport outside of Dublin, a facility mostly used for pilot training that he hopes will become a hub for short-hop electric planes over the next decade. Collison, a veteran pilot, has also purchased his own twin-engine airplanes, which he has used to ferry Stripe executives around the country. Recently, he flew himself to Los Angeles from the San Francisco Bay Area to interview 99-year-old investing icon Charlie Munger. Stripe’s own publishing arm plans to release a collection of Munger’s business yarns called “Poor Charlie’s Almanack” this November.
Both Collison brothers help underwrite a private summit of techno-optimists in remote Sea Ranch, Calif., called “frontier camp.” Every summer the conversations focuses on futurist topics like supersonic aviation, nuclear energy, charter cities and boosting birth rates, according to three people who have been invited. Attendees at this month's camp include “Snow Crash” author Neal Stephenson, former Tesla and OpenAI executive Andrej Karpathy, and Nobel Prize–winning economist Paul Romer, according to one invitee.
John Collison has been able to finance some of these endeavors by cashing in small parts of his 12% ownership stake in Stripe over the years. (His older brother has a roughly similar stake.) The privately held company has allowed regular sales of shares for employees and outside investors, which the founders could also utilize, people familiar with the matter said. Collison’s stake in the company now sits at about $6 billion at the firm’s most recent $50 billion valuation. That sets him up for decades of discovering new passions.
“Everything I’ve seen him do has had a very long-term focus to it,” said Kinsella, who runs a computer science program at University of Limerick that Collison helps fund and organize. “He’s not a creature of a passing whim.”
14. "This opportunity lies with Tanzania. With more neighboring countries and a larger population than any other African nation along the Indian Ocean, Tanzania is well-positioned to extend its influence even further.
Presently, Tanzania's largest trading partners in terms of import value are already China, the UAE, India, and Saudi Arabia. Projections indicate Tanzania’s population will increase by over double to 135 million people by 2050.
While rapid population growth can pose significant challenges, Tanzania's impressive GDP per capita growth of over 40 percent in the past decade suggests it is managing to grow overall worker productivity."
https://www.thecitizen.co.tz/tanzania/oped/how-tanzania-can-become-the-powerhouse-of-africa-4323136
15. "There are some compelling reasons to entertain the preemptive round on occasion. You get to learn why people you like and respect will say No. This is a gift when you decide to run a real process so you can get ahead of the curve.
Letting an inside investor (someone who is already on your cap table) that you like and already knows the status of the business is a great reason to consider it. Especially if the Partner is someone you deeply trust. This is the ideal scenario – it saves you time and you know you’re not working with a wildcard.
Same could be said for a new investor that you have a long-standing, deep, and trusting relationship with. If these things are true, then it’s worth considering. Otherwise, in this market, be wary of someone trying to preempt your round."
https://jaredhecht.com/2023/07/09/preempting-the-round/
16. Lots of implications for the Russian ports & ships being hit by drones.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ydv_3n5__2I
17. "Putting all this together, there is concern that the Ukrainian strikes in the Black Sea against shipping mark a new period of heightened insecurity for shipping - perhaps making the Black Sea a complete no go area. I would be careful about drawing such conclusions. Ukraine’s attack on the two vessels over the weekend appeared carefully calibrated.
The first hit was on a Russian naval vessel, the Olenegorsky Gorynak, so a fair target. The second on an oil supply vessel, the Sig, which has also been contracted to support the Russian navy and is sanctioned by the West for oil running to Syria. Kyiv has warned herein that Russian ports on the Black Sea are now fair game, and I think this is something of a quid pro quo for Russian attacks on Ukrainian ports and particularly grain infrastructure.
But I think Ukraine would be wary of launching all out attacks on Russian oil vessels in the Black Sea for fear of playing into Russian hands by driving international oil prices higher and then weakening support in both the West and the Global South for its defence against Russia.
Rather this was a proverbial shot across Russia’s bow that Ukraine has lots more options. It is a push to get Russia to back off from attacking Ukrainian Black Sea ports, and also those along the Danube and return to the Black Sea Grain Initiative."
https://timothyash.substack.com/p/black-sea-in-focus
18. Really great interview on personal development when you are young. Get your head right, get your body right and learn to fight!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KYfl-6J4nh4
19. Recommend this episode of NIA: lots of good thoughts on crypto and Twitter.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HPtTAbaQwPI
20. This is not a good sign for China's economic future or future period.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A9-wfHgjTB8&t=370s
21. Solid episode and they absolutely shine when they talk tech, startups and investing (versus say Geopolitics).
There is no one better on the planet than these folks as tech operators and investors.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QAAfDQx8DDQ
22. "Before I could truly understand happiness, I had to pass through grief.
There is a finality to death that contradicts everything we’ve ever been told, undermines everything we’ve relied upon. It triggers our fear, it triggers our helplessness, it triggers our insecurity. Suddenly, we can no longer trust life. We miss the person we love who left us. We are scared for them and where they are, and scared for ourselves without them. We have lots of uncertainties. It’s an overwhelming trauma.
The first step through it is to grieve, fully grieve. If you are angry, be angry. If you are unsure, be unsure. If you want to take a break, take a break."
https://www.profgalloway.com/grief-and-happiness/
23. The past and future of YC: Garry Tan. This is a great interview. Garry is a great guy and makes me bullish on YC's future.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4VDZRR07Eqw
24. "When our journalists and billionaires ask whether Britain or America is “declining like Rome”, they are really thinking about the grim realities of the early Middle Ages — a time of deprivation rather than plenty. And perhaps they are right to do so.
However terrible life was in the post-Roman West, it was nothing like as bad as a similar rupture would be today. Most of us lack both the land and the knowledge to grow our own food. The support structures provided by extended family networks and stable local communities — the mortar of the pre-industrial world — have been fatally weakened.
Many people rely upon regular medical intervention simply to stay alive. Our most basic goods are imported from the other side of the planet, as is the fuel required to power the machines that make contemporary life possible.
Above all, centuries of peace have left us ill-equipped for the return of a society in which war is commonplace and might makes right. A fourth-century Roman would regard modern Britons as laughably weak, ignorant and dependent."
https://unherd.com/2023/08/stop-comparing-the-west-to-rome/
25. Strength through humility. Be a warrior poet. This was a very enlightening discussion.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RCodxQiL35M
26. "This gets to the crux of the Hopin question I raised at the end of the last section.
How can investors believe a company that went from $20M to $100M ARR in 8 months could eventually get to $2.3B in revenue? They probably didn't! They just had to believe that someone ELSE could believe that something like that was possible. This is literally an academic representation of "passing the bag."
One of the most un-dealt with ramifications of a 13-year bull market is the institutionalized belief in "the greater fool." People can make money, not because a business is sound, but because there is always someone else down the line who will buy you out. And that was true for 10+ years!
But I think businesses whose operating model and valuation mechanisms were crafted between 2009 and 2021 all have a fundamental flaw of believing that the institutionalized belief in the greater fool will allow the next investor (the bag holder) to hide a multitude of sins."
https://investing1012dot0.substack.com/p/institutionalized-belief-in-the-greater
27. Jack Hopkins is one of the emerging creator entrepreneurs who exemplifies the triumvirate of getting your mind, body and money right.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NdqExVCZr3c&t=1631s
28. "The Indian establishment is increasing taking the view that a conflict in the Taiwan Strait will have an adverse impact on India and its economy. So, a section of the Indian leadership is of the opinion that Taiwan should be backed against China’s aggressive tactics."
The Time Value of Money: The Key lesson of Wealth
Money is a skill that can be learned and this is why in many cases wealth is propagated through families. The rich get richer as they say. And also why most people, despite all their effort and time, never break into the ranks of the rich. It’s because they don’t learn the rules of money.
I grew up in an immigrant household of academics so this was something I learned the hard way.
Money now in hand is worth more than in the future. It’s liquidity. That’s why if you invest in something long term, the pay off has to be massive to justify locking up your cash. You need to get paid for the risk of locking up your cash.
This is why you need a diverse portfolio and income streams. You need investments with different time horizons and return profiles. Nick Maggiuli writes an amazing post on what these 7 income streams look like. I highly recommend reading it yourself:
https://ofdollarsanddata.com/7-streams-of-income/
Earned Income
Capital Gains
Interest Income
Dividend Income
Rental Income
Business Income
Royalty Income
These are the only ways you can break limitations of trading time for money.
And that diversity of time and liquidity is key to making sure you don’t have the cash crunches that lead to bankruptcies. Something I almost experienced in 2020 because most of my net worth was stuck in illiquid and very long term investments.
They say cash is king, I would go so far to say “diverse cash flow is king”.
May the Arrogant Not Flourish: Pride and Ego Still Kills
This was the name of the street in the ancient capital Babylon where rulers and visitors had to ride through to the center of the grand city. A reminder to stay humble.
Just like in Ancient Roman times when their generals celebrated grand victories in war with a chariot ride in front of the populace, surrounded by pomp and circumstance. Yet beside them in their chariot was a slave that whispered to them continuously “Momento Mori: remember you are mortal.” A reminder that glory is fleeting.
I feel like I have to write a similar kind of blog post every few months here in Silicon Valley. And it’s especially bizarre when we have gone through a comeuppance that started last year in 2022.
Startup founders in denial and acting like it’s 2021 where the cash is flowing. VCs pontificating and lecturing like they saw all this coming. Or like they weren’t co-conspirators aiding and abetting the founders' spendthrift “grow at all costs” strategy.
We all got fat, lazy and dumb from greed. I admit that. Standards slipped and we made some stupid investments in teams and businesses that should not have been funded. I’m still kicking myself on a few deals I did in 2021. Ones that I never would have done in ordinary times. I am still kicking myself for this. But live and learn.
Now it’s payback time. The inevitable house cleaning and taking of the pain. Those who admit the truth, take the medicine and blame, and focus on getting their hands dirty to fix the problems, will be fine. That means taking the write downs in your portfolio ASAP!
Those who try to blissfully ignore this or hope this turns around soon without taking hard action deserve the inevitable shellacking. This is a reminder to Accept reality and Crush your ego. As the Bible states in proverb 16:18: “Pride goeth before destruction, and an haughty spirit before a fall.”
Marvin’s Best Weekly Reads August 13th, 2023
“Things work out best for those who make the best of how things work out.” —John Wooden
"The broader point here is - in the world of foundation models, market leadership that is based on technical leadership could be fragile. Be careful investing against that. It makes me wonder if OpenAI should be a short. The company that leads now may have too much stake in the status quo to see the next thing. Time will tell."
https://investinginai.substack.com/p/the-biggest-mistake-ai-investors
2. "Basically, this is the whole list. If people have jobs, inflation is low, and real incomes are rising, the economy is good. That doesn’t mean people necessarily realize it’s good — social strife, or partisan polarization, or lingering pessimism from past disasters may cause people to be pessimistic about the economy even in the face of great data, a phenomenon some refer to as a “vibecession”.
But while I acknowledge that people’s feelings are important and that there are other things that matter besides the economy, when I’m analyzing how well the macroeconomy is actually performing, I can’t go on vibes.
And when we look at the objective numbers, they are great. First of all, there’s the employment situation. Some indicators of employment, like labor-force participation, look bad because we’re in the middle of the great Baby Boom retirement. That’s why you generally shouldn’t use measures of the labor force that don’t adjust for age! When we do adjust for age, we find that the U.S. job market is now the best that it’s been in recorded history."
https://www.noahpinion.blog/p/if-this-is-a-bad-economy-please-tell
3. "In short, if you are financially set you never have to sell as you likely work. If you are still in wealth building mode you should risk manage by selling at least half of an asset that doubles in value.
If you recently sold a business and have no real income, we suggest working as a consultant/time for money exchange *temporarily* so you don’t go cash flow negative.
Do something. Anything."
https://bowtiedbull.io/p/july-portfolio-update-some-changes
4. "Thriving in a Disruptive Environment
So, what do we do? How do we thrive during this transition, despite the dangers? The best strategy is resilience. Resilience is a strategy that safeguards individuals, families, and communities against systemic disruptions and failures — from extended blackouts to food shortages to temporary social breakdowns.
The basic philosophy of resilience is;
Connect, but connect on your own terms.
In practice, this means:
-Connect to the system (grid, retail, etc.) to maximize opportunity, wealth, and convenience.
-Be prepared for disconnection so that when it suddenly happens, you aren’t negatively impacted. This is done by making preparations (backup generator, wood stove, garden, fruit trees, stocked pantry, etc.) and skills (how to grow food, generate power, capture water, repair cars/equipment, etc.).
-Use your preparation and skills as an asset if the disruption persists. Help others and provide shelter. Sell excess to the community. Form groups to teach and provide mutual support.
Now, let’s apply resilience to disruptive AI-fueled technological change (with some examples).
-Connect. Use beneficial AI services to improve your productivity, wealth, and happiness. Learn how to use it.
-Be prepared to disconnect from abusive or disruptive AI services."
https://johnrobb.substack.com/p/technological-resilience
5. Interesting implications for France & their geopolitical focus. ie. much more against Russia it seems either way.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y6Nu62pLodg
6. What a self inflicted disaster for the EU & especially Germany. Energy dependent on Russia from stupid idiotic virtue signaling energy policy. (ie. no Nuclear power). And as always the regular people pay.
"Moreover, the loss of even a small percentage of supply has the potential to raise prices across the continent, given the tightness of global gas markets. In Germany, for instance, the economy minister has hinted that the country will be forced to significantly wind down its industrial activities if the gas agreement isn’t extended at the end of the year. For a country — and indeed a continent — already struggling with creeping deindustrialisation, the consequences could be devastating.
This is especially worrying if we consider that, barring the same higher-than-average temperatures as last year, this winter Europe will have a natural gas deficit of at least 60 billion cubic meters. In other words, it’s not inconceivable that another gas crisis is around the corner — and it might be even worse than last year’s. As the Ukraine war drags on, even the few safeguards put in place are coming undone. Instead of being diluted by diplomacy, the repercussions of this conflict have merely evolved."
https://unherd.com/2023/07/the-ukraine-war-is-about-to-get-worse/
7. Love the title: Designing an Anti-Fragile career. Incredibly valuable. Worth watching.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WAI2y1_QTTM
8. This is the challenge with being a pioneer and trying to scale like crazy. Lots to learn from the Mr Beast Burgers saga. Control and Quality matters.
9. Always recommend listening to Codie. She is a fountain of business knowledge.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ppyx_JvG6do
10. This is worth watching. Defense requires ammo.
This will help you understand what's happening with the weapons supply chain side in the USA.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w6CusO9BntE
11. "This acquisition is a bet that the company can be run more efficiently. If we are in the nadir of multiple expansion & acquirors expect improved future results, the M&A market should re-invigorate."
https://tomtunguz.com/newr_acquisition/
12. "As with all wars, particularly ones of this scale and intensity, there remains an abundance of uncertainty. The degree to which both sides are having their combat power – intellectual, moral and physical – degraded in the Ukrainian 2023 offensives has some data (such as vehicle losses, ground taken or lost) but overall it is difficult to come to definitive conclusions at this point.
That said, the Ukrainians probably have the operational initiative at the moment and have secured the tactical initiative in some parts of the eastern and southern fronts. However, the Russian mini-offensive in northern Luhansk remains an operational risk for the Ukrainians. Even if the Russians do not gain significant territory, it offers the Russians the ability to draw in Ukrainian forces needed in the south, and for Putin to message his people about Russia being ‘successful’ on the battlefield.
But there remains a tough and long road ahead. As has been pointed out here and in multiple articles, the Ukrainians are seeking to advance against an enemy that has prepared well for a large-scale defensive campaign. Challenges in integrating larger scale combined arms operations have also been a challenge in some areas for the Ukrainians. And slow decision-making last year is now having an impact as well."
https://mickryan.substack.com/p/the-state-of-the-ukrainian-2023-campaign
13. "The big picture concept here (at least on this side) is that you want to maximize your potential and *limit regrets*. The chances that your potential is being maximized by taking a 45 minute commute each way to stare at a computer screen with florescent lights for 50 hours a week is unlikely. That looks a lot more like prison/hospital beds than anything else.
Before moving on from that point, we’re well aware you have to start somewhere. Unless you were born into some extremely lucky genetics (pro athlete, sudden pop singer, movie star etc.), you’re going to have a gutter feeling experience in your early 20s.
You’re energetic, full of hope and of course broke.
Assuming you agree with that general premise, the key is to balance out the risk spectrum over time. In your 20s you can be a bit of a penny pincher. No one expects a 21 year old dude lifting heavy weights to be popping bottles of Louis XIII or Dom Pérignon. The trick? You have to bet on yourself at some point."
https://bowtiedbull.io/p/why-fire-doesnt-work-and-who-this
14. The immense power of the big tech on geopolitics. Interview with Ian Bremmer. Interesting interview.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nXJBccSwtB8
15. Good reasons to be bullish on Turkey. I am personally and will be a market that I will spend more time in.
https://timothyash.substack.com/p/turkey-reasons-for-optimism
16. Lots of great tips on hiring and team building. Real world meeting and discovering talent.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XtP-csNuCYU
17. This is a good framework for angel or VC investing. I started off Average Joe type investing at 500 but with experience, do more Babe Ruth style investing now.
https://www.eu.vc/p/angel-investment-strategies-and-how
18. Zeihan was right. Mexico tops China as USA's top trade partner. This was always inevitable under NAFTA. De-globalization happening or de-globalization as we knew it that is.
https://finance.yahoo.com/news/myriad-concerns-americas-number-1-180000857.html
19. This is a great discussion on talent and career. Optionality is bad. Take more risks.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t1gPHgCNe5o
20. Every action has an opposite or equal reaction.
“While the U.S. rules introduced last October slowed down China’s development of advanced chipmaking capabilities, they left largely untouched the country’s ability to use techniques older than 14-nanometers. That has led Chinese firms to construct new plants faster than anywhere else in the world. They are forecast to build 26 fabs through 2026 that use 200-millimeter and 300-mm wafers, according to the trade group SEMI. That compares with 16 fabs for the Americas.
When you think about electrification of mobility, think about the energy transition, the IoT in the industrial space, the roll-out of the telecommunication infrastructure, battery technology, that’s all — that’s the sweet spot of mid-critical and mature semiconductor,” Peter Wennink, chief executive officer of Dutch chipmaking equipment supplier ASML Holding NV, told analysts in mid-July. “And that’s where China without any exception is leading.”
https://time.com/6299563/the-u-s-and-europe-are-growing-alarmed-by-chinas-rush-into-legacy-chips/
21.Strongly recommend this episode of NIA. Good discussion on investing in India and bootstrap businesses. So many good nuggets on Service versus SaaS businesses.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RZTu5ijn6yY&t=5s
22. "With this you can see that it is unlikely that the USA sees significant population growth over the next 10 years. Relative to other countries it will be fine (it’s not going to go negative). That said, you can figure out a pretty simple formula. You know the baby boomers have the money and the assets. You know their kids will have the money and the assets when they move onto the after life.
At this point we know which trends matter: boomers and their children. This made it pretty easy to predict the growth of pets and plants. Now? The boomer generation is getting older and the millennial generation is starting to barely taste that sweet sweet inheritance (top end of range of millennials)
Boomer Opportunities: Complaints = opportunities. Boomers will be suffering from boredom. This is particularly true in their retirement years and of course healthcare is of utmost importance. Since we’re wagering that medical is only a select few reading here, there is another obvious one which is boredom. Read that again. They are bored. The solution here? Easy, Pickleball clubs.
The tricky part here is that this will be a decade long trend and likely die off (more on that in part 2). It is the subject of how profitable it will be and also an explanation of why it won’t last (hint: ESPN Pickleball will be a flop long-term)
Millennials: This is by far the most insecure group out of all the age brackets. The vast majority are significantly less successful than their parents. In fact, it is so bad that you’re seeing a lot of these desperate men attempt to gold dig older women just to get money. Quite insane.
Things that will sell to this generation are vanity items. Botox, lip fillers, lambo trucks, Gucci backpacks, Rolexes etc. If it doesn’t improve vanity, it won’t work since this is the generation that grew up with Instagram drilled into their brains (social signaling).
Short Conclusion:
Since the money is with boomers and their kids, we recommend choosing one of those niches. Since there is a metric ton of complaints related to getting into Wall St. or High tech we’re going to walk through the Pickleball numbers. You’re going to have a lightbulb go off and someone will end up doing it. The vast majority will ignore it but it’ll be one of the highest cash flow machines for about a decade."
https://bowtiedbull.io/p/demographics-markets-to-target-and
23. For anyone who cares about their career and aligning it with your life force & mission. Learned the term "Hearts on fire."
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aIWDvuJhVm8
24. David Perell's media empire is super impressive. Much to learn here.
Big fan and former student at Write of Passage. I do recommend it.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pkl_WkE8F_0&t=40s
25. Lots of good ideas for when investing in frontier markets. Pitfalls and upsides discussed. Uzbekistan is super interesting.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yDYMucuZN_Y
26. A trip down memory lane. History does not repeat itself but it does rhyme. Lessons from the dot.com bust. It sucked.
"There are a lot of parallels between the dot com era and the now.
Economies run in cycles. They expand and contract, and then repeat. We just lived through an exceptional tech boom and we’re in a contraction phase, with higher interest rates, lower valuations, and many “over their skis” from prior investments. The repercussions have not yet worked their way through the VC ecosystem and will continue in the coming years. But the promise of AI and the leverage technology provides will likely help avoid the prolonged downturn of the 2000s.
A downturn is a proven time for companies and teams to get stronger, and a proven time to found and build a new company."
27. "The third is the most probable path to Ukrainian success. It will be slower and more gradual than the other two—and slower than Ukraine’s Western backers desire and expect. It depends on the West providing Ukraine with a constant flow of equipment likely over many months so that Ukraine can maintain its pressure until the Russian forces offer the kinds of frontline cracks the Ukrainians can exploit. It is not primarily a matter of attrition.
The slow pace of the pressure campaign Ukraine had been using before July 26 is designed to minimize Ukrainian losses. It is not primarily oriented towards attriting Russians either, but rather towards steadily forcing the Russians out of their prepared defensive positions in ways that the Ukrainians can take advantage of to make operationally significant advances. It is still maneuver warfare rather than attritional warfare, just at a slower pace. It therefore requires patience, but it can succeed.
This situation is not a stalemate, however, and won’t become a stalemate if the current Ukrainian push falls short of expectations or bogs down again after initial successes. Stalemate occurs when neither side can materially change the situation and there is no meaningful prospect that either side will be able to do so in the future. The Ukrainians have not yet demonstrated that they can make rapid and dramatic penetrations at this time, but neither have the Russians shown that they can sustain their current defensive approach against a protracted and probably increasingly effective Ukrainian pressure campaign.
The Ukrainians still have the initiative in the theater overall and especially in the south. They choose when, where, and how they will attack. The Russians must defend everywhere and always. The theater geometry may come to play a critical role here as well—the Russians have to win every time; the Ukrainians only have to win once."
https://time.com/6300772/ukraine-counteroffensive-can-still-succeed/
28. This assessment of the Saudi & US relationship is pretty good. I think it will get better in the future in my opinion.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=STmadSVyWnU
29. Unheralded success story in the media world, niche B2B: Industry Dive.
You Don’t Make Money, You Take Money: A New View on Business
I always try to learn new things from everyone. This includes Andrew Tate, an internet infamous & highly controversial multimillionaire kickboxer, entrepreneur and influencer. And to be clear, I don’t agree with many of the bombastic things he says (I especially hate his admiration of Putin & Steven Segal: people who are pure awful & evil + he has some weird views on women). However, you can learn something from everyone and anyone even if you disagree with them. A broken clock is right twice in the day.
However, I do like his message about discipline, enjoying the grind & hard work, focusing on financial freedom and maybe the most important thing: focus on bettering yourself. Messages that young men these days really need.
He goes to say:
“You cannot make money, you can only take money from other people. You can only convince other people to give you money. The only way you can make money is if you are the Federal Reserve and you are not the Federal Reserve. Business is simple, it’s just other people’s money.
That’s all a business is, it’s getting other people to send you their money.”
There is so much nuance to this but it makes sense. And to be very clear, you aren’t stealing or robbing or taking the money at gunpoint or cheating them. You are “taking” the money because you offer better service or better product and are a better marketer than other people. And it is also a good way to think about money as a concept too.
Make no mistake, you will have competitors for this money. You have to out-perform and out-compete to get this money. But this is not a zero sum thing. There is just so much money to go around. And it’s abundant. You can have many winners.
In this view, money is a dynamic thing that flows. It’s your job to get in front of it. It’s your job to create, produce or add value to be in front of that flow of money. If you do that, you get to keep a small percentage of it. Do that on a large amount of money flow, do it consistently or do that for a long time and you are going to be massively rich.
This is what Investing is. Whether in startups, stocks or commodities, you are putting money into something ahead of the massive long term trend. This could be a big consumer trend, a big geopolitical change, anything that turns up the demand on the supply that you now control or have a stake in. In my working life example, it’s investing in a pre-seed stage tech startup that will grow to become a massive $100M usd a year revenue-making machine worth billions of dollars. Or its investing in Bitcoin at a dollar a bitcoin, which at this time in 2023 is worth $26,000 usd per Bitcoin. Still a pretty damn good return despite being off its high point.
That is why it’s important that you adjust your language and your thinking. Money is a live thing. You don’t make money, you take money. There are so many opportunities and so much money out there for grabs. It’s up to you to take action, add massive value and go get some!
Why Save the Good Stuff for Later?: Enjoy the Moment
I really enjoyed the new George Clooney and Julia Roberts movie”Ticket to Paradise”. A divorced couple tried to break up the impending marriage of their only beloved daughter in beautiful Bali. It was funny, touching and very clear the chemistry that still exists between the two Hollywood giants.
As a father, I definitely was captivated by this movie, especially the beautiful sights and scenery of Bali. Yet what sticks with me is the dialogue. There is this scene when he is talking with his daughter’s best friend at the bar & well captures a parents feelings for their child. You just love your kid. There is no one more important in your life than your kid.
“Happy is Great. Lily (his daughter) happy is the greatest of all. It’s just a weird thing happens when you become a parent. When Your kid is down and when they are in pain, it kills you.
But when they are up and things are going great, that’s when you get really scared. Cause you don’t want it to change and you know it will.”
Yet things always change. That’s life. We get so trapped in the future: chasing, anticipating, clenching for the pain, expecting that things will turn. Ruining the moment. The constant hard chasing of our goals like all good type A individuals. Something of which I am very guilty of all the time.
Hence the quote repeated many times in the movie. “Why wait, why save the good stuff for later. Don’t we deserve some good stuff along the way?”
The lesson for me is that we all need to step back, be present and enjoy the moment. To try not to think too far ahead. I focus on treasuring the quiet moments, treasuring the time with my family and treasure the small wins along the way. I treat myself and resist my stingy monk- like tendencies. I try to enjoy myself. It’s okay to indulge yourself sometimes.
To help slow down my brain, I try to do box breathing (4 seconds in, hold 4 seconds, breathe out 4 seconds and hold 4 seconds). Regular and plenty of meditation helps. This helps us stay present.
We have such a short time on this earth, better to enjoy it as much as we can, when we can.
Marvin’s Best Weekly Reads August 6th, 2023
“To lose patience is to lose the battle.” —Mahatma Gandhi
“The venture business, if you want to be at the top, requires insane, remarkable hustle… You have to live in fear that the next Google is going to get funded by a firm that's not yours,” he says. “Either you're in there rowing as hard as you can, because we're all a team, or you're not.”
https://finance.yahoo.com/news/home-austin-legendary-vc-bill-224443607.html
2. Such a great interview with Codie Sanchez. Good one Ali.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zHiRzcXftPw
3. "A glance at the map of Europe shows this little 40-mile gap that separates Belarus from Kaliningrad, right on the border between Poland and Lithuania. 40 miles is not very far. Here’s what Russia would get if they tried to grab this little stretch of land. Russia would be able to access the sea directly through Kaliningrad. They’d create a wedge that separates the Baltic states from the West, Latvia, Lithuania, and Estonia, all of whom have been seen as a thorn in the side of Russia ever since their independence.
Russia will also face a direct fight with NATO if one centimeter of Poland is touched. Poland and Lithuania used to form a single Kingdom. Both nations are reinforcing that ancient alliance now, so even if Russia kept the fight on the Lithuanian side of the border, we can be sure that Poland would get involved immediately and forcefully.
Remember that Poland is about to have the largest military in Europe, and they have the toughest attitude of all to Russian adventuring. It is easy to imagine a moment where NATO says let’s not respond to a Russian provocation, and Poland says let’s respond without NATO."
https://drpippa.substack.com/p/suwalki
4. This is an incisive discussion on different types of creator driven businesses.
Learned a crap ton.
Also love Sahil Bloom's newsletter as well.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f3nMk4PAViY&t=167s
5. "In fact, the entire shape of the war is very different from what experts imagined. Rather than the fast-moving conflict led by phalanxes of armored vehicles, supported by Russia’s advanced piloted aircraft, that the analytical community imagined, the invasion was chaotic and slow.
There has never been a quick armored breakthrough by the Russians and only one by the Ukrainians—last September’s surprise advance in the province of Kharkiv.
Instead, almost all of the war’s gains have come gradually and at great expense. The conflict has been defined not by fighter jets and tanks but by artillery, drones, and even World War I–style trenches.
Military analysts also neglected to account for the broader industrial, technological, and economic strength of the warring parties. They didn’t, for instance, take note of the fact that Ukraine has traditionally been one of Europe’s biggest weapons producers, or that—despite its size—Russia’s economic and technological base is not one of a major power. (Russia’s economy is smaller than Canada’s.) Conventional interstate wars have never just been tests of militaries; they also always involve entire economies."
https://www.foreignaffairs.com/ukraine/war-defied-expectations
6. "I like that term: category of one.
Everyone is obsessed with being the best, but you can only have one “best,” regardless of the number of competitors.
In the newsletter game, The Milk Road was a category of one. The AI market, however, is a category of one too many, and all of these newsletters are producing the same content for the same general group of readers. They can’t all win, the numbers just don’t work.
Of course, this “category of one” idea isn’t just a content thing, it’s a life thing.
The key to winning your game, whatever it is, is to either be the first or be the only, and it’s far easier to be the only."
https://www.youngmoney.co/p/categories-1
7. "The long and short of all this is that the intelligence communities of all the superpowers are under greater pressure than ever to figure out who will win and what the consequences will be for policy, geopolitics, and for the intelligence communities themselves.
Could all this change be signaling the rising likelihood that the next American President will be seen in a photo alongside the leaders of the other superpowers, signing a peace deal? More and more, I am betting yes. Will the intelligence communities of the superpowers then stand down, be demoted, be deconstructed, or just become less visible?"
https://drpippa.substack.com/p/i-spy-a-deal
8. "The company structure is so powerful and useful that it is found across nearly every facet of society. It doesn’t matter if a state is capitalist, fascist or communist – they all still have companies. The US and China, for example, have vastly different ideologies and forms of government, but both embrace the concept of the company. The only difference is that in China the state owns companies; in America companies own the state.
Given the importance of companies to the productivity of the state, the state employs a wide range of state-sanctioned entities that help ensure companies’ compliance. These entities make up the “cartel of trust”. Auditors, accountants, lawyers, and bankers provide services for companies and help the state ensure everyone follows the rules and fosters trust between citizens and companies. In effect, these cartel members act as a tax on companies’ profits, as companies are required to employ them just to exist.
But what type of organisational structure would / will an AI use? Would an AI that is just a thinking machine, who “thinks” in lines of computer code and has no physical body, organise itself economically using today’s standard company structure?"
https://cryptohayes.substack.com/p/moai
9. "How we interface with and define technology will transition from the current incumbent-use-case-with-AI-sprinkles to new modalities of software and hardware altogether. The former is a world where incumbent tech wins big, and it will exist for some amount of time.
The latter is harder to comprehend today.
It’s a future that likely consists of autonomous systems, asynchronous decision-making, and a big leap forward in robotics. Filling in and extrapolating the gaps from there is harder to do, and underscores why newcomers are so well positioned: Envisioning, building, and ringing in a new era of technology will fall in the hands of visionary, ambitious entrepreneurs — not a public company R&D departments."
https://www.thursday-threads.com/p/incumbent-consensus
10. I am a fan of Packy's newsletter. He has built an interesting VC fund portfolio as well. Lots of great thoughts on newsletter based businesses.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iAqBoK6I0Js&t=435s
11. Shows how messed up the economy is in Argentina when Cuevas exist.
"Once you’ve known your cuevero for a while, and there’s trust, cuevas are really the Tinder app of black-market finance. For example, if you want to get money into the country, they match the order with someone who needs cash outside, you send it from your offshore account to that third party US account, and the cueva gives you cash, and vice versa."
https://bowtiedmara.substack.com/p/cuevas-the-knights-of-the-free-market
12. "The services industries should be home to massive marketplaces. They are enormous markets: annual freelance labor spend is 1.3T and home improvement spend is 600B in the US alone [1,2]. They have highly fragmented buyers and sellers that would benefit greatly from a better way to find and transact with each other.
So after thousands of attempts by some of the smartest teams in the world, where are they? You might argue that Uber is a service marketplace. But other than that, none of the ~10 US public marketplaces with market caps over $10B are in services. None of the top 10 private marketplaces are either [3,4].
This essay explores what is holding services marketplaces back, how they might get unstuck, and why this would produce some of the largest businesses in the world."
https://www.danhock.co/p/service-marketplaces
13. The US Economy seems to be looking up.
https://kyla.substack.com/p/is-the-vibecession-over
14. Russia is a terrorist state. The impact of this will be famine and it will hit the Global South very badly.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6yAfgdyZlCw
15. Lots of things to take in here. Agree with much of this but the automation & technology part is a blindspot for Zeihan.
Still some good nuggets to understand what’s happening.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ISk9ZpKM9so&t=583s
16. Active investing will be important for the future. A good global macro view.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BfnPmXjp9cY&t=306s
17. Old one but fascinating.
"By going into uncharted territory where most investors don’t dare to tread, the Chandler brothers have, in the space of 20 years, grown a family fortune of $10 million into a cool $5 billion -- and they’re still in their mid-40s. Along the way they have made waves by being among the first and biggest investors in such emerging markets as Brazil, the Czech Republic and Russia and playing an instrumental -- and controversial -- role in advocating economic reform and better corporate governance.
They have waged, directly and by proxy, several bruising governance battles, most notably in Russia, where their militancy helped get the first independent director appointed at state-controlled gas giant Gazprom, and in South Korea, where their two-year campaign at refiner SK Corp. to oust chairman and CEO Chey Tae Won, who had been convicted of fraud, ended in failure last year. (The pair still pocketed some $728 million in profits on their SK investment.)"
https://www.institutionalinvestor.com/article/2btfpiwkwid6fq6f5zmyo/home/secrets-of-sovereign
18. "There are two keys to this.
One is that you can’t force it and you have to really really know your stuff or else you’re assuming blind risk and opening yourself up to financial ruin. The Chandler brothers understand businesses inside and out. They could cut through the fluff in laser like fashion and get to the meat of the issue when evaluating companies.
Second is time. Fat pitches like these don’t come around often. The Chandler brothers would go years in between big investments without risking any substantial amount of money. Michelangelo once said that, “Genius is infinite patience” well the corollary to that in investing is that infinite patience is success.
Next, there is contrarianism. The Chandler brothers made it a point to set up shop in Dubai and Singapore, far away from the financial centers of the world in New York and London. They did this because they didn’t want to fall victim to the powerful pull of groupthink and herd mentality.”
https://macro-ops.com/the-chandler-brothers-the-greatest-investors-youve-never-heard-of/
19. This is a solid discussion on the importance of defensetech & the wake up call in America to the threat of China.
Anduril Industries was a pathfinder in Silicon Valley.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pmSkihdGUp0
20. "Q: How do you generate new investment ideas?
A: We mostly look around and check on what government has done this week that is really stupid. Politicians always pursue short-term actions because they have to win elections. This creates a lot of opportunity for investing as they don't care about effects that happen beyond the election – they only care about winning the election."
https://www.undervalued-shares.com/weekly-dispatches/11-highlights-from-our-dinner-with-kuppy/
21. "The studios’ real enemy isn’t a pair of naive, shortsighted unions, or one another, or streaming. Their antagonist isn’t even TikTok, though the short-video company will be happy to absorb the additional viewing hours once people have to adjust their habits. (Pro tip: Late-night TV will soon be a shadow of itself as consumers find substitutes.)
The enemy is the same enemy the rest of media, and retail face, Big Tech. Specifically, in this case, Big Tech AI offerings that will digest content (at zero cost if they have their way) and wedge themselves between the consumer and repurposed content.
Filmed entertainment is ruinously expensive. It takes a special kind of edible to pile Benjamins and light them on fire greenlighting Pete Davidson in Marmaduke ($50 million budget, $800,000 in box office, 0% on the Tomatometer). One signal capital allocation is the primary function for Hollywood studios is how easily Big Tech muscled its way in. Nobody brings a taller pile of Benjamins, or a stronger stomach to risk it, than Big Tech. Apple, Netflix, and Amazon now dominate Hollywood. And what did they bring? Cheaper capital."
https://www.profgalloway.com/frenemies/
22. "This chart makes perfect sense to me right now because the really wealthy are not crushed by inflation and high interest rates. Sure they buy fewer homes and yachts, but in a modern world, they travel and buy silly things that make them happy. They wait out the inevitable next boom earning high interest on their cash, entertaining themselves with the growing degenerate economy (speculation as entertainment and gambling).
Meanwhile, the suffering intensifies at the bottom and the angry man economy grows."
https://www.howardlindzon.com/p/explaining-rich-man-angry-man-degenerate-man-economy-charts
23. This is the reason so many venture firms implode or disappear. Succession to the next generation.
https://chudson.substack.com/p/succession-in-venture-capital-is
24. "Of course, we could simply wait until the balloon goes up and Chinese missiles start raining down on our bases in the Pacific. At that point, support for increased defense spending, military transformation, munitions production, and all the rest will shoot through the roof, as support for war production skyrocketed after Pearl Harbor. But by then there’s a good chance it’ll be too late — in the years that it’ll take us to overhaul our sclerotic system, we’ll have run out of munitions and we’ll be up against a smoothly functioning Chinese manufacturing juggernaut.
In the post-Cold War years and the Iraq War years, it made sense to cut defense spending, because that spending either wasn’t needed or was being wasted. But America’s writers and politicians and fashionable intellectual hipsters need to realize that those eras are both over, replaced by a terrifying new age of great-power competition. Right now, trapped in our nostalgia for easier times, we are refusing to meet that new era head-on. But refusing to compete doesn’t make the competition go away. It just means we lose by default."
https://www.noahpinion.blog/p/uh-guys-we-really-should-think-about
25. So many good insights and tips for improving your life.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NUO2DqCwdiE
26. These are really good predictions. I actually think these may come to pass.
"The world is going to change, but not in a brand new way.
The center of the world was once in the East.
India was once a great economy.
We once lacked workers in Europe (after the Black Death, which spurred the end of serfdom)
We’ve had many civil wars before
The UK was once decadent and rose up
The Church has decayed then came back many times before."
https://medium.com/datadriveninvestor/10-worldwide-predictions-for-the-next-20-years-e45f186a4cc
27. Such a valuable discussion on life and career design as a creator. Also how opportunities show up when you have built an audience via the internet.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0U5uH-FwCWo
28. This is pretty cool.
29. This is a masterclass in value investing from one of the best. Seth Klarman of Baupost. I learned so much.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wHsEt6MchhE
30. "Having serially outperformed expectations, Ukraine finds itself in the unenviable position of having gone from scrappy underdog to victim of its own mythologized success. Six and a half weeks into a much-anticipated counteroffensive and there are no dramatic battlefield developments. A handful of settlements have been reclaimed in the southern regions of Zaporizhzhia and Donetsk, and that’s it. An absence of climax has begun to lead to impending anti-climax and the sort of doomcasting that characterized the preliminaries of Russia’s full-scale invasion.
The counteroffensive into which Kyiv and its NATO partners have invested so much kit, manpower and money is already a busted flush, we are told. “Ukraine’s counter-offensive is failing, with no easy fixes,” ran one comment piece in The Daily Telegraph. This was preceded four days earlier by an even less sunny prognosis in the same newspaper, “Ukraine and the West are facing a devastating defeat.”
Ironically, such assessments stand in marked contrast to what Russians in the field are saying about the capability of their adversary.
We find ourselves at a bizarre turning point in a crisis which has seen no shortage of them where the only ones who think Ukraine’s counter-offensive isn’t quite the let-down or failure it’s been widely portrayed as are the Russians desperate to prove otherwise."
https://newlinesmag.com/argument/russians-see-ukrainian-progress-where-others-dont/
31. This American hedge fund has a contrarian investment thesis to say the least.
Even if he makes money, he will not be able to get it out of China.
Note: Cyrus Janssen is clearly a paid CCP shill.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0pxm_Wn2MXE
32. I've always liked Jason Momoa. This is pretty cool.
https://www.goalcast.com/jason-momoa-promotes-mananalu-on-hawaiian-airlines/
33. "We hear only little of new Ukrainian advances (which Im sure means that pessimistic stories will start up again soon). I do think we need to be very cautious in thinking that this development represents anything like the main effort of the Ukrainians. It could just as easily represent a small ramp up of the efforts of the Ukrainians over the last few weeks—and again it has not yet been confirmed how many of the brigades Ukraine has in reserve (which is considerable) have been committed to battle.
I have heard from some pretty reliable people that a very large force of reserves still remains to be committed. I will go back to what I said last week—Ukraine is actually not under any immediate time pressure to step up ground attacks, and they will only do so if they really feel there is a weak spot in the line.
Actually, Ukraine continues to making major efforts doing what it has been doing for weeks—trying to damage Russian artillery resources, from the systems to the logistics. They are clearly still trying to weaken Russian defensive capabilities before going forward in masse. The data seems to show that clearly."
https://phillipspobrien.substack.com/p/weekend-update-39
34. Watching this will make your life better. So many good tips, tools and frameworks for improving your life. I will watch this many times I think.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qBNw3u4lOr8
35. Some good advice for someone starting off in their career.
The weird scripts that run through your head that prevent you from progressing in life.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9BKf-FGq21g
36. "The start-up, based in New York City, is in one way easily understood and, in another, exceedingly strange. In the realm of clarity: Praxis’s central and stated ambition is the creation of that city in the Mediterranean. Where exactly on the Mediterranean coast and why they wish to build there have not been publicly addressed."
https://airmail.news/issues/2023-7-29/company-town
37. I'm actually still pretty bullish on the creator economy.
This is a good presentation on why we should still be paying attention despite the hype cycle that happened in last few years.
Everyone needs to be a creator if you want to be relevant in your career.
Lemons Ripen Early: Playing the Long Game
It’s a great term used in Venture Capital. Basically in your investment portfolio, your bad investments usually die early, leading to the very scary but normal J-curve where the overall portfolio value dips but then in theory grows in massive value after some time.
I learned this during my time in VC and it’s a shock for newbies. But it’s actually a good thing in the long run as your winners start to emerge and you don’t have to spend your time on companies that will never go anywhere. Especially in the early stage like pre-seed and seed stage.
I’ve seen this especially for investments in the peak of the money cycle, founders who expect that it’s easy to raise money, find it hard to adapt to a tougher fundraising environment. Or maybe even worse, when they are able to successfully raise money and develop some really bad and expensive habits, are forced to go out and raise with a bad business model, crappy unit economics and massive cost structure. Basically at least 50% of the so-called Unicorns in 2021.
It’s like growing up rich and then finding out your family lost their business and money because your dad gambled it away at Vegas. Most people never recover from this.
Where I would have questions is if you quit one year in (or less). I’m not sure you really have given your all. Even in a job, I don’t really find job hoppers who pop around to new companies or new jobs every year being super effective at what they do. It takes at least two years to see a project fully done and where you maximize learning.
This is a grit and grind game. And it usually takes at least 2 years before you hit some product market fit. Most founders quit too early. It’s one thing if you work on something for 2-4 years and quit. It means you have done everything you possibly could, pivoting or adopting your product, looking at new customer segments. I can’t fault that, you died with honor. And for most investors, we’d be more than willing to fund their next company.
So play the long game. Don’t worry too much about the short term pain and setbacks. Keep learning and keep going.
Avoid Boring People: A Good Rule of Life
I love that quote from polymath investor Josh Wolfe. And it’s a double entendre. He means that you should avoid people who are boring. And we know many of these folks in our day to day lives. Otherwise talented and smart folks who put you to sleep.
But there is also an onus on you. You have a responsibility to be interesting. Ie. Avoid boring people you meet. And in this day and age it really shouldn’t be that hard with the internet and all the access it provides. Plus we have cheap airlines that fly to almost anywhere in the world. So you can explore all the amazing places we have on earth.
You need to build and work on getting half decent social skills. Learn how to listen and converse with people (not always easy to find in a place like Silicon Valley).
Get some unique hobbies or even not so unique hobbies. Or play a sport. Do something. No one likes a workaholic salaryman with nothing else going on in their life.
Read books. Travel the world and meet different people. Be curious and have a point of view.
That’s really all you need to do to stand out in a world of blah.
To take it to the next level, be passionate about something. Even better, have a big massive mission in life.
So my friends, do all of this and you will stop boring people! :)
Marvin’s Best Weekly Reads July 30th, 2023
“Your calm mind is the ultimate weapon against your challenges.” — Bryant McGill
"The endurance of alliances can be partly explained by inertia, vested interests, and sunk costs. But there is more to it. Modern alliances are defensive in nature and are therefore more resilient than the aggression-oriented pacts of the distant past. Moreover, they are generic as opposed to threat-specific: they apply to any aggression. This has rendered them capable of confronting the re-emergence of perceived threats, or be the vehicle for dealing with new ones.
The growth of the Western system of military alliances and partnerships is mostly a consequence of the radicalization of Russian and Chinese policies (as well as North Korean and Iranian ones). To use political science jargon, there is more “balancing” going on vis-à-vis Moscow and Beijing, and more “bandwagoning” with the United States.
Then again, the US system is “unique in human history.” A scholar calculated that US alliances covered some 25% of the world’s population and 75% of its GDP. It is institutionalized like no other. NATO is not only the biggest formal alliance in the world but also one of only two (with RoK/US Combined Forces Korea) that has a permanent military command. It has proven flexible enough to lead major operations with non-members. Unlike ad hoc coalitions, NATO allows for collective decision-making, tested procedures, interoperability, and the use of common assets. US-based alliances tend to last twice as long as non-US-based ones: the main treaty-based US alliances forged after 1945 are historical outliers in terms of their duration.
The United States stands out as a security guarantor due to the combination of its helpful location, its democratic nature and it unparalleled power. US-led formal alliances are also unique in that they involve both interests and ideals."
https://samf.substack.com/p/the-role-of-security-guarantees
2. "Turkey’s eventual acquiescence, the many pledges to Ukraine, and the broader commitments to NATO’s defense helped everyone leave Vilnius with the sense that solidarity and unity were intact but maybe not unshakable. As Biden noted, NATO did not break apart. Russia’s invasion of Ukraine gave NATO a renewed sense of purpose. But the alliance is still figuring out exactly how it will fulfill it."
https://www.vox.com/world-politics/2023/7/12/23784649/nato-summit-ukraine-biden-zelenskyy-vilnius
3. "As with all bear markets, the appetite for risk drops, and although emerging fund managers are often noted to outperform their more established counterparts, some limited partners are weary of bringing on new venture partners. Instead, they retreat to their trusted, established partners.
For some emerging managers, this means the market will become tougher to penetrate. For those with funds that are focused on backing diverse founders who are already working with less capital, the drawback is often the difference between another round or closing shop."
https://techcrunch.com/2023/06/19/small-vc-firms-bear-market/
4. "U.S. venture continues to be a hits-driven business. Overall industry returns, and most fund returns, are driven by the relatively small percent of outcomes that are the winners."
https://medium.com/correlation-ventures/venture-capital-were-still-not-normal-9d07d354db88
5. "Where does Team Doomberg fall on the matter? Longtime readers will know that our personal financial strategy has three pillars: we earn money in fiat, we save by buying real assets, such as gold, land, and collectibles, and we invest privately where we can personally impact the outcome. Within that context, gold plays an important role as a wealth preserver, and we own a meaningful amount of both physical gold and the Sprott Physical Gold Trust (NYSE: PHYS).
Gold is not our vehicle for speculation, and the prospect of a competitor to the US Dollar does not compel us to change our current allocation either way. A careful reading of what our five experts submitted finds surprisingly little they disagree upon: displacing the US Dollar system will be hard and take longer than many think, lots of countries would like to do so, the seizing of Russia’s assets has only increased the motivation to try, and the ultimate impact on the price of gold, oil, and the value of the US Dollar in the unlikely event such an effort succeeds is incredibly challenging to model.
A bedrock philosophy of prudence is “when in doubt, do nothing.”
https://doomberg.substack.com/p/something-or-nothing
6. "Confronted by a toxic cocktail of high energy costs, worker shortages and reams of red tape, many of Germany’s biggest companies — from giants like Volkswagen and Siemens to a host of lesser-known, smaller ones — are experiencing a rude awakening and scrambling for greener pastures in North America and Asia.
Absent an unexpected turnaround, it’s hard to avoid the conclusion that Germany is headed for a much deeper economic decline.
To understand the long-term effects of deindustrialization, one needn’t look further than America’s Rust Belt or the U.K.’s Midlands, once thriving industrial corridors that fell victim to policy missteps and global competitive pressures and never fully recovered.
Only with Germany, the consequences would play out on a continental scale.
The country’s reliance on industry makes it particularly vulnerable. With the exception of software maker SAP, Germany’s tech sector is essentially non-existent. In the financial world, its biggest players are best known for making bad bets (Deutsche Bank) and scandal (Wirecard). Manufacturing accounts for about 27 percent of its economy, compared with 18 percent in the U.S.
A related problem is that Germany’s most important industrial segments — from chemicals to autos to machinery — are rooted in 19th-century technologies. While the country has thrived for decades by optimizing those wares, many of them are either becoming obsolete (the internal combustion engine) or simply too expensive to produce in Germany."
https://www.politico.eu/article/rust-belt-on-the-rhine-the-deindustrialization-of-germany/
7. Never get enough of Justin Waller. The Blue Collar Baller.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RZ7sy14nO8I
8. This is the new face of war. Drone swarms.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sjInnRL-HUg
9. Rise of California in last 40+ years were driven by several trends now going in reverse. Exacerbated by stupid Progressive left policies & declining quality of life.
A major transformation and reinvention will be needed soon.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AU9zwaF08SA
10. "So. If we know the following trends are here to stay: 1) gambling, 2) quick fixes, 3) drugs, 4) partying/sugar arrangements and 5) complete emphasis on fast results, you have the blueprint to avoid all of this stuff and get miles ahead in less than 5-10 years or so. *gasps a whopping 5-10 years to get crazy rich is too long!*. Better go find a FOREX course for turning $20K into $500K in 6 months! Only $20K to sign up!
Why It Is Happening?
This isn’t really important but people obsess over knowing the “why”. The why is actually simple. It is due to the platform nature of the USA. There are now “platforms” that dominate everything. Twitter, Instagram, Pinterest, TikTok etc. Once you see platforms, you see what we mean.
Platforms are full of billions of people. They are also extremely easy tools to trick people."
https://bowtiedbull.substack.com/p/americas-future-degeneracy-and-milking
11. I always learn from this man: Justin Waller.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tr-aS3YD-sA
12. "Finding product-market fit is a game, and games have levels. My product-market fit game has five levels:
-Find a significant problem to work on
-Validate the problem by talking to users
-Get users to use your product
-Keep users coming back
-Onboard your first 5 reference customers
You need to complete all five levels to win. All but the first have multiple failure modes, which I've listed – go through them sequentially. You might find you cannot complete a level. This is a sign you need to pivot your entire company. I touch on this at the end."
https://posthog.com/blog/product-market-fit-game
13. Tokyo is amazing and it’s my favorite city on the planet. It’s a magical place.
"There is only one Tokyo, like there is only one Paris.
That’s true in quantitative as well as qualitative terms; the sheer scale of Tokyo is unimaginable. With over 37 million people, it is the largest human city in existence, whether measured by “urban area” or “metropolitan area”. It is important to understand exactly what this means. The city of Tokyo proper is about half as dense as New York City — 6,169 people per square kilometer compared to 11,316. That is because the “population density” of a municipal area is counted as the number of people who sleep there, not the number of people who are there. Tokyo proper is less “dense” than New York proper because so many of the people who work and shop and hang out in Tokyo live outside the city’s statutory boundaries.
In Tokyo, you can meet pretty much anybody — business execs, artists, professors, entrepreneurs, even gangsters if you want to. One great thing about a city as safe as Tokyo is that it’s not really dangerous to meet strangers. There’s a subtle sense of communality in Tokyo that exists in very few large cities. The shared spaces feel more shared.
Combine diversity with the tourism boom — which has returned with a vengeance since the end of the pandemic — and Tokyo has become a place where you hear every language of the globe spoken in the streets and shops and restaurants. In fact, if there is one thing that has gotten significantly worse about Tokyo over the last few years, it’s overcrowding due to the tourism; Tokyo is just so wonderful that everyone goes there. I can’t exactly blame them.
The immigration boom, among other things, has enriched Tokyo’s already excellent food culture immensely. The country is a culinary mecca; so many chefs have moved there that the country arguably has better Italian food than Italy itself. It has also enlivened the already world-class art, music, and fashion scenes — in my opinion, even above NYC. If you’re an artist or author or musician looking for where it’s at, in the past you would go to Paris, then to New York; now, increasingly, you will go to Tokyo. I predict that over the next two decades, trends and ideas will increasingly originate in Tokyo and spread to the rest of the world."
https://www.noahpinion.blog/p/tokyo-is-the-new-paris
14. Bullish on Poland, as an economy but also major regional power.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6I6FczLXc5M
15. Ukrainian agriculture coming offline and this has huge effects for the Middle East, South Asia and Africa.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nPg7AdXSrbE
16. Good description of Europe's doom loop.
"I think the macro lesson here is bad things happen when you stop valuing innovation and the benefits of creative destruction. (Of course, it would be even worse if the US went down the EU path since at least the EU can benefit from American innovation.)
We’re already seeing Europe embrace the precautionary principle with AI, with plenty of American policy activists and policymakers suggesting the same here. I hope the US continues to show that its competitive advantage is mostly avoiding the anti-progress mistakes that Europe continues to make."
https://fasterplease.substack.com/p/learning-from-europes-doom-loop-of
17. "Horns of a Dilemma
The solution is a concept familiar to military planes and pundits alike – and the objective of any self-respecting fire support planner – which is to put the enemy on the horns of a dilemma: in seeking to avoid one weapon, he makes himself more vulnerable to another. Drip-feeding ever more capable systems enables any enemy – and the Russians are no exception – to avoid such a fate, by dealing with one horn at a time.
This will mean employing multiple long-range capabilities –without getting too focused on specific platforms -- at sufficient scale to put the Russians on the horns of dilemma. ATACMs may contribute to this goal, but it cannot be the only solution. ATACMs combined with long range drones and Storm Shadow missiles would be a start – along with plans to add F-16s armed with NATO compatible missile systems to keep the pot bubbling."
https://amilburn.substack.com/p/ben-wallace-amazon-and-atacms
18. More data on the rise of Poland as a military power. Their tragic history of multiple partitions shows you can never be complacent.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uvFTJUrJi_o
19. An excellent guide to consumer subscription businesses and how to overcome challenges inherent to them. Highly recommend it.
https://caseyaccidental.com/consumer-subscription
20. Good summary of Turkey's economic situation. It's ugly but some green shoots if they stick to a more orthodox economic policy.
https://timothyash.substack.com/p/turkey-economic-outlook
21. "Nowadays, there are four things that are gonna decide if I have a good day. Did I sleep enough? Did I connect deeply with people I love? Did I get some time to myself? Did I make choices for my body that felt good—like, did I take a good walk, did I eat healthy, did I exercise? If I get those four things in place, usually my days are pretty good. The more they begin to fall apart, the worse everything else gets. So those can be built on habits, but they’re not exactly habits.
The hard thing is that when they begin to degrade, it actually becomes harder to keep them in place. If you’re more disconnected from people you love, it's harder to sleep. If it's harder to sleep, you're more irritable. So I have to think of things as being less about habits and more about fundamentals."
https://www.gq.com/story/ezra-klein-routine-excellence
22. Actually Saudi has already been a welcoming place for me personally. I recommend visiting. But this is a good explanation of their involvement in investing in global sports franchises.
"Now, there is definitely some sportswashing going on here. Saudi Arabia will never make back the billions it spent on LIV Golf, and many of its other sports investments are too small for them to seriously claim its intent is financial diversification.
But I don’t think that’s their goal. Instead, Saudi Arabia wants to turn their country into a tourist destination, like Dubai. That’s because they will make significantly more money on that than anything else.
And by investing in sports assets like Formula 1, Newcastle United, and the PGA Tour, companies like Uber, Disney, and Facebook, and multi-million-dollar tourism sponsorship deals with athletes like Cristiano Ronaldo and Lionel Messi, Saudi Arabia is hoping to soften its image and promote its country as a welcoming place."
https://huddleup.substack.com/p/why-saudi-arabia-will-invest-billions
23. Turkey is the other growing power to watch in Europe (besides Poland)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aXPMTJN_bCo
24. End of an era in venture capital. Mike Moritz is a legend in the business.
25. This is an eye-opening documentary. This is also why we absolutely must support Ukraine against Russia's invasion. They won't be stopping at Ukraine.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Y_t3ayMOvY&t=1619s
26. "The point of this essay is to explain
-why venture is different from other asset classes (you cannot “index” it)
-why many fund-of-funds aren’t worth the fees (they try to index it)
-why some fund-of-funds are (they concentrate where others don’t)
This, I also suspect, is why it’s nearly impossible to index venture. Most funds can’t capitalise on the asymmetry to begin with. Those who can, usually only do it for one or two vintages. If a fund manages to do well over multiple cycles, they inevitably become access constrained and out of reach for most LPs."
https://jordsnel.substack.com/p/indexing-venture-and-other-fools
27. "Taiwan’s bid to mass produce drones is part of an intensifying military rivalry that is dividing Asia, setting off a sprint to harness emerging technologies with the potential to deliver a decisive boost in firepower. On one side are the United States and its allies, including Taiwan, Australia, Japan and South Korea, who want to preserve American dominance in the region.
On the other is an increasingly assertive China, determined to gain control over the democratically governed island and displace America as the leading regional power.
In this high-tech arms race, military and civilian researchers from both sides are scrambling to seize the lead across a swathe of fields, including artificial intelligence, autonomous weapons, advanced semiconductors, hypersonic flight, quantum computing and cyber warfare.
The presentation noted Ukraine had used drones to conduct “asymmetrical warfare” and surprise attacks. It advised that Taiwan aim to become a major exporter of drone components and an R&D center for this technology in Asia, with the government coordinating efforts. Taiwan should accelerate mass production of a range of military drones to boost self-reliance in the struggle with Beijing, it concluded.
While Taiwan gears up to build a drone pipeline, it is also planning measures to offset China's advantage in numbers.
Local companies are working on counter-drone technology, including interceptor drones. If the enemy sends in “hundreds of drones all at once, we need to be able to identify them and assign missions,” said Wang Yu-jiu, chairman and CEO of Tron Future, which is developing anti-drone devices such as jammers that will disable incoming drones.
“This is a war of technology,” said Wang."
https://www.reuters.com/investigates/special-report/us-china-tech-taiwan/
28. "What is the point of all this? Our economy, education, laws, our society? I’d offer that the whole shooting match, the whole reason for a nation, is to create a context for deep and meaningful relationships. Deaths of despair, a lack of economic opportunity, and lost young men are all signs that our nation continues to offer prosperity but not progress. It’s time again to start investing. America needs young men, and they need us."
https://www.profgalloway.com/boys-to-men/
29. "This is the part of the startup cycle that’s the grit-your-teeth grind.
Some startups focus on product development. Others focus on winning competitive share by investing in sales & marketing.
Having that focus enables companies to continue to execute through the dark skies & maintain a level of urgency in the organization throughout the storm to be well positioned once the rain abates."
https://tomtunguz.com/its-supposed-to-be-hard-2/
30. "If you want to start a revolution, you have to be willing to do things that the other side won’t. The difference today is in the way the combat is happening. Nobody is really “marching through the institutions”; they’re marching through your mind.
Go through the list of politicians and pundits on the Left and Right both and you will always find that the person who seems less entangled in rivalry, counter-punching, and grandstanding language (framing everything as an existential crisis which only they, or their party can solve, etc.) is the person getting less engagement and generating less “energy”."
https://read.lukeburgis.com/p/the-age-of-gladiators
31. "My theory is that the more money people have, the more social debt they tend to be burdened with.
The point is not to say you should avoid nice cars and nice homes – I like both. It’s a realization that once money goes from being a tool you can use to make yourself happy to a symbol of what other people measure you by, you are buried in a kind of social debt that’s hard to measure but has a real impact on your happiness.
I once did some consulting for a family that’s worth $8 billion. If you Googled their name, nothing came up. No Forbes list, no gala photos, no profiles, no Wikipedia pages … nothing.
That was intentional.
They figured out what so many other people fail to recognize: The way you maximize enjoying your money is by eliminating social debt.
They had total freedom, privacy, and independence. They chose their friends carefully and gave money away anonymously. It may have been their most valuable asset.
It reminded me of what Naval once said: The best position to be in is rich and anonymous."
Arrogance is the Leading Indicator to Failure in Startups and Life
I have probably met thousands, if not tens of thousands of startup founders all over the world. And invested in hundreds. I’ve met all kinds, from all over the world, of every denomination and nationality. You have the odd crook, idiot or liar, but almost universally these were smart, driven and admirable human beings.
Yet the ones that stand out to me in a truly negative way are the arrogant ones. The ones who claim know everything, who preen of superiority. These guys, and yes they are almost always guys, just seem insufferable and hard to be around with. It’s a big red flag for me. It means they won’t take feedback from the market, it means people will not want to work with them or even want to help them.
I vividly remember meeting one of them at one of the many accelerators I mentor at in early 2023. I had to walk away after 10 minutes, he was so obnoxious. I’m used to young obnoxious founders, who have the excuse of youth and who just don’t know any better. But this was a 35+ year old male who should just know better. I walked away with the thought: “I want nothing to do with this person and I will never work or even attempt to help them” as nice as his colleagues were. And I really like to think I do want to help people as it’s my life mission to positively impact 10 million people while I am alive. But this was a bridge too far for me.
So to my point, arrogance is dangerous. You turn off your brain from information from the outside, and think you know more than you really do. Seems risky when the world around you is changing so quickly. This complexity makes it hard to stay on top of everything. I’ve stated the term “Hubris” before, defined as “excessive pride or self confidence.” The ancient Greeks defined this as a character flaw capable of provoking the wrath of the gods.
And there is something to this as arrogance does turn people against you unnecessarily. Not that they would actively plot against you, unless you are a total jerk. But they would be much more hesitant to offer help. And in this world, no one goes it alone. Success is almost always alongside others. If you are a founder or leader with a bad attitude, the best people will not choose to work with you.
I will make the last point and know as a Venture Capitalist writing this, it’s like the “pot calling the kettle black.” Venture capital is an industry notorious for being filled with awful, obnoxious and arrogant people, and why most founders don’t like VCs. I don’t blame them & I get it. Learn from them. Who wants to be disliked if you can avoid it.
What I will say to these hubristic founders is to paraphrase something I saw on Twitter, “You can only have Michael Jordan’s bad attitude, if you have Michael Jordan’s skills and track record.”
Preparing for the Spikes: Seasonality in Business and Life
I was doing my taxes and realized that the bulk of the money I made last year was in the final quarter.
Most of the money in retail is made in the fourth quarter of the year. Media advertising too. In fact, according to AMEX, 42% of businesses report that it’s the most profitable quarter of the year. Hence, crucial to the survival and thriving of your business.
Pareto’s famous 20/80 rule is the key here. That in all facets of life 20% of your relationships will drive 80% of your happiness (and conversely your pain). 20% of your customers drive 80% of your revenue. And maybe more importantly, 20% of your time leads to 80% of your results. I would argue in technology it might actually be the 10/90 rule in investing and startup success. Almost everything is becoming asymmetric: meaning that small things could lead to amazing & unexpected outcomes.
This is kind of the reason I really don’t care about my kid missing school: Attendance and set times for work are reflective of Industrial Age thinking. Training people to do a shift and make widgets.
Unfortunately, this is not conducive to what works or is needed in the new creative knowledge age of work. Ideas, inspiration and creativity are sporadic and cannot be forced. Maybe most importantly, each idea is not equal. I wish it could be standardized as a widget but alas. These interesting ideas or insights show up at the strangest times, like during a walk, in the middle of conversation or even late at night after a hot shower or bath.
This goes to the point of my previous write up based on Naval Ravikant’s famous quote “of working like a lion, not like a cow: https://hardfork.substack.com/p/work-like-a-lion-not-like-a-cow
Now don’t get me wrong, you have to show up on time for meetings. You have to do the hard work and prepare. You have to put in your time. Do the reps to get really good at something. Even if you know most of your business will come in 1 quarter, you still have to get yourself and your team ready for it ahead of that time. You need to prepare by experimenting & trying new different ideas, which eventually leads to optimization of all your processes.
You also need to have a habit of hard work and excellence. Build the relationships that matter. That is how you prepare for the expected or unexpected opportunities that come up. As I’ve quoted Louis Pasteur many times: “Chance Favors the Prepared Mind.”
If you do this, your time will come. It’s not just about the time you put in, it’s also the quality of the time. Build good habits and seize the moment or inspiration when it comes. And remember the outcome is all that matters.
Marvin’s Best Weekly Reads July 23rd, 2023
“We must always change, renew, rejuvenate ourselves, otherwise we harden.” — Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
"Back in 2017/2018, Venezuela’s stock market was up over 40,000% in a single year, which made it the best performing stock market at the time. Why? Inflation was estimated to hit 1,000,000% within months.
The easiest way to understand what is happening in Venezuela, Zimbabwe, and other hyperinflation countries is that assets are priced in the local currency — just as real estate goes up over the long term due to the devaluation of US dollars. The currency that each stock is denominated in is being devalued, so the “price” of the asset continues to increase. A buyer has to spend more (devalued!) local currency to purchase the same stock.
An 800% return in Zimbabwe sounds amazing, but it is actually a sign of economic destruction. The currency has hit hyperinflation, the central bank has lost control, and citizens are seeking relief. Over time, we should expect Zimbabweans to gain access to other financial assets. It wouldn’t be hard to see demand for US dollar stablecoins or bitcoin."
https://pomp.substack.com/p/zimbabwes-stock-market-is-exploding
2. "It might have come down to either winning the war or keeping his power for Putin, and he might end up with neither. Over the next months, a lot could happen inside Russia because Prigozhin might have opened the pandora’s box.
I can’t predict what will happen, but there is now a new challenger and evidence that some inside the system will sign on change if the opportunity arises. So a lot could happen. Oh also, there is this whole counteroffensive thing that has not yet really begun. If we enter autumn with a successful counteroffensive on par with last year’s, I wouldn’t want to be Putin."
https://shaykhatiri.substack.com/p/three-one-thoughts-on-prigozhins
3. "This is an important concept to repeat religiously.
Every single person who wants to get rich (anything above $10M+ is baseline for being rich), needs to get comfortable with *losing valuable time*. Amazon, Microsoft, Apple and all the other major companies have had *negative* yielding ideas. Coinbase’s NFT platform would be exhibit A of a mainstream failure. Both time and money were wasted.
End of each day just have three line items: 1) time spent on health, 2) time spent on money vs. time exchange and 3) time spent working on something scalable.
In 10 years this should read: 1) time spent on health, 2) time spent on working on something scalable.
You will be forced to trade your time for money. Working on projects or being paid by someone else (early in your life). This is just reality unless you were born with a trust fund.
The goal over 10 years is to make sure that time for money exchange is going *down*. If it is not going down you’ve got problems because it will end with 30 minute commutes to go into an office instead of a cube… doing the exact same thing.
Trading time for money."
https://bowtiedbull.substack.com/p/how-much-is-your-time-worth
4. Lots of good tips here from Bryan Johnson on longevity.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dukGGLnLiN4&t=2682s
5. "We’re going to continue to see two trends:
-Cost to train models going down - Driven by GPU prices and efficiency of algorithms. This will lead to more model providers and ultimately more competition at the model layer.
-Cost of inference going down - Driven by GPU prices, efficiency of algorithms, and increased competition.
Both of these are great for people building applications on top of LLMs or LLM tooling and make the business models of those companies more attractive. This should continue to place pricing pressure on closed source model providers and may lead more companies to start with open source ones.
In addition, use cases that are economically infeasible today, may be more attractive in the future as costs continue to come down."
https://unsupervisedlearning.substack.com/p/why-databricks-bought-mosaic-and
6. This is always a good conversation on what’s happening in cultural, creative and internet businesses.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6o8DtP0WTvs
7. I am not sure how I feel about this. Reconstruction after war always brings in idealists, opportunists and carpetbaggers.
"Last year, the Ukrainian government essentially outsourced the entire post-war “reconstruction” process to BlackRock, the world’s largest asset management firm. They signed an agreement to “provide advisory support for designing an investment framework, with a goal of creating opportunities for both public and private investors to participate in the future reconstruction and recovery of the Ukrainian economy”. In February, J.P. Morgan was brought on board as well.
In January this year, addressing the participants of the meeting of the National Association of State Chambers, Zelensky described American business as the “locomotive that will once again push forward global economic growth”. No one would blame Zelensky for choosing the lesser of two evils here: Western banks over Russian tanks.
Yet, the grim fact remains that even if his nation succeeds in repealing the Russian invasion, the future in store for Ukraine is not necessarily one of sovereignty and self-determination but, most likely, one of Western economic tutelage."
https://unherd.com/2023/07/the-capitalists-are-circling-over-ukraine/
8. The math behind VC Syndicates. ie. there are much easier ways of making money. So you better love the game of investing.
https://lastmoneyin.beehiiv.com/p/economics-200m-aum-venture-capital-syndicate-gp
9. "Given that we focus on pre-seed and seed-stage companies, much of the fundraising focus is on what it takes to unlock a Series A round of financing. Most of the founders I work with want to know what metrics or KPIs they need to hit to unlock the Series A round. I get why founders want to know the answer to the test, but in my experience, fundraises don’t work that way.
Here’s what I tell founders when they ask me what they need to hit in order to unlock the Series A round:
'There is no magic number, in terms of revenue or KPIs, that will unlock a Series A round by itself. Metrics are just one of many inputs that go into the decision.'
https://www.charleshudson.net/theres-no-such-thing-as-series-a-metrics
10. Good discussion of the growing economic war between China and the USA.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OX0jX-uUZXw
11. "To that end, my hope is that artificial intelligence (AI) and robotics will be used primarily to eliminate the tedious, bullshit work in which most of humanity currently toils, so that more and more people can pursue their passions in a similar fashion. Ideally, this will lead to our next great renaissance of art and culture, as millions (or even billions) of humans are suddenly free to do what they love and create happiness through art.
An AI shouldn’t trust any institution that requires humans to operate it, as 1) humans are fallible and 2) AIs on a probabilistic basis will outlast human civilization. Gold and Bitcoin mining could be done by AI powered robots in the future, but fiat currency requires the administration of governments composed of humans. An AI is unlikely to allow itself to rely on anything that a human government operates therefore only gold and Bitcoin are suitable.
A tie between gold and Bitcoin.
Bitcoin is thus the logical currency choice for any AI. It is purely digital, censorship resistant, provably scarce, and its intrinsic value is completely electricity-cost-dependent. There is nothing in existence today that comes close to challenging Bitcoin on these aspects."
https://medium.com/@cryptohayes/massa-96ae856effcd
12. "So here's my message to you: In the high-stakes game of social media, adaptability is your best ally. Recognize the opportunities, be the early bird, and remember - fertile ground is for those ready to sow. Social media is more than a playground, it's your domain. Let's conquer it. Let the games begin.
And so, as we step off the “Threadmill”, remember - it's not just about keeping pace, it's about adapting, conquering, and owning the run."
https://latecheckout.substack.com/p/the-threadmill-effect
13. "What Ukraine is doing now is similar intellectually but even more difficult (they dont have rivers to aid them by providing specific targets). They have identified what they need to neutralize on the Russian side to succeed, and now they need to try and take those outs. They are starting clearly by making Russian artillery a very high priority. They will probably stay on that for a while. When they feel they have done what they can here, they will switch to attacks on Russians forces in the lines.
This will take time—even months. Because war is so dangerous for the offensive side, and Ukraine doesnt want to waste its forces like the Russians did at Bakhmut for instance, they must proceed methodically to weaken the Russians before advancing. Its also the only Ukrainian option—because of the specific way that they have been armed."
https://phillipspobrien.substack.com/p/weekend-update-36-500-days
14. "This is a critical stage of the war and a lot depends on what happens over the coming weeks. So far Ukrainian advances have been modest – a bit over 160 square kilometres. Some units are now close to Russia’s main defence line although most are still some distance away.
We can note evidence of poor coordination between Russian units and how they often, but not always, lose out in small-scale engagements, but also that Russian defences have not yet buckled. This remains a tough and costly fight for Ukraine. During this attritional phase we can see the potential for progress but it has yet to be realised. Only when and if the strike phase is reached will we be able to measure Ukrainian progress on the map."
https://samf.substack.com/p/attrition-before-breakthrough
15. "In any case, it seems likely that China’s growth will now slow to developed-country levels, or slightly higher, without much prospect for a sustained re-acceleration. At this point, with the economic value of additional real estate and infrastructure so low, a re-acceleration would require a massive burst of productivity growth, which just seems unlikely.
That means China’s catch-up growth only took it to 30% of U.S. per capita GDP (PPP). Even if it manages to climb up to 40%, that’s still a fairly disappointing result — South Korea is at 71% and Japan at 65%. (China’s defenders will say that it’s harder to grow a big country than a small one, but…well, the U.S. is a fairly big country as well.) This is another example of China’s peak being both awe-inspiring and strangely disappointing at the same time.
But I think the very complexity of Altasia will lead to its own sort of adventure and excitement. We haven’t seen an entire region industrialize all at once since Europe in the late 1800s (the closest thing being the Asian “tiger economies” of the 80s and 90s, which was really just Altasia’s predecessor). This will be much bigger. Investment and trade and diplomatic links will be flying back and forth between these various countries at a frenetic pace. Everyone will be trying to figure out who builds what where, where they source from, and where they sell to. Eventually, cultural links will follow.
And for Western companies looking for new markets, Altasia will potentially be more exciting than China ever was. The Chinese market delivered riches to some, but the government banned some products (especially internet services) and stole the technology used to make others. Ultimately, China’s billion consumers turned out to be a mirage for many. The economies and societies of Altasia, in comparison, are much more open to foreign products.
And in the poorer countries of Altasia — India, Indonesia, Vietnam, Bangladesh, Philippines, etc. — there will be the heady excitement of industrial development. It will be their turn to build highways, their subways, their gleaming forests of apartments and office towers. It will be their turn to buy cars and big-screen TVs, go out to eat, go dancing at clubs, and send their kids to college.
Developing Altasia will be a damn exciting place to be in next three decades."
https://www.noahpinion.blog/p/china-at-the-peak
16. "Cloud seeding is not new. But when it makes national or international news — like when China used cloud seeding to try to keep rain out of Beijing during the 2008 Olympics — it tends to be greeted with skepticism, or even suspicions of Icarian arrogance.
Around the world, however, a niche group of people like Gary Walker have cloud-seeding contracts with government agencies, farmers, and business owners to increase rainfall or snowfall. Some of these weather-modification contracts have run continuously for decades.
But despite cloud seeders’ remarkable ability to harness the weather — and a need for more precipitation in much of the American West — their industry remains small. They can alleviate water shortages, but not solve them."
https://thehustle.co/the-economics-of-making-it-rain/
17. "But the things we've talked about in terms of companies tackling big markets, focusing on acquiring talent, and attaching themselves to an index of a growing opportunity is part of the game that needs to be played for companies to become really large outcomes. And by nature those are all hard things to do. As a result there will be a divide between the businesses that pull it off and those that don't.
Building a company, whether as an employee or a founder, is already the road less taken. It may not feel that way in your social circles but in the grand scheme of what all 8 billion people on the planet are doing it's still rare. Building a large and successful company is a real challenge. Few have pulled it off."
https://investing1012dot0.substack.com/p/revisiting-a-tale-of-two-markets
18. "The question is then, how is legitimacy earned? Whether it is commerce, politics, or culture, elites must demonstrate competence and excellence. The ancient Greeks called this arete.
Arete is granted when the actions of elites are deemed as excellent and praiseworthy.This may mean founding a multibillion-dollar company, successfully leading troops in battle, creating great works of art, or acting as an effective political administrator. Regardless of the area in which arete is demonstrated, the actions performed must bring some sort of benefit to the rest of society.
This doesn’t mean the end of American elites as a class though. Power abhors a vacuum, and a new group of elites will eventually emerge to reestablish order and stability. In their pursuit of arete, these new elites will promote their own unique founding myths that will directly clash with the values and myths of the old guard.It’s a process that will take a decade or more to complete. Arguable, the U.S. is in the opening stages of this process as factions of aspirant elites are coalescing.
The combination of intra-elite competition domestically and the return of great power politics internationally will force a dramatic restructuring of commercial, political, and cultural power within the U.S. How America chooses to handle the coming reckoning of elite legitimacy will likely define its trajectory for the remainder of the 21st Century."
https://www.shatterpointsgeopolitics.com/p/the-coming-reckoning-of-american
19. "A company is more likely to secure its long-term returns if it manages to create a network effect *and* combine it with high-switching costs. Dating apps such as Tinder have a network effect due to their large user numbers, but switching to another app like Bumble is as easy as picking up your phone. On the other hand, a financial exchange that has many users and vertically integrated several other aspects of using its platform will find that most users deem the costs of switching too high. That's the kind of overlapping moats you will want to invest in.
There is also the concept of a moat's width. Because of competition, moats are getting a bit wider or narrower every day. Evidently, the wider a moat, the more difficult it is to penetrate. However, the absolute width of a moat is not generally what investors need to pay attention to. Instead, you are better off checking whether an existing moat is widening at a faster pace than that of its competitors.
There are many reasons for saying that an ability to gradually widening the moat is more important than the width of the moat. Just consider that if a company is known to have a very wide moat, chances are the stock price will already reflect this. You'd want to get in when there is a wide enough moat, but one that is still expanding."
https://www.undervalued-shares.com/weekly-dispatches/moats-a-short-introduction/
20. I think we are still behind here but re-industrialization is a hard trend in NAFTA: US, Canada & Mexico.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UNxkpqx1LDw
21. Luke Belmar is a sharp dude. There is a lot of wisdom to be found in this interview.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IV12SDKBTdY
22. This looks damn good!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OAZWXUkrjPc
23. No surprise: Presidio is way nicer than the disaster zone in downtown SF.
24. "It started out as strictly business: a huge private contract for one of the world’s most advanced undersea fiber-optic cables. It became a trophy in a growing proxy war between the United States and China over technologies that could determine who achieves economic and military dominance for decades to come.
In February, American subsea cable company SubCom LLC began laying a $600-million cable to transport data from Asia to Europe, via Africa and the Middle East, at super-fast speeds over 12,000 miles of fiber running along the seafloor.
That cable is known as South East Asia–Middle East–Western Europe 6, or SeaMeWe-6 for short. It will connect a dozen countries as it snakes its way from Singapore to France, crossing three seas and the Indian Ocean on the way. It is slated to be finished in 2025.
It was a project that slipped through China’s fingers.
Undersea cables are central to U.S.-China technology competition.
Across the globe, there are more than 400 cables running along the seafloor, carrying over 95% of all international internet traffic, according to TeleGeography, a Washington-based telecommunications research firm. These data conduits, which transmit everything from emails and banking transactions to military secrets, are vulnerable to sabotage attacks and espionage, a U.S. government official and two security analysts told Reuters.
The potential for undersea cables to be drawn into a conflict between China and self-ruled Taiwan was thrown into sharp relief last month. Two communications cables were cut that connected Taiwan with its Matsu islands, which sit close to the Chinese coast. The islands’ 14,000 residents were disconnected from the internet."
https://www.reuters.com/investigates/special-report/us-china-tech-cables/
25. Maybe a bit optimistic here. Either way we need to ramp up production of key military ordinance.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PXE3dM0ZAB0
26. "Ukraine might be the last large war fought primarily in the physical world. We should be getting ready for the moment when the physical and virtual worlds swap places, where everything happening in the former may well feel tangible and real only from the perspective of those unable to climb to the higher virtual plane. Virtual war is not a war between soldiers, tanks or airplanes, but a clash between algorithms.
Here victory means the ability to build the basic rules determining how the world works. Inferior algorithms will simply operate according to the rules and outcomes set by more foundational software. Geopolitics used to mean the struggle to control the physical world. In the future it will be about the struggle to build a virtual one."
https://time.com/6293398/palantir-future-of-warfare-ukraine/
27. "The 17th Tank Brigade is part of the trap, but the Ukrainian troops aren't taking aim at their Russian foes with tanks, but U.S.-supplied, self-propelled Howitzer M109s. Ukraine has dozens of the American-made artillery pieces, and they've become a vital front-line weapon in the counteroffensive."
28. An excellent framework for building and investing in marketplace businesses.
https://samit-kalra.com/blog/what-makes-a-marketplace-work
29. "Generally speaking, unless you were born into money your life should look something like this:
1) learn and grind making millions of mistakes in your 20s,
2) in your 30s you should be printing cash and have a high time value and
3) in your 40s that part of your life should largely be done and either you’re on an extended adolescence or you decided to have kids [to be clear none of our biz which you choose],
4) then your 50s come where health issues ramp up massively and you definitely don’t “got it anymore”and
5) by your 60s you’re probably in some chill town like Santa Barbara surrounded by other people who made it and simply have no interest in being bothered anymore."
"The dawn of the “Solo PE Agent” is here. If you’re able to build anything by yourself you can now replicate it without even going through the hardest part of the process (audience building).
You just buy the assets that are behind the times. Rip out the margin leak, replace with basic software tools and you’re done. No impact to top-line.
Read that part 10 times if you have to! In the past PE firms would buy companies sacrifice 5% top line declines for say 10-20% profit margin expansion. At small scales it will now be possible to see 0% impact to top-line and 20%+ margin expansion."
https://bowtiedbull.substack.com/p/the-coming-decades-and-the-solo-pe
30. "At my fund, we call these things “zero visibility businesses.” We don’t mean this in a pejorative sense. Instead, we mean this in the factual sense. It’s simply impossible to predict the quarterly results and as a result, we’re likely getting a bargain—frequently an unusually good bargain.
So then, how do you put a valuation on something where the numbers are all over the place? Now, this is the real challenge. To be honest, sometimes we simply cannot put a value on such a business. We can look at historical margins, or returns on capital over long periods of time, and try to back into a stabilized level of earnings for the business, but often, this exercise leaves us with a false sense of precision.
Instead, we simply eyeball the thing—does the price seem too cheap for what it is?? I realize that this is highly unscientific, but by the time you get to the spreadsheet and try to model one of these businesses, you’ve already lost the narrative. I’m from the school of investing where it’s either painfully obvious that I’m getting a bargain, or it’s in the “too hard pile.”
In summary, I’m always focused on where the opportunity is. I’m genuinely surprised at the bargains that exist in places where the earnings are hard to predict, and I suspect that this segment of the market will only become more attractive as capital continues to congregate to the few sectors that show linear growth."
https://pracap.com/on-businesses-with-zero-visibility/
31. "Local plumbers and lumber-yard owners across the US are feeling a bit like tech entrepreneurs of late — juggling multiple offers from private equity-backed firms that increasingly are targeting mom-and-pop businesses.
Wall Street has been buying into fragmented Main Street industries for years, with dental and veterinary practices among the favorite targets. It’s known as the roll-up strategy – and it’s catching a tailwind right now, and expanding rapidly in household services and building materials."
32. This was a fun interview with Alyona from FuelFinance. Check it out.
33. Richard Koch's books and thinking changed my life. This interview was no different.
We all have so many toxic beliefs that we need to reprogram if we want a better life.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jNpABhVKaFI&t=5624s
34. "It seems increasingly clear that the demands of sustaining Ukraine’s defense against Russia will be enduring. We can hope that there will soon be a just and durable end to this conflict, but predicating our strategy on such a hope would be imprudent. Rather, we must assume that Russia will remain a threat to Ukraine and NATO for the foreseeable future. This means America and Europe need to prepare for the long-haul in addressing European security, even as America must urgently shift to prioritizing readying for a conflict with China in the Western Pacific.
More can be done in addition as Europe steps up and takes primary responsibility for its conventional defense. As this happens, the U.S. can provide to Ukraine many of the capabilities it currently keeps in or reserved for the European theater. Such systems include a variety of ground combat systems that are ideal for the European theater and neither necessary nor even useful for a China contingency, such as more advanced types of main battle tanks, infantry fighting vehicles, armored personnel carriers, and self-propelled cannon artillery.
Furthermore, over time the U.S. can and should resuscitate its defense industrial base to rapidly produce a wide variety of weapons and platforms at a much larger scale. Restoring America’s defense industrial strength will help ameliorate many of the difficult tradeoffs we currently face, enabling us not only to ensure our own forces are better armed but also to arm allies to carry a greater share of the burden of defending themselves."
https://time.com/6294670/us-strategy-ukraine-prioritizing-asia/
Small Wins Eventually Leads to Big Wins
I recall something ecommerce king and Crypto wealthy influencer Luke Belmar said. He was asked “what is the first thing that you recommend a 19 year old boy should do if they want to get rich and get out of the matrix”? His response: “Do push ups. Do 50 push ups every day for 30 days. Have a small win.” The host was mystified and asked: what does this have to do with getting rich? Luke responded, it’s about developing discipline and habits. Developing excellence in one facet of your life will rebound into others. Good health leads to mindhealth. Mindhealth through hard work and creativity leads to wealth. This is pretty esoteric, I know.
But it’s similar to what former Navy SEAL & Admiral McRaven said about the first thing he does when he gets up. He recommends that people should make their bed. It’s a good, strong way to start the day. That’s why morning routines really matter. This is why you do the hard stuff first. I do my meditation, my exercise & work out routine before I do anything else. I change into my “work” clothes to get myself into a new mode.
It’s about accumulating small wins. Winning is what Dave Brailsford called the “Aggregation of marginal gains.” Kaizen in Japanese: lots of small tiny improvements. Do the fundamentals on a regular basis and you will build momentum in your life. Guaranteed. Even better if you can channel this toward a bigger vision and goal in your life.
You can figure out the difference between winners and losers in life by looking at their daily habits. So as an evolving human being, this is critical to figure out as soon as possible. Then you can decide which side of the table you want to be on. I’ve been on both sides and I’ll take the “W’ side any day of the week. So make sure that you build good habits and attack the day as soon as you wake up!
Big Decisions, Big Actions=Big Results, Small Decisions=Small or No Results: Fix Your Life NOW!
This was something I learned from listening to Tony Robbins. I have so many smart friends who sadly don’t meet their potential. I remember chatting with a friend and he had some challenges in life. Really unhappy. Using coping mechanisms like alcohol or marijuana. I asked him: “You know this is a big problem, What are you going to do? It’s really important to sort this out soon.” His response: “I’m ‘planning’ on it.”
Sadly, that is a sign that he will do nothing. It’s easy to plan. It’s hard to take action and do the work. It’s pretty common, in life, career, startups.
People get stuck. Better the devil you know than the one you don’t. Yet searching for certainty is dangerous in our present world. There is NO certainty these days in anything except that everything is changing. Even worse this seems like learned helplessness, that there is nothing you can do about the situation you are in. That you are trapped. But realize nothing is permanent, for both good and bad. So you can change things. Just depends on how badly you want it.
I know it’s hard. I’ve been there myself. But you have to take action even if you are not ready. Or the real world intrudes and you will have to do it eventually. After a lot of pain I might add.
Get a coach. Be around other people you admire or ahead of you. Get to the center of the activity and network. Environment and Proximity matters.
Then you will have Immediacy. Do it NOW. Have a sense of urgency. You only really have control at this moment.
So the lesson is if you want to accomplish nothing this year? Say “I’ll do it tomorrow.”
Marvin’s Best Weekly Reads July 16th, 2023
“If you get tired, learn to rest, not to quit.” — Bansky
"Unmanned platforms simply provide a better way to execute the age-old functions of warfighting -- from intelligence to command and control to fires – with the latter including the ability to strike in the electromagnetic and cyber domains. This better way is so much better that it renders all other methods obsolescent – and many western nations will be envying the Ukrainians the flexibility of their procurement system as they watch their own defense budgets channel absurd amounts of money into platforms that are obsolete at proto-type.
What we are seeing in Ukraine is just the latest chapter in the evolution of unmanned platforms. Since the first drone attacks on western soldiers occurred in Iraq and Syria in 2015, there have been signs aplenty that drones are changing the face of war."
https://amilburn.substack.com/p/a-new-level-of-war
2. "But why the rise of part-time creators?
Because they're waking up to the realities of 2023.
Regular folks are putting in a few hours each week to share insights on platforms like Twitter and LinkedIn. And by selling advertisements, digital assets, services or affiliate marketing, many are raking in anywhere from $20k to $200k annually.
And, let's not be mistaken, this trend is not exclusive to those newly unemployed.
Even those currently employed at big tech companies are dabbling with part-time content creation.
The once invincible fortress of “job stability” at the likes of Amazon or Google are a mirage. In an economy as unpredictable as a rollercoaster ride, relying solely on the security of a 9 to 5 job is a gamble that fewer are willing to take. So, they’re dabbling."
https://latecheckout.substack.com/p/the-year-of-the-part-time-creator
3. An Interview with a master at his craft. Arguably one of the top influencers in the world and a brilliant businessman: Mr Beast.
Pure dedication and commitment.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9IQ_ldV9z_A
4. "How can we make sanctions more effective - well more sanctions, better targeting, use of secondary sanctions to discourage third parties from trying to help Russia circumvent sanctions.
And I think we also need to look at new innovative ideas. Therein Nigel Gould Davis at IISS has proposed an innovative idea that we go to a maximum sanctions regime - plan to ban all trade with Russia by a certain date, and then work backwards in terms of providing licensing. To get around the exploitation of dual use products to help rebuild the Russian military international business should be made to apply to trade particular products with Russia."
https://timothyash.substack.com/p/russia-are-western-sanctions-working
5. "During boom times, investors compete to win deals in many ways. Some give on terms, some on price, and some on governance. I think the record will show that many investors gave on multiple dimensions during a period when founders had lots of leverage and choice.
We are returning to a period where I think the balance will reset, and we will land where I hope most companies have greater oversight and we can put more trust in the reported data and KPIs."
https://chudson.substack.com/p/all-venture-booms-end-with-a-return
6. "Said differently, history shows that the painful seismic shifts part of the Big Cycle comes about when there is simultaneously
1) too much debt creation that leads to debt bubbles bursting and economic contractions which cause central banks to print a lot of money and buy debt,
2) big conflicts within countries due to big wealth and values conflicts made worse by the bad economic conditions, and
3) big international conflicts due to rising world powers challenging the existing world powers at a time of economic and internal political crises.
In doing this study, I also saw two other big forces that had big effects. They are:
-Acts of nature (droughts, floods, pandemics) including climate change.
-Learning leading to inventions of technologies that typically produced evolutionary advances in productivity and living standards —e.g., the First and Second Industrial Revolution, and computing/AI revolution."
https://time.com/6286449/ray-dalio-world-great-disorder/
7. "Autocrats suffer from their anti-truth diet when they begin to believe their own lies. When truth is not valued, flattery and conformity prevail. Putin’s generals told him what he wanted to hear, and he grossly miscalculated the cost/benefit of invading Ukraine. This happens in democracies, too, when truth is sidelined.
George W. Bush developed a faith in alternative facts that defined his presidency. His historic blunder in Iraq was based on “intelligence” which should have been badged “belief dressed up as fact.” Common to both regimes was/is the exiling of dissent. Truth can admit doubt, but authority cannot survive it."
https://www.profgalloway.com/truth/
8. Very interesting take on how the world is organized and why society does what it does. Worth a read as it does explain a lot.
"Let’s imagine a group of people (let’s call them the elites) that acquired a lot of liquid money, control of land, and power – and to be realistic, let’s say the money and land are under investment firms they control, and their power comes from their influence and ownership over the media, politicians, contractors, etc.
The elite do not want competition. They know no one stays at the top forever, and they want to maximize their time there.
They want other people (the masses) to not do well in their pursuit of money, land, and power."
https://lifemathmoney.com/want-to-understand-whats-going-on-in-the-world-read-this/
9. This was a great discussion this week. Said it before: they are at their best when they are discussing policy in America and what's happening in VC investing and startup land.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3-hTgRO093Q
10. This is a must read for those interested in tech and macro global. Its ugly out there for many so-called Unicorns (aka Zombie-corns) and its backed by data. But there is a way forward for founders.
https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/23864037-final-emw-2023-macro-keynote-062823
11. Good investing themes and thesis here: Aging, Climate & Sustainability, Education, Consumer, and AI-Enabled.
"Does the entrepreneurial nature of building a venture firm get me fired up? Of course. Does working closely with founders through good and bad times feel meaningful? Yes. But the thrill of discovery, of unearthing a company that I think could be the next big thing, is incomparable."
https://nbt.substack.com/p/investment-themes-mid2023
12. "During the early internet era of the mid-90s – and crypto in the early 2010s – very few people showed up in the first few years, but almost all of them made money.
AI seems like the inverse. After the ChatGPT launch, everyone has shown up to participate in the AI game: researchers, developers, VCs, startups. But unlike former technological shifts, it is possible that very few new players stand to win in the deployment era of LLMs. Unlike crypto, the value prop of LLMs is immediately obvious, driving rapid demand; unlike the internet, LLM products leverage cheap ubiquitous computing to deploy quickly. The few AI players in pole position are winning at lightning speed.
Because the AI revolution is so unevenly distributed, there are very few people defining the frontier – this unfortunately means that the rest of the technology industry is some combination of uninformed and biased. Most talkers are playing catch-up, hallucinating a self-serving worldview that’s a mix of despondence (mope), denial (cope), and salesmanship (hope)."
https://luttig.substack.com/p/hallucinations-in-ai
13. "In the meantime, though, we Americans to the south need to take a hard look at what Canada is doing, and ask ourselves why we can’t do something similar. Like Canada, the U.S. is a highly diverse nation of immigrants. Like Canada, our fertility is below replacement (though not quite as bad), and we rely on immigration for population growth. Like Canada, we face the inherent economic disadvantage of being located far from the world population supercluster in Asia, and thus we will always be fighting an uphill battle to get high-value industries to want to locate here.
So like Canada, we should be importing huge numbers of skilled immigrants — especially because our software and finance and biotech industry clusters, and our world-beating research universities, make it easier for us to attract skilled immigrants in the first place. We should be playing to our strengths.
And yet in the U.S., immigration of any kind is now at the center of a vicious culture war.
I wish Americans could tell themselves a positive narrative like Canada’s — of immigration as the way to build a multicultural nation. Many of us have tried to tell that narrative, and have foundered on the rocks of America’s age of division.
As John Higham wrote, when America is underconfident — when we start to doubt who we are as a people and a nation — we instinctively think about closing the door. Right now, America definitely doesn’t know who we are, as a people and as a nation. Maybe next decade we’ll remember."
https://www.noahpinion.blog/p/maximum-canada-is-happening
14. Codie is the best. If you want financial independence, this is a good place to start.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XkxZCJ2pYqs&t=110s
15. Why Defensetech really matters.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=79yCw8AGbCE&t=3s
16. Article is old but Dubai is more relevant than ever. Its not my favorite place personally but recognize the draw it has for people and its an important Freeport city.
"Overall, this leaner role of government makes for a much better deal for anyone who is productive and creates significant amounts of wealth. This is one of the reasons why jurisdictions like Dubai attract an unusually high number of entrepreneurs, rather than those seeking to live off welfare. Right now, entrepreneurs and other wealth-creators are flocking to Dubai in numbers not seen in years.
Dubai originally became famous as a place for beach holidays, shopping bargains, and good airline connections. It's now much more than that. Increasingly, it's an economic hub not just for the Middle East but for companies from all over the world, even including Australia.
It's among the world's greatest and most important cities in finance, media, and other important sectors. I am saying this even though I've never been Dubai's biggest fan. Given recent developments, even I need to acknowledge that Dubai is about to reach the next level."
https://www.undervalued-shares.com/weekly-dispatches/the-great-escape-part-2-investing-in-dubai/
17. This is not good.
But it's what happens when people stop believing in the American Dream.
Especially as they see all the grifting & incompetence of our Washington political elites added to the stupid woke-ism and self serving military leadership + the Forever wars.
18. "There is a broader political dimension to all this. Western countries have supplied weapons to Ukraine on the understanding that they will make significant gains against the enemy. For the first time, Ukrainian comms have let Kyiv down. Many in London and Brussels and Washington appear to believe that the counter-offensive means thousands of Ukrainians charging the Russian lines and breaking through — but here on the front, it just doesn’t work like that.
“The counteroffensive is military dancing,” Bereza concludes. “We move our troops from point to point to make them think we will break through in that exact place. And when they move, we destroy them, draining their reserves. It could last for months without a breakthrough. It’s not a miracle.”
https://unherd.com/2023/07/dodging-shells-on-ukraines-eastern-front/
19. "Don’t look now, but the era of the “streaming wars” might have come to a quiet end. In a rather anticlimactic fashion, there’s no clear winner; the wars have simply become too costly for all parties involved to carry on.
All in all, it is evident that Hollywood is entering what Disney CEO Bob Iger recently dubbed “an age of great anxiety,” as the industry actively confronts the new reality and scrambles to find viable solutions. The previous focus on growing subscriber bases for streaming services has been deprioritized to make room for new tactics aimed at improving ARPU. But can Hollywood simply hit the brakes on its decade-long shift towards streaming and remake the TV bundle online again?"
20. Business lessons in focus. This is a fun conversation on pursuing your craft.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YXKJJlG7cus
21. I LOVED this book.
A talk behind the true life international investor John Kleinheinz behind the fictional, yet based on true story, book "The Siberian Job."
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1utEaoyev-8
22. "Look for customer value financing to become more popular and common in all recurring revenue businesses. It’s a huge win for entrepreneurs and much needed in the market."
https://davidcummings.org/2023/07/01/customer-value-financing-example/
23. "It is too easy for modern man to get sucked into a mindless trap of mediocrity, degeneracy, and roboticism.
When people break away from the default path, they get scared of the unknown.
There is too much information to explore.
Too many opportunities cause overwhelm.
Too many opinions lead to anxiety.
To find clarity, you have to battle through the chaos.
You can’t just shy away at the first site of struggle.
For every good thought, there are 100 bad.
Your version of success is empowering, but in comes the thought of failure, how long it will take, which skills to learn, and different career and business paths to get there.
Then, those bad thoughts can splinter into 100 more.
That is unless you learn how to order your mind.
To create clarity from chaos."
https://thedankoe.com/letters/focus-is-a-superpower-how-to-succeed-in-the-information-age/
24. Always thought provoking. A rational perspective. He has been right more times than wrong.
The USA is not a hyper power anymore. Blue American elites have rekt America through their incompetence, grift & ideological stupidity.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ADISDec7adU&t=3626s
25. "Arguably not since the Fauci mania of the early pandemic has a scientist become as famous, as quickly, as Huberman. The 47-year-old Stanford University neuroscientist hosts the Huberman Lab podcast, which consistently ranks among the top 10 podcasts on Spotify and Apple and has more than 3.5 million subscribers on YouTube. Since the show’s first episode in January 2021, Huberman has branched out into ticketed live shows, launched paid premium content for subscribers (with much of the net proceeds donated to scientific research projects), and signed a two-book contract with Simon & Schuster, the first of which is set to come out in 2024.
Fans recognize him on the street, which isn’t entirely surprising considering that, in an effort to make his wardrobe simple and spill-proof, he almost always wears the same thing: a black button-down, black jeans, and black Adidas sneakers.
These practices make Huberman Lab appealing to the same audience that might listen to the popular podcasts hosted by productivity guru Tim Ferriss or longevity expert Dr. Peter Attia. (They’ve both appeared on Huberman’s show, and he on theirs.) Their content broadly falls under the umbrella of “biohacking,” or trying to improve physical and cognitive function through targeted lifestyle tweaks, from intermittent fasting to ice baths. Biohacking is a bona fide hobby for a certain kind of person—stereotypically, someone wealthy, male, and ambitious, though Huberman says his audience is split equally between men and women—and it’s become big business in the world of podcasting.
Huberman hates the word “biohacking,” because he thinks it implies people are taking shortcuts when they’re just harnessing science."
https://time.com/6290594/andrew-hubman-lab-podcast-interview/
26. I'm fascinated by Bryan Johnson's Blueprint plan. He is a pretty interesting person. Entrepreneur, investor and extreme biohacker.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yZ-QKrGg8yA
27. "In the past, when Putin faced setbacks in Ukraine, he lashed out: declaring illegal annexations of Ukraine after Kyiv’s successful Kharkiv offensive; threatening nukes; unleashing relentless missile strikes on Ukraine’s population. Putin may attempt an escalation to show the public, and the world, that he is in control of his country, and his war.
Prigozhin’s mutiny tested the premise that Putin, and Russia, could outlast Ukraine, along with Western support and attention. An indefinite war, with an indefinite end, may have more political costs than Putin anticipated."
https://www.vox.com/2023/7/1/23779941/wagner-group-revolt-ukraine-counteroffensive-putin-war
28. I might have to visit Lublin soon when I am in Poland soon.
"Lublin is a beautiful city where renaissance mansions sit next to gothic castles, brutalist shopping malls, techno clubs and cool cafes; a fun and fascinating place to experience Poland’s rich and innovative past, present and future."
29. "So what the counteroffensive that the Ukrainians launched (or more appropriately started a new phase in) is doing is revealing the state of the war and the balance between the two armies. It’s not determining the outcome of the war, its revealing exactly where we are now.
Basically three quarters of the US population supports continuing military aid for Ukraine. This is in some aspects higher than support last year at this time (there was a dip in support for Ukraine amongst the US population last May). This strong support reveals a few things about how the US population is approaching the subject. Americans are generally of the view that Ukraine can ‘win’ the war.
I dont mean to say that the US population has a highly developed idea of what a Ukrainian victory would be—but they do believe that the war is going in Ukraine’s favor and whatever happens Ukraine can end the conflict in good shape. The great worry for Ukraine was not that the US population would get bored of the war—this was always a silly argument, the US does not get bored of war. The great worry for Ukraine was that the US population would decide Ukraine could not win—and this would mean they would not support aid.
Now that the US population has seen that Ukraine can fight well, and indeed has shown greater smarts and effectiveness than the Russian military over the last year, it has adjusted to the new reality. The great regret, however, is that it had to take a year of horrible war to get here."
https://phillipspobrien.substack.com/p/weekend-update-35
30. "Why do I embrace added challenges and costs instead of resisting them?
Here is my answer:
Chaos and challenge give us purpose. Purpose gives us pride. Pride feels good.
People like to feel good.
A cognitive behavioural therapist would say this fills our human need for significance.
All humans have this need. And recognizing that we have it is important - because either we choose our purpose, or a purpose will choose us.
Let me explain.
Building a business or raising a family is a long-term application of purpose. If done correctly, the result is a lifetime of fulfillment and significance.
It requires focus and determination. It is a journey that will inevitably present hardship and failure, with the opportunity to persevere and fight for success over many years."
https://jaymartin.substack.com/p/this-is-how-you-outlast-your-monsters
31. This is an optimistic view of the future and a call to action for all of us investors and entrepreneurs.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=biLNOTqMT_U
32. Some pretty good examples of leadership and smart tactics for improving your life & business.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EpmVb1rvnBA
33. Don't build a biz, buy one. This is a great step by step on how to buy a small business and start building your empire.
Relentless, Constant Pressure: Don’t Stop Until it’s Over
We all watch action movies and as usual near the end, after a big long fight, the bad guy seems to be down. The good guys start to relax and celebrate. But then the bad guy comes out of nowhere to cause trouble again. That is why in real life, you put a bullet in their head to make sure they are down for the count. It’s called a “Dead Check.” This sounds grim but it’s reality. This is how stuff gets done. As Robert Greene wrote “Crush Your Enemies Totally”.
You do not stop fundraising until the money hits the bank. You do not stop fighting until your opponent is down. You keep going until you are done. You go all out and don’t half ass it. The sale is not closed until they sign the contract and pay the money!!
I see too many founders celebrate at the one yard line and then they mess up. It’s like you spent all this time pushing a rock up the hill, but then you stop short of the top where the momentum starts to go your way. You try to take the shortcut or easier path, when all it took was just a little further push to get you to the top. As George Orwell said “The quickest way of ending a war is to lose it.” It is so very easy to lose momentum in business and life.
You cannot afford to be complacent. Complacency kills. In this highly competitive world full of ruthless executors, You can’t relax or celebrate until it’s absolutely clear you have completely won. Or scored the touchdown as per football parlance. You have to keep pushing till the bitter end.
This is also quite relevant for life too. How many times have you heard about the recently retired just passing away suddenly after working for decades. It’s because they no longer have a mission. No purpose, no life. So assuming you enjoy the game you are in, just keep pushing and keep going! If you want to rest, rest after the finish line and not before!
School is Uncool: The Good & Bad of a Formal Education
As a parent, it’s been interesting watching my kid go through different types of schools. American public school, private American school in Taiwan, home schooling and now back to public school. Obviously, there are lots of advantages and disadvantages to all of these.
I remember when my daughter Amber and her classmates were in kindergarten, they were so raw, excited and energetic. They saw joy in almost everything and anything. They said what they thought and felt. Maybe most importantly they had crazy imagination and creativity and everything was possible in their minds.
But this changes as they get older. They get socialized, they get peer pressured to fit in either by their social circle and by the teachers (and parents) telling them NO. Maybe this is part of the growing up process which accelerates through high school, then university and then the workplace.
The sad thing is all the “possibilities" disappear in their mind and they become like everyone else. They lose the courage to say what they truly think for fear of sticking out and not fitting in or being laughed at. Being socially ostracized and being a social outcast is so hard wired into all of us, that it is easier to keep quiet so you can fit in.
I think this definitely happened to me. And I was only able to escape by literally leaving my home country of Canada, traveling and meeting new people and social circles to figure out who I really am. And the irony is in the business world and in the world at large, it’s important to be authentic, to stand out and think for yourself.
All the most successful people in the world do this. Orthogonal thinking, an overused word in Silicon Valley, which is defined as “thinking that draws from a variety of, and perhaps seemingly unrelated, perspectives to achieve new insights.” (Source: https://interactioninstitute.org/orthogonal-thinking-and-doing)
Is it a surprise that some of the best programmers, entrepreneurs and investors are somewhat autistic or somewhere on the spectrum? An autistic person does not understand social cues and finds it hard to understand how others feel or think. No surprise they are able to think for themselves and do original things. Things that allow them to stand out and win.
I value education, I encourage kids to go to school. But let’s not kid ourselves, school is indoctrination. David Sack’s calls our Universities “Woke Madrassas.” I’m far from his political stance but I understand his perspective. And for those who don’t know what madrassa is, it’s a Islamic religious school known for preaching an especially austere form of Islam. The parallel to the modern school system is clear. This is why the first thing a foreign power or conqueror does after taking over a place: take direct control of the media and schools.
This is also why as a parent and concerned relative, it’s important to balance our kid’s formal education with an informal one. Help them fall in love with learning and realize that education happens both in school and outside of it. Help them travel if you can afford, reading as many different books as possible, encouraging them to explore other interests, and giving them alternative views from the mainstream one being propagated by the media and education system.
This way they might have a chance to learn how to think for themselves and stand out from all the cookie-cutter sheeple around them.