Talent Mobility in a Deglobalized & Multipolar World: Learning from Genghis Khan
As a history buff, I read a tremendous amount of books. Most recently finished “The Mongol Storm” by Nicholas Morton, which described the scary story and impressive impact their conquests and invasions had on most of Asia, the Middle East and even Eastern Europe in the 13th century. It was a terrifying horde from the harsh environment of the steppes, unified and led by a military genius named Chinggis Khan (Genghis Khan in western parlance) that literally changed everything in the geopolitical order at that time.
Old political dynasties were destroyed and immigration of entire peoples fled before their wrath. Their empire spanned China, most of the Middle East & Central Asia, all the way through modern day Turkey, Russia & Ukraine to even parts of Eastern Europe. It was huge and probably surpassed the old Roman Empire or at least matched the one of Alexander the Great. They had clear rules: Defiance and resistance would end in terror and death but surrender and loyalty would receive security and prosperity. It worked very well.
After the initial destruction and disruption, they were able to connect continents and unify trade routes from all over the world. The Mongol conquests reshaped the Near East and the process of Globalization really began during this time. They encouraged commerce and the sciences. Recruited talent from all across the empire. This led to a massive interchange and exchange of trade, ideas and talent between Asia & Europe, arguably, the beginning of the connected world we live in now. The conquests inevitably broadened peoples world views and opened their minds. Knowledge increased dramatically.
“In some cases these specialists might spend their entire lives plying their trade in places like the Venetian shipyards: “the Arsenal.” In most cases, however, a ruler rarely possessed the money or the need to retain an artisan’s services for more than a single project or for a few years, so the latter customarily moved from state to state, crossing cultural boundaries and plying their trade wherever it was required.
This very mobile workforce was much in evidence across the Near East in the medieval period: the Crusader States hired Armenian siege engineers; the Egyptians constructed ships according to a design created by a Sicilian shipwright; both the Mamluk sultan and the Ilkhans employed Frankish shipwrights; silk weavers from Mosul took refuge from the Mongols in the Crusader States (and, by extension, silk weavers from the Crusader States seemingly set up workshops in Paris); the Ayyubids occasionally hired Frankish knights to train their warriors;60 and an architect from Ayyubid Damascus designed the Anatolian Seljuks’ great mosque in Konya.
In short, the workforce was mobile and hireable, meaning that technologies and personnel flowed easily and quickly across religious and ethnic boundaries. This often had the effect of flattening the technological balance of power between societies because in many cases they all had access to the same artisans.”
But fast forward to 2024, as I’ve written many times, the world is fracturing again. Between the Global West (North America/ Europe/ Japan & Australia/New Zealand), the Global East (Russia/China) and Global South (Southeast Asia, Latam, Africa and the Middle East). Or as Balaji calls it Woke Capital, Communist Capital and Crypto Capital. Globalization, while not completely ended, is fracturing into these various blocs, where the bulk of the trade will be within these structures and not with each other.
In this new world, there will still be many opportunities for those willing to travel and even emigrate to new places. Possibly the Global South which is where the major growing populations are. Places like Singapore, Dubai, Abu Dhabi, Panama and possibly a surprise for many people: Bangkok, Ho Chi Minh City or Riyadh that are growing clusters for talent and where smart ambitious people are rewarded for their willingness to move.
In the Global West it could be cities like Tokyo, Tirana or Seoul. Where the smartest and most ambitious people go will always change. It used to be London during the 1800s. San Francisco, Los Angeles, New York & London have seen a massive decline during the pandemic but seem to be making a resurgence now. Talent, just like capital, will go where they are most welcome & see the brightest future. The flexible and the mobile will win big in this new world.
Undiscovered and Overlooked Assets: Value Investing in Life
Growing up studying history I’ve always been fascinated by history. Everyone knows about ancient Rome and Greece or the Italian Renaissance or the Napoleonic Wars. I love those periods too. But for me it was the obscure stuff.
Did you know that Hungary, Poland & the Czech Hussites during the Middle Ages were great military powers? Or Spain's army was unbeatable for several hundred years across Europe? Or about the Great Latin American war between Paraguay and, well, almost every major country in Latam. Super obscure.
I wonder sometimes why I am so driven to discover relatively unknown but amazing books, ideas and even places. Kind of like value investing but for life. It's way more fun to be emerging than to be emerged. To find the unobvious. To surface something looking back in retrospect seemed so obvious. This is my juice.
For travel, yes, I love fairly well known and popular places like Hawaii, Japan, Turkey, Thailand or Argentina. But for me the attraction was always for the overlooked but awesome places. Places like Ukraine, Saudi Arabia, Albania, Taiwan, Finland or Serbia.
And I love being relatively early before the crowds show up. Case in point I loved Lisbon and Portugal when I first went in 2015. Fast forward to 2024, I find it way too overrun with tourists. It’s lost its interest to me even though it’s still a beautiful place with amazing food.
Interesting how your curiosity and interests in life bleed into your career and how your career bleeds into your life.
It’s probably why I was drawn by the art of venture capital. Investing in overlooked geographies, founders and industrial sectors. If you do a deal and everyone thinks it’s a good deal, you probably missed something or are too late. I was early in B2B SaaS & Developer tools in 2014, relatively early in Insurance-tech back in 2015. And it is now definitely still early in the Defense/Militech space & Manufacturing-tech but boy is it exciting. (For all you peacenik critics of this, I don’t like that war and the need for a growing military industry is needed but it is now a reality in a deglobalizing and newly multi-polar world. Quoting Trotsky: “You might not be interested in war, but war is interested in you” )
Quoting my friend & legendary seed VC investor Mike Maples Jr. quoting legendary capital investor Dave Swensen: “you want your portfolio to be uncomfortably idiosyncratic.” Or put another way, you want to be misunderstood which usually equates to being very very early in the tech and consumer trend game.
This is the only way to generate real returns and alpha. It’s easier said than done as it requires conviction and courage to move against the crowd. You also need to be comfortable having haters and doubters. But if you have a clear thesis on the future and have done your homework, stick with it and give it the time until the market moves your way. Magic eventually happens.
Sun Moon: Loss, Growth, Taiwan & Travel
I always end up watching random movies on my many flights. I found this b-grade movie called “Sun Moon”, about a young American girl from a small town who gets left at the altar by her fiancé. Living in a typical small town, she is tired of the whispers and pity. With a young sister in college & an ill mother in the hospital, she decides to randomly move to Taiwan to teach English at the Taiwan Adventist Academy high school.
And her adventure begins. After a rough start with jet lag, apathetic Taiwanese teens and culture shock, she begins to adjust. She starts to bond with her students, explores the beauty of underrated Taiwan, and falls in love with her handsome Taiwanese colleague. It’s a surprisingly warm and lovely story. It also shows how kind and warm Taiwanese people are.
It reminds me also of my own story, moving to Taiwan in 1997, meeting new friends and more importantly meeting a beautiful girl. Led to us getting married, having a brilliant and amazing little girl, building a family. It used to be my main source of joy & happiness at least until the pandemic lockdowns in 2020.
I’m not particularly religious but count myself spiritual. Or at least I have become more so over the last few years. There was a great quote in the movie.
“I think God uses everything. The way you love, the way you hurt, your mistakes, your whims. I guess if you are stuck, you have to take a leap of faith.”
If things are bad, you need to make a big move. Take action. Do something, anything.
The movie reinforced my sense that if you are in a bad situation, sometimes it makes sense to leave your old home and environment. A New environment gives you new perspectives. Some time away from your old place can help you heal. Or to allow yourself to gather strength to recover and then deal with the situation better.
What I liked about this movie also was how distance can help you rediscover the important thing you are running away from. You can hide but not forever. It always catches up to you. Whether that is love, religion and family.
“There is a time for everything. To everything there is a season.”
Marvin’s Best Weekly Reads November 10th, 2024
"Success isn't always about greatness. It's about consistency. Consistent hard work leads to success. Greatness will come." —Dwayne Johnson
"When you look at manpower, the Russian government has significantly increased the payouts and benefits to recruit personnel. The reason for that is straightforward. It’s clear that at this rate of loss, the Russian contract recruitment campaign is unable to keep up. This too does not mean that Russia is going to run out of manpower, but it’s clear that they’re struggling, and they are not likely to be able to sustain this pace of operations, staying on the offensive with this rate of loss.
The way I would put it is that the Russian military is actually operating under significant constraints. Given the likely decline in the relative advantage at the front line, Russia’s potential negotiating position actually isn’t all that strong. And while Russia has the resources to sustain the war in the near term, looking just a bit beyond that you see a fairly problematic picture in terms of the rate of inflation in Russia’s overheating economy, the deficit of skilled labor — because the state is pulling workers into the defense industry and contracting them to fight in the war — the steady depletion of Russia’s liquid reserves, and the fact that much of the budget is tied to the current oil price. The economic picture for Russia isn’t particularly rosy. The effort to juggle several different parts of this equation may not be sustainable. And this too must at some point weigh on the Russian leadership’s mind."
https://nymag.com/intelligencer/article/ukraine-war-why-russia-is-in-more-trouble-than-it-looks.html
2. This is a grim outlook for geopolitics and the economy from Simon Hunt.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wMxgtbmOU1E
3. "Here’s the bottom line: In this next new era, risk capital available for startups will be much less concentrated in a few Sand Hill Road firms doing old-school equity financings. It will be much more distributed, and much more diverse in the ways that financings are structured.
For entrepreneurs, I think this is a good thing. As I’ve written before, I don’t think the unicorn obsession was necessarily good for us.
2025–2035 will look a lot different than 2010–2022. And I am so here for it."
https://medium.com/@bretwaters/the-venture-capital-landscape-changing-c762f33e8c73
4. Educational conversation on the race to AGI.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wMQoDRTWwUg
5. What a terrifying new world of war.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EEXI6r08908
6. "How good of a CRM could a software company build with a $10m annual budget & with AI? It’s the equivalent bet to funding a startup with a $20-30m Series A & a big design partner.
Technology is always commoditizing itself. Perhaps bespoke software will have the same impact in sales as in customer support. That would provide Klarna a sustainable competitive advantage over time.
It’s also a forcing function to require the organization to rethink their workflows in the age of AI. More than just changing software, burning the boats & forcing a company to reimagine workflows with a blank slate can be a powerful way to drive innovation."
https://tomtunguz.com/klarna-ai/
7. This is always a good show for learning what's up in Silicon Valley.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xHEt2HLxRfU
8. More on what's up in Silicon Valley. Definitely right title: "The crisis in venture" with GV's MG Siegler.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UMizwOPI3w8
9. Strong views whether you agree or not and this is great. Glad to see a more outspoken and authentic Silicon Valley.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?app=desktop&v=CgEWwL_wwQk
10. This looks damn good. Inspiration for training.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q4gz6Kwpotw
11. The global war broadens unfortunately with North Korean troops training in Russia in preparation to go to Ukraine, opens up massive implications geopolitically.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T0uYxK66VLU
12. Talk about an OG Defense-tech investor. This was incredibly insightful. Strong recommendation.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?app=desktop&v=idpsqCH2VTA&t=3s
13. "My recommendation is to articulate a clear vision, sell the future, and then continuously adapt, solicit feedback, and iterate. The vision is seen, but the journey to achieve it is unknown."
https://davidcummings.org/2024/10/12/the-vision-is-clear-but-the-journey-is-unknown/
14. "Yet Britain’s resolve will only truly become clear if and when a contest for polar assets — or indeed fully-fledged polar war — finally arrives. And in the event, any showdown could come sooner than we think. Long-term oil reserves are one thing. But Russia also has a profound strategic interest in the Arctic in the here-and-now. Last February, Norway’s normally reticent intelligence service publicly warned that nuclear weapons could be present on Russian vessels in the High North. No less important, Sweden and Finland’s accession to Nato also brings the possibility that Western nuclear weapons might be deployed in the Arctic too.
China, for its part, needs the Arctic as well. With sea lanes in the Red Sea threatened by the Houthis, and the Panama Canal with problems of its own, Beijing needs a reliable route from its port at Dailan to Rotterdam in Europe. The Arctic is the obvious choice here, not least when Chinese ships can now make the journey in less than 25 days, and when its economy would surely struggle without it. Britain, in short, seems unwilling or unable to exploit its polar bounty. But its future here may ultimately depend on decisions taken by others — something Keir Starmer and his admirals would both do well to remember."
https://unherd.com/2024/10/britains-coming-polar-war/
15. Mike Maples Jr is a legend. This is an insight deep conversation in startup investing.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b_lqGHKHi5M
16. "In this post, I’ve argued that the primary goal in organization design should not be reducing of span-of-control, but in surfacing conflicts most important to the company. I’ve also introduced a value-add rule that says no department should report into an executive who can’t add value to it. And finally, knowing that consolidation is inevitable over time as a successful company scales."
https://kellblog.com/2024/10/12/design-your-organization-for-the-conflicts-you-want-to-hear-about/
17. A masterclass in founder selling. And software sales in general, especially for enterprise sales. Learned a lot personally.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ROsrlUFAVZs&t=887s
18. I had to watch this. Of course, both Mearsheimer & Sachs are anti-Ukraine which is wrong in my view. Jeffrey Sachs is very much naive in my opinion, CCP is absolutely a massive threat. CCP is pushing aggressively in South and East China seas. I agree more w/ Mearsheimer's view.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uvFtyDy_Bt0&t=13s
19. Geopolitical take here on China and the fight for African resources between China, USA, France, Russia, UAE & Turkey among others.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z2PJF9_9w4w&t=1s
20. "Ten to twenty years ago, none of these worrying laws or actions enacted by our governments were commonplace. Today, they’re growing at a rate that should terrify us all.
Where will we be in another decade from now?
Sure, people aren’t yet being arrested in the West for wearing a t-shirt the government doesn’t like. But we’re very close to that being the case."
https://anticitizen.com/p/heads-will-roll
21. Worth watching if you want to know where AI and compute is going. BG2 is the best show on tech biz right.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z77jZkYDpIE&t=1736s
22. "Since 2020, according to published reports, the United States has been urging countries in the region to avoid using a Chinese company to repair or lay new cables at the bottom of the sea out of concern that China could intercept and monitor sensitive communications passing through the cables.
It has also been urging companies to route new cables around the perimeter of the sea, avoiding the central part of the waterway claimed by China based on historic maps showing a 10-dash line that infringes on the exclusive economic zones of several other countries.
In what may be an act of retaliation, according to a Washington Post report this month, China has been delaying — sometimes for months — its approval of permits for companies to repair or lay new cables under the sea. The delays have been particularly troublesome for countries such as Vietnam, which is anxious to replace five aging cables that have failed repeatedly, slowing internet traffic in the country.
In the past four years, the U.S. government has blocked at least three cable projects that would have linked the United States to Hong Kong because of concerns that China could spy on or sabotage communications, the Post reported."
23. A deep dive into the future of AI with the man driving much of this. Jensen of Nvidia.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bUrCR4jQQg8
24. "But it's also true that VCs and founders have kept chasing the ghost of pandemic-era valuation excess, thus stymieing exit efforts.
Moreover, Biden had presided over very strong public stock markets that have proven welcoming to IPOs — which is where VCs historically have made their strongest returns — but too many VCs have become so "founder-friendly" as to become lousy fiduciaries.
The bottom line: The VC market's cowardly chickens are coming home to roost."
https://www.axios.com/2024/10/11/venture-capital-deal-slow-liquidity
25. An excellent discussion on what's up with Silicon Valley VC: AI & Defense Renaissance.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nXHQfhQrhfs
26. Incredible & insightful discussion on the art of seed stage investing. This is worth watching a few times.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=njgJ4w9DAao
27. "Meanwhile, in pre-Columbus North America, native tribes were engaged in a constant state of territorial warfare. Far removed from the Disney depiction of Native life, to borrow from Hobbes, life was indeed brutal, nasty, and short. With no common language, values system, or acknowledgment of property rights, it was every clan for themselves.
The strong persevered, and the weak perished. Tribes maneuvered almost like gorillas in the wild. Outsiders were deemed a potential barbarian who must be dealt with violently in the interest of self-preservation.
Native Americans failed to truly thrive, and there is no indication it was because they were somehow less intelligent."
https://www.dossier.today/p/why-the-left-canceled-columbus-day
28. This makes me both angry and sad. Disgusted at the lack of strategy, the cowardice and weakness of the USA & Europe. We have let down Ukraine & set them up to fail but it's not too late to turn things around.
"What would a betrayed Ukraine look like? At least it would retain some 82% of its territory. A guilty West would doubtless provide aid to rebuild infrastructure. It might be given a pathway to eventual EU membership (unless that option had been bargained away at the negotiating table), but joining the Western club may have lost its appeal at that point. Ukraine’s corrupt oligarchs would re-emerge from hibernation. The old post-Soviet cynicism would replace the youthful enthusiasm of the Maidan generation. There would be antagonism towards those returning from abroad after avoiding the fight, and – of course – thousands of grieving families.
This should have been Europe’s war to manage. In spite of decades of discussion about European defence, it proved too convenient to rely on US largesse. This made Europe a prisoner of US electoral factors. It also caused Europe to shirk the difficult decisions that helping win the war entailed: the big increases in defence expenditure, the 24-hour working in ammunition factories, the hikes in food and energy costs and the political risks such as seizing frozen assets. What remains now for Europe is to secure a place at the negotiating table and to argue for NATO membership for Ukraine as part of any settlement.
Failing that, the West will have years to repent the betrayal of the courageous Ukrainians, whose only crime was their wish to join the Western democratic order."
https://rusi.org/explore-our-research/publications/commentary/impending-betrayal-ukraine
29. This is motivating and helpful for any budding entrepreneur. We can all learn from Alex Hormozi.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WO5m-roVzjg
30. Good discussion on investing in AI. A good VC needs to be a historian.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QsV2avKGXQM
31. "I’m not a fan of lifetime value (LTV) in startups (how can one predict a 7 year customer lifetime value if the company isn’t yet 7 years old?) But for public software companies with these sparser economics, LTV becomes an important determinant of whether & when to invest more in growth.
If paybacks are 4.5 years & LTVs are five years, that data should provoke strategic questions about the company operations."
https://tomtunguz.com/why-ltv-matters-more-in-2024/
32. "The most interesting point that was focused on was Taiwan. The conclusion of everyone I talked to or overheard talking about China was that Taiwan is a when, not an if. The universal conclusion of what happens after China takes Taiwan - slowly or quickly depending on who you ask - is that China won't face consequences for that. The sanctions mechanisms that have been used to attempt to harm smaller countries like Russia and Iran - who have continued to trade with China - wouldn't work at all on China.
The shipping companies wouldn't have anybody left to trade with. You'd likely have some companies that would only trade with western approved counter parties - but in general, any attempt by the west to prevent ships from loading in China - a country that builds more ships now than any other nation, drives half of global commodities demand, and serves as the world's factory - would be so disastrous that its implementation wouldn't even be attempted. If you believe the shipping guys, the United States has already lost its world leadership position. China is everything.
I don't think people are really willing to talk about what the end of US hegemony means - I brought up "US currency devaluation" several times and I think nobody really liked that topic. But the fact that all of these people - who have their finger directly on the pulse of global trade - see a US/China conflict, or even just China facing any consequences or resistance at all for invading Taiwan - well it tells you an awful lot about how much the world has changed over the past 30 years. China was still barely an industrial power at the end of the 1990s. Now they are the power."
https://calvinfroedge.com/insights-from-capital-link-forum-2024/
33. "And now we come close to the heart of the Art Deco movement: it was futuristic while having one eye in the back of its head. That was the secret to its genius. It embraced machines, new materials, and the future...while never forgetting the primal value of beauty."
https://oldbooksguy.substack.com/p/why-art-deco-is-making-a-comeback
34. "We know that war is inflationary. We understand that the US government must borrow money to sell bombs to Israel. We know that the Fed and the US commercial banking system will buy this debt by printing money and growing their balance sheets. Therefore, we know that Bitcoin will rise stupendously in fiat terms as the war intensifies.
What about Iran’s military expenditures? Will China/Russia help Iran’s war effort in some way? China is perfectly willing to buy Iranian hydrocarbons, and China and Russia sell Iran goods; however, none of this trading is done on credit. In a cynical sense, I believe China and Russia will act like the clean-up crew. They will publicly denounce the war but do nothing of note to attempt to prevent Iran's destruction.
Israel is not interested in nation-building. Instead, they would delight if, as a result of their attacks, the Iranian regime crumbled due to popular unrest. China, in particular, could then roll out its preferred method of diplomacy. Loan a newly formed weak Iranian government funds to rebuild their country using Chinese state-owned firms. That, in essence, is the Belt and Road program Chinese President Xi Jinping has pursued throughout his reign. Then Iran, with its massive deposits of minerals and hydrocarbons, would be fully within the Chinese orbit. China obtains another captive market in the Global South to dump its overproduced, high-quality, and low-priced manufactured goods. In return, Iran sells China cheap energy and industrial commodities.
If you want to call it that, the support from China and Russia will not expand the global fiat money supply. Therefore, it will have no discernible impact on the fiat price of Bitcoin.
An intensified Middle Eastern conflict will not destroy any critical physical infrastructure supporting crypto. Bitcoin and crypto will rise as energy prices spike higher. The hundreds of billions or trillions of newly printed dollars will re-energize the Bitcoin bull market."
https://cryptohayes.substack.com/p/persistent-weak-layer
35. "So what do you have to do at seed? You have to go further out on the risk curve, to something that’s weirder, different, or too early for a later-stage investor. Early, but not too early: hence the “12-36 months” phrasing. If you go too early and either the technology or market is not ready, the company may run out of money before you hit an inflection point. Finding an idea whose time has finally come with a multi-decade tailwind driving your potential is critical to building a generational venture-backed company.
A good litmus test I’ve been using recently is: “If I asked someone who works at a middle-of-the-road Series B/C fund about this company, would they react with skepticism or excitement?” If it’s the latter, I worry that the market is already defined and obvious and it’s too late for me.
If it’s the former, there might actually be something there."
https://pratyushbuddiga.substack.com/p/what-do-you-invest-in
36. Jeff does a good job on the state of the venture capital market right now: signs of consolidation. Really interesting, specifically with his view on the emerging manager sector.
The Great Societal Disconnection: The True Impact of the 2020 Pandemic
Social media is a curse because you see all the things you missed. FOMO all the time. While traveling in Europe I noticed a good friend had just gotten married and was having a huge wedding party. And the thing that got me was that I recognized many people there. People I considered friends and close former colleagues.
Prior to 2020 I definitely would have been invited and been there. But I realize now with the pandemic lockdowns, the disruptions from the barbaric Russian invasion of Ukraine, the vicious Hamas 2023 attack and atrocities against Israeli civilians and the consequent trauma that hit most of us, isolated us all and caused us to lose touch with each other. And these are, I stress, previously close friends and colleagues over the last few decades. The lockdowns and shutdown disrupted so many of our lives but the real impact is really being felt many years later on. I would add, being an introvert and having a global and traveling lifestyle only accelerates this effect.
How many of us ended up being divorced or separated from our spouses due to the unnatural amount of time stuck together during stressful times? How many of our kids were socially affected and traumatized from the lockdowns? How many of us feel completely disconnected from friends and family?
It’s in 2024 when I write this and it’s only now 4 years later that I am slowly beginning to reconnect in person with people I used to see all the time. People I respect and consider good friends. 3 frigging years where we all have changed dramatically. 3 years of being traumatized by government fear mongering and disillusioned by their grift and incompetence. We are all different people now, for better or worse.
No wonder everyone is feeling completely alone and disconnected. This is the true cost of the 2020 pandemic and I am not sure how long it will take to recover from this. Or if we ever will. But one way or the other, these next few years will be years of reconnecting back with everyone. We can absolutely still heal if we make the effort. So here is me making the effort and starting to reach out to everyone again after working on myself.
No Good Deed Goes Unpunished: The Limits of Generosity
I spend much time transiting through airports. One of them is Istanbul as I tend to go to places in Eastern Europe, Central Asia and the Middle East these days. During a recent trip when getting my Internet access code for the airport via a kiosk, an older lady asked me for some help. So of course I helped her.
But some other older ladies saw this and asked me to help them get them as well. Well fast forward, 20-30 minutes later, as I was helping the last one, she then asked me if I could help her husband. I kind of lost it and said I had a flight to catch (which I actually did) and walked away. I wish I handled this with a bit more grace.
I admit this is definitely a very petty post. I genuinely want to try to help people but every once in a while I get so triggered when people get demanding or entitled or just ask for way too much.
I think this is why so many rich or famous people start to turn inward and avoid people. People are selfish, in many cases stupid and clueless at times. The rich and famous become targets of social demands and feel like everyone wants something from them. Which is usually the case.
Now I don’t want to become a transactional east coast MBA guy who only does something if they get something in return. I never want to be that kind of guy.
But I also don’t want to be the people pleaser that says YES to everything and everyone. Giving without end. That would not be good for my own psyche or anyone’s actually. There are also many people in the world who view kindness and generosity as a weakness and are people I try to avoid dealing with.
My rule is the “rule of 1 and half”, that I learned in Silicon Valley. You get 1-2 meetings or 1-2 intros to help for free. Anything beyond that has to be commercial. But it also lets me try and give some help to people without expectation of any return. This rule obviously is for people you don’t know, not friends or family of course. There are almost no limits in mind to family and friends. It’s sacred.
It’s also a reminder for me to go back to the principles of stoicism. You can’t control other people but you can control your feelings toward them.
Just like Roman Emperor Marcus Aurelius said:
“Begin each day by telling yourself: Today I shall be meeting with interference, ingratitude, insolence, disloyalty, ill-will, and selfishness – all of them due to the offenders’ ignorance of what is good or evil.
But for my part I have long perceived the nature of good and its nobility, the nature of evil and its meanness, and also the nature of the culprit himself, who is my brother (not in the physical sense, but as a fellow creature similarly endowed with reason and a share of the divine); therefore none of those things can injure me, for nobody can implicate me in what is degrading.”
I find this helps condition me and prepare for the day. The “rule of 1 & half” is the second part that prevents you from getting taken advantage of while also allowing you to help people. This will help you manage your important and inevitable social obligations.
Holiday Hell: Why Holidays Are Hard for Most People
Have you noticed that many people tend to be particularly tense or in a bad mood during the major holidays. Especially during Thanksgiving or Christmas/New Years in America. As someone who has lived away from my home in Vancouver, Canada since 1996, I always religiously head home to see my folks during Christmas time. I think I missed a year because of a missed flight in 2001 and then in 2020 due to the BS covid lockdowns. But otherwise I would fly home, always with a mixture of joy and anxiety.
Why? We should be so fortunate to have our parents and siblings still around. Many people don’t have that luxury. And especially as an adult with a child, it’s great to just be able to chill out while all the meals, babysitting and laundry and chores are done for you. You regress back to your childhood. And my folks even give me Canadian dollars to spend while there, which is so weird. And they never take my refusal at all.
But at the same time, you hear bizarre commentary on politics and societal events. Or the criticism from elders, and the inevitable judgment and conflict that comes up at meal time. Annoying as you are now an adult used to living and doing whatever you want. Especially for someone so independent minded like me. It’s not like I have a curfew but then you end up having all the weird arguments with them.
The excellent financial writer Frederik Gieschen wrote something quite insightful a week or so back:
"What strange magic happens once we’re around family? We’re confronted with our past, we get a glimpse of our future, we dive into our deepest wells of conflicting emotions. Love, gratitude, and the desire to be seen, heard, and appreciated all co-exist with frustration, anger, sadness, shame. We start shifting between new and old identities, we slip back into roles and behaviors we thought we’d long abandoned. The ghosts of childhood wounds haunt the dinner table.
I think we trigger each by our very nature, not on purpose (ok, sometimes on purpose). Just like an insult only touches us if we spot a kernel of truth in it, family drama is intense because we see aspects of ourselves reflected in the other. Family ‘rubs your nose’ in the struggles of your life by showing you its iterations. If my mother struggles to let go of things, I see in this my own challenges, my own stacks of books, my own clutching and clasping.
Family is a mirror. Family throws a spotlight on what we’d rather avoid.
But here’s the kicker. If you do it right, family drama is a portal.
Fear, death, love, desire, envy, healthy and unhealthy romance, addiction, generational trauma — it’s often all there, in some shape or form. And for the holidays, it all comes together."
(Source: https://alchemy.substack.com/p/in-the-land-of-triggers-merry-christmas)
And for me it’s the long simmering anger I have toward my mother who always questioned and shamed me for not being the model kid when growing up. We’re all hurt little children no matter how old we are. And for most part, I’ve been able to use this rage to drive my career and life forward. But it’s always been there and you can only suppress it for so long. It has started to negatively impact my own family life in the last few years, despite entreaties by my therapist and other family members to finally address it over the last 2 years. Something I kept putting off the hard conversations.
So Frederik’s post came at the perfect time. He wrote:“Holidays offer an opportunity to learn about ourselves and our family and rediscover quirks and imperfections. There’s no guarantee that we leave with the gift of love, growth, and understanding.
If we face our triggers, if we muster the courage to share, if we listen with patience, if we draw on our compassion, well, there’s a chance we can turn the drama and pain into something precious. It’s a chance worth taking.”
He was right. It was not a fun or easy conversation but things have gotten slightly better since. And I’m less angry. That’s something. So my point is that hard conversations are better to have sooner, rather than later. Your parents or loved ones will not always be there.
Better to take the uncomfortable step to engage them and you will come out of this feeling much better. And the albeit petty sub-lesson for me: hold grudges for your enemies, not your family. :)
Marvin’s Best Weekly Reads November 3rd, 2024
"Most of the important things in the world have been accomplished by people who have kept on trying when there seemed to be no hope at all." —Dale Carnegie
"In January of 2011, Netflix was worth $11 billion. By November, the company’s market cap was just over $3 billion. The reason? As Netflix pivoted to streaming it tried to spin off its DVD business. The Qwikster backlash cost Netflix 1 million subscribers. As it turned out, Netflix was right, but early, as they ultimately closed their DVD business in 2023. In 2012, Best Buy was on the brink of bankruptcy and the big-box sector looked doomed. A year later, Best Buy’s market cap increased 3X as a new CEO led one of the biggest turnarounds in retail history. And then there’s the turnaround story everyone knows: Apple.
We’re wired to overestimate the impact of negative events, a phenomenon known as the negativity bias. It’s a cognitive distortion that makes us believe that failures have a greater impact than they actually do. At some point, every business experiences a crisis, i.e., an opportunity.
As a Professor of Brand Strategy, I can’t help but wax nostalgic and believe these firms are ripe for a comeback. They all boast global brands, talented workforces, and robust supply chains. However, the most attractive thing about these firms is just how badly they’ve been beaten down. In the first four weeks of 2024, Nvidia added the value of all four of these firms. And that’s the bull case as at some point every stock (unless it’s going to zero) is too expensive/cheap. These angels have fallen so far, redemption is overdue."
https://www.profgalloway.com/fallen-angels/
2. The fertility crisis in the world. Curse of modernity?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mEQEMpxLnGA
3. "Remember Power is not money, status, or the ability to get others to do something.2 No, Power is the ability to control potential Energy. Monopolies are associated with Power and price gouging for this reason. HR has Power because they decide if you get fired or get a raise. And the Longshoremen have Power because they have a monopoly over cargo movement.
It’s a little more than a month to the US national election and a little over two months till Christmas and Daggett was willing to be the bad guy and extort all of America and its children for a pay raise. One man in New Jersey determines if your kids get Christmas Presents.
That’s Power. The ability to control, shape and redirect potential energy.
You may not like it, but that’s the sort of thing that gets you a 77% pay raise with no repercussions.
Yet what caused the ILA to cave prematurely is social media pressure. The framing of the issue where it wasn’t poor union workers against machines, but a mafia cartel extorting America and hindering relief. In this sense Power was reigned in by one of the forces they drew from Public Opinion.
Everyone pitches the David vs Goliath story when fighting, to win public opinion. But that only works when you’re the weakest faction in the story. Against big billion dollar corporations you can get sympathy; but when you’re withholding aid to disaster victims to advance your position, people sour."
https://mercurial.substack.com/p/port-authority
4. Deeply philosophical conversation with OG Silicon Valley philosopher and investor. Naval Ravikant. Living well and how to do your best work.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wQGOYnWHnto
5. Still trying to figure out this Crypto thing......interesting debate.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qsiIilxAzYs
6. "The amount of money going to venture has 10x’d, and the combination of more efficient pricing and a limited amount of great deals means that - for two decades - the hot got hotter. The rising tide has kept seed graduation rates steadily around 45%, but it’s also meant that consensus deals get bid up heavily at Series A as the dopamine and social capital of an up-round encourages junior investors to look for consensus.
The last two decades have awarded sourcing the best deals, and winning access to them, so big funds hired and trained for this. This dynamic has created a generation of investors who are excellent networkersand salespeople, but fairly limited pickers.
If a small fund is taking punchy bets, with unique insights, they are likely benefitted by a pullback in venture funding provided they can raise their fund. At seed, having smaller funds means that each unique insight you have has a greater impact on your fund MOIC. They have less access constraints and smaller teams which means more freedom for independent decisions.
In a less liquid environment, they’d face less competition, their signal would mean more to big funds, and since they are not usually investing behind consensus narratives, their money would be worth more to founders. However, finding these funds requires going far out the risk curve - usually something like SaaS in San Francisco is too efficiently priced."
https://jordsnel.substack.com/p/big-funds-small-funds-and-the-changing
7. This is a great conversation from 4 of the most accomplished folks in tech. Lots of big topics and strong views on Open AI, Defense-tech, Regulations and Social Media. Really educational.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bcwelhe9Rys&t=886s
8. "So I wanted to look into the past, what were people thinking when they were thinking bigger, when they were willing to look at wackier paths.
When they were willing to consider things that have been eliminated often because technologies just weren't ready. There's a lot of technologies that have been discarded because they weren't practical at the time, and nobody ever revisited them and said, "Hey, I actually think the time has come." A good example is with the Rift. Doing real-time distortion correction is not a new idea. It existed in the 1980s and 1990s in the virtual reality community. It had been discarded even by NASA.
And most of the things that made the Rift successful were ideas like that, there's a few others where I was just going back to the future and realizing, "Wait a sec, these ideas, they were actually pretty good. They were just a little too early."
What Palmer is describing is a systematic review of past ideas that were ahead of their time. Often, those are in obscure government documents or research reports. But a lot of times they're also tucked into science fiction you've never heard of. Not just Star Wars or Blade Runner, but in something like Stranger in a Strange Land. It may not be mainstream fiction, but its considered one of the books that shaped America."
https://investing1012dot0.substack.com/p/back-to-the-future
9. "The poles of Earth used to be remote, romantic places for weather-hardy adventurers and nature-loving, climate change-worrying research scientists. Now, NATO ships and British military resources are converging on both poles. Why? Because the Arctic has oil, gas, minerals, fish protein, and many other assets. But, if data is now more valuable than oil, then the Arctic is now the land of “digital gold.” GPS, SATNAV, and satellite-based WIFI are only possible because most satellites connect to Earth through massive golf-ball-shaped geodesic domes that dot the landscape inside the Arctic Circle on a tiny Norwegian island called Svalbard.
Home deliveries, Uber rides, internet surfing on your smartphone, military logistics, and data transmission for the economy depend on the satellite ground stations that SvalSat (Svalbard Satellite Station) manages there. This is the home of the fastest internet cable on Earth. It’s not there for the polar bears. It’s the umbilical cord to the global digital economy.
Other things are present that are now luring nations and treasure seekers to the South Pole: uranium, manganese, iron ore, and coal, in addition to oil and protein. The value of all this black gold in Antarctica and digital gold in the Arctic is indisputable.
Britain, Australia and others who have Antarctic Claims could potentially generate cold hard cash on a spectacular scale due to their positions at Earth’s poles – if they can defend these positions. China, Russia, Iran, India, Turkey, and other nations also have their eye on these valuable locations. The Polar Research Institute of China (PRIC) describes Antarctica as a "global treasure house of resources."
https://drpippa.substack.com/p/why-the-icy-poles-are-hot-in-geopolitics
10. "The Arctic is important for another reason - the return of nuclear threats has also focused superpower attention there. The Arctic has become the front line for the modern Cuban Missile Crisis. In February 2023, Norway’s normally silent and invisible intelligence service publicly warned the world that they were concerned that nuclear weapons might be present on Russian submarines and ships in the High North. Murmansk is the headquarters of Russia’s Northern Fleet.
Sweden and Finland’s accession to NATO also brings the possibility that Western nuclear weapons may be deployed in these locations as well. Russia’s threat to deploy nuclear weapons and lowering the threshold for doing so has all the Arctic and high North nations on high alert. So, tracking the movement of nuclear capability in the Arctic has emerged as a very high priority for Russia and NATO alike.
Anyone who cares about geopolitics cannot afford to ignore what is happening at both poles these days."
https://drpippa.substack.com/p/why-the-icy-poles-are-hot-in-geopolitics-321
11. Lessons from one of the juggernauts of SMB-focussed SaaS: Klaviyo.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jgot7lmwKA8
12. Some good perspective on how AI changes SaaS. Vertical Saas is here, horizontal SaaS is challenged.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WXN6zYD3JqU
13. This is incredibly enlightening re: vertical LLM Agents. Successful case study of Casetext.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eBVi_sLaYsc
14. "How did China accumulate so much power, so quickly, without inciting American suspicions for so long? Since 1990, China has not only transformed its economy but has pulled itself out of the diplomatic isolation of Tiananmen and created a fighting force of astonishing – though untested – strength. Yet it took twenty-five years for the West to really pay attention.
The answer, Skylar-Mastro suggests in her new book, is the "Upstart strategy". Drawing the analogy with a start-up technology company, she shows how China has risen by avoiding emulating the methods of its main competitor. Rather, China has exploited gaps in US power and developed novel strategies which capitalise on China’s strengths, including so-called "entrepreneurial" strategies such as the Belt and Road Initiative."
https://reactionpolitics.substack.com/p/upstart-why-it-took-the-west-so-long
15. One of the originals and arguably the most important entrepreneurs in America. Palmer Luckey. A hero. We need more folks in Defense-tech.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=az81MHug0Nw
16. So much good stuff here with Justin Waller. I always learn from him.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AfF8q6c2jOo&t=87s
17. "It will be the same; the most successful and productive members of those societies will leave their home countries behind, take their productivity and assets abroad, and leave their nations in a worse state than before.
We live in a world where moving abroad is easy. Where changing one’s tax residency can be done in a matter of weeks. And where setting up an offshore company with a 0% tax rate can be a reality in mere days.
Yet Western leaders seem to set this fact on the sidelines.
Only a few days ago, I was talking to a client who we’re in the process of setting up his global tax plan. I asked him a simple question: if he did have to continue paying taxes, is there anywhere he’d like them to go?
His answer was simple, but telling.
“Anywhere but the West.”
https://anticitizen.com/p/our-rotting-nations
18. This makes me optimistic for America.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6WlHF75TeDI
19. Thought provoking discussion. SaaS investing is over. So many nuggets of insight here worth listening to.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cH9oREJnEaU
20. "Without question, the past decade-plus has been an unprecedented build up and expansion of VC as an asset class. This was seemingly happening more naturally and then the pandemic came and threw the world into crisis. But channeling JFK, with the danger, many VCs also saw an opportunity. It seemed like there were suddenly new opportunities in a changed world – social voice networks, virtual conference software, 15-minute delivery apps, etc – but what really happened is that the pandemic just created this sort of temporary bubble, which rather quickly deflated. But it also impacted basically every other company, with most others that operate online in meaningful way seeing growth pulled forward by a couple of years or more. This was true of Amazon on down.
But as the world normalized, it became clear that growth would return to the place where it was almost as if the pandemic hadn't happened – it was just a blip, a massive one. But this all was largely masked by both stimulus and zero interest rates that the government put in place to try to avoid economic collapse. Cash was basically worthless, might as well invest. And what better place to invest than in the future? Startups. High risk, yes. But high reward! Even more money plowed into VC which led to not only the creation of far too many new firms, but also the existing firms getting supersized. Foie gras economics.
A lot has to go right. And a lot has to stop going wrong. Which again, would seem to speak to the state of VC as a whole right now. There's opportunity and there's danger. A true crisis."
https://spyglass.org/vc-crisis/?ref=spyglass-newsletter
21. Solid critiques and learnings from decades in the venture capital industry. Must watch by investors and founders.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i6CiNYZViCM
22. "Assessing battlefield success and failure is often quite simple. Winning and losing are quickly and clearly visible. However, assessing the strategic and political outcomes of battlefield events can often take a little longer. However, sufficient time has passed since the beginning of the August Kursk campaign for an initial assessment of the political and strategic effectiveness of the campaign to be made. It is a campaign that is sure to be assessed for its impact on the trajectory on the war for a long time to come.
Two months after Ukrainian forces cross their lines of departure and began their breach of the Russian defenses in Kursk, the Ukrainian campaign has settled into a series of smaller battles to push back Russian counter attacks and defend the ground they have seized since early August this year. The campaign is consuming valuable combat formations and resources."
https://mickryan.substack.com/p/assessing-the-kursk-campaign
23. "Progress is non-linear.
You don’t go to the gym for 10 years and build the same amount of muscle every single year. You build a lot at the start because you’re new. Then you build muscle in cycles of consistency and intensity. You bulk and cut. Life happens and you get thrown off for a year. The next year you regain motivation and are hyper-disciplined, gaining more in year 10 than you did in year 3.
The same holds true for productivity.
I do not believe that 12 hour workdays are something you sustain forever. That’s just stupid. The downsides are obvious. Burnout. Neglecting other domains of life. And simply not having something to work on.
12-hour workdays shouldn’t be forced.
No amount of work should be forced.
If it is, change your work (or change your mind.)
Like a lion hunts and rests, we’re going to replicate that in our work."
https://thedankoe.com/letters/how-to-focus-for-12-hours-a-day-on-your-purpose
24. Jason is the best, so many good insights for sales leaders and founders trying to figure out this sales thing.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pEhXeY8oTB0
25. A really interesting and broad discussion on VC investing and future societal trends. Glad I watched it.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wjnozgzMEX4
26. "As I tell Akshat and his team constantly, you have a job at Maelstrom because I believe you can compile a portfolio of the best-in-class Web3 projects that will outperform my core holdings of Bitcoin and Ether. If that weren’t the case, I would continue buying Bitcoin and Ether with my spare cash and not pay salaries and bonuses.
As you can see here, if you bought a token at or around the listing price, you have underperformed the hardest money ever known, Bitcoin, and the top two decentralised computer layer-1’s, Ether and Solana. Given these results, retail should never buy a newly listed token. If you want crypto exposure, just stick with Bitcoin, Ether, and Solana.
This tells us that projects must cut their valuations at launch by 40% to 50% to become attractive on a relative basis. Who loses if tokens list lower prices, VCs and CEXs.
While you might believe that VCs are in the game to generate positive returns, the most successful managers realise they are in the asset accumulation game. If you can charge a management fee, usually 2%, on a large notional, you make money regardless of whether your investments appreciated in value. If you invest, as VCs do, in illiquid assets like early-stage token projects, which are just future token promissory notes, then how do you get the value to rise? You convince the founders to continue doing private rounds at ever-increasing FDVs.
As the FDV in private rounds increases, VCs get to mark-to-market their illiquid portfolio up in value. This shows great unrealised returns, which allows the VC to raise the next fund based on stellar past performance. This enables the VC to charge the management fee at a higher fund value. Also, VCs do not get paid if they don’t deploy capital. That isn’t so easy when most VCs set up in Western jurisdictions are not allowed to buy liquid tokens.
They can only invest in equity of some sort of management company that writes a side letter giving their investors token warrants in the project they develop. This is why Sale of Future Token (SAFT) agreements exist. If you want VC money, and they have a fuck ton of dry powder, you must play this game.
What is toxic for many VCs is a liquidity event. When that happens, gravity takes hold, and token values plummet back to reality."
https://cryptohayes.substack.com/p/pvp
27. "For the companies that make them, games (and comics, and anime, etc.) are not a canvas for unfettered expression. They are a canvas for expressions that sell. And their makers would rather sell more product than less – even if it means changing things to appeal to different customers in different regions of different cultures. I know this from experience, because in my work as a localizer, I was often asked to suggest such changes — by the creators themselves.
So the Japanese pop-content industry is not a wonderland of freeform artistic expression being compromised by foreign invaders, of the conservative or liberal varieties. It’s a capitalist enterprise dedicated to making money by appealing to as many customers as possible.
None of this, will of course, do anything to dissuade those determined to fit Dragon Quest III HD-2D’s changes into their personal narratives.
There are conversations to be had about the agency of creators over the legacy of their products; about the murky criteria and draconian rulings of ratings boards; or the ethics of modifying the designs of an artist after their passing (Akira Toiriyama died earlier this year, alas.) Perhaps the conversation unfolding online may lead to that kind of nuanced discussion. One can dream."
https://blog.pureinventionbook.com/p/when-pop-culture-meets-culture-war
28. How did we mess up so badly to be reliant on China for critical minerals like Tungsten.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gEHG1deCPC0
29. "You have to embrace new technology and put an effort to use it if you don’t want to be left behind.
If you want to not be technologically illiterate in the future, you have to FORCE yourself to learn new tech as it comes out.
Otherwise you WILL be the senior citizen of tomorrow with tech skills equivalent to the senior citizens of today.
When all the kids will be making the equivalent of online transfers, you will be doing the equivalent of writing a cheque."
https://lifemathmoney.com/how-not-to-be-technologically-illiterate/
30. "The team you build is the company you build"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JBKfUFp6EWw
31. This is the acme of venture capital.
A must watch for anyone looking to master the craft of venture investing, including founders who should be the best investors (of time/energy) in their own company.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B-elii6G7pE&t=653s
32. Wow, this is gripping reading on the Scribe Media episode. So many lessons for everyone in business. Big lesson is be very careful with who you do business with and sociopaths abound.
"Looking back at the true financials, and knowing the core team at Scribe and the situation, I still believe that had JeVon been courageous and taken the hard path, even starting as late as January 2023, he could have turned Scribe around and either sold it or made it profitable. It would have been hard, because he spent all of 2022 squandering the huge lead that Zach and I handed him–but it was still possible.
He didn’t take the courageous path. Once Jawad put his money in it appears that JeVon doubled down on his bullshit, and in May 2023 JeVon’s house of cards fell.
JeVon didn’t fool a few people. He fooled (almost) EVERYONE he came in contact with.
He fooled everyone at Scribe, including Zach and I.
He fooled multiple billionaires, including John Mackay, the billionaire founder of Whole Foods, who put him onto the Board of Directors of Conscious Capitalism (no, seriously).
He fooled Jawad Ahsan, John Kim, and other investors, who are each very smart and very successful and do not get fooled by people.
How could someone do that?
Well, first off, he’s actually good at his job. I wrote about his managerial ability here, and it’s still true. He is a skilled dude–at certain things–and you cannot fake that over a long period of time. He can deliver when he wants to.
And along with that, he’s an INCREDIBLE manipulator. Some of the things I have seen him do to people were, quite frankly, breathtaking."
https://www.tuckermax.com/the-scribe-media-collapse-and-recovery/
33. "Simply put, there is too much capital seeking too few opportunities, particularly at the seed stage. Multi-stage firms have eliminated pricing discipline at seed stage and the proliferation of seed firms has made the task of investing at this stage as competitive as it’s ever been, leading me to believe that indexed seed investing in today’s environment will produce poor returns.
What does this mean for today’s environment? It’s never been more important to break away from median performance. While there is risk in breaking away from the pack, the risk (at least performance wise) of staying part of the herd is simply far worse. Median returns for the recent vintages are simply terrible. One could argue that funds are still in their j-curve phases, but I suspect this doesn’t explain the divergence we’re seeing between GOOD performers and GREAT performers.
More than ever before, it’s clear to me that playing the same game as everyone else will not work, so fund managers should question whether they are really capable of being in the top 5% of whatever strategy they are employing. From a LP perspective, allocators should likely ask the same of their managers and consider whether allocating to indexed mega funds or indexing across too broad of a portfolio of managers is tenable in achieving their return targets."
https://newsletter.equal.vc/p/the-power-law-of-venture-fund-returns
34. The Dorito-fication of media and food. Not a good trend.
Spending Money Well: Living a Rich Life
I hit 50 years of age earlier this year. Amazed to be honest. I’ve struggled with understanding money and its rules for a long time. As I said I grew up in Canada with a Taiwanese immigrant family and academics to boot. We were really hard up when we first got there and this lack of money was seared into my soul and brain. Scars that were unintentional but everlasting.
This caused me to view money as scarce and led me to not managing it well when I got a bunch of it. I’d fall into the hedonic treadmill and just spend it all on stupid things without really understanding why I wanted them.
This continued into my adult life as I went through feast and famine cycles. Barely scraping by when I first ended up in Taiwan, making a pile of it and then wasting it. The same thing happened when I first moved to Silicon Valley, I barely survived the first two and half years there. I had to make choices like “Do I have lunch or dinner?” Cheap microwaveable foods, inexpensive but big Mexican burritos and Trader Joe’s were a godsend.
It was not until I joined Yahoo! that things really turned around, I was paid incredibly well for super interesting work. I also learned the incredible value of equity and stock options. I was so flush that I had no idea what to do with it. I was fortunately able to put some of it into real estate but overall I just spent most of it stupidly.
Some things I don't regret like paying for trips for my parents, trips for my family and lots of fun dinners with friends. Also plenty of books, far too many books. :)
But most of it was stupid, ridiculously lavish brunches, foreign magazines I’d never read, a huge wardrobe of custom dress shirts and suits I’d almost never wear. Complete waste. It was not until we had my daughter Amber did I realize how much $$ I wasted on stupid things. Nothing like a baby to focus you on the important things and wake you up, somewhat.
I ended up taking 2 years off after Yahoo! and I honestly still did not fully understand money even though I had more of it then I ever had at that time. This caused me to foolishly ramp up spending on my lifestyle, which is especially stupid when you are going through your own savings, albeit very extensive savings. A cash crunch in 2013 was my 2nd wake up call. Goes to show you how dense I am at times.
From this, as well as my previously written 2020 issues (3rd times the charm), it forced me to really get my financial act together in my 40s which is absolutely shameful.
So what have I learned? Well, really super basic things.
Don’t spend more than you earn. DUH.
Be Willing to Spend on health related things (gym, supplements & bio hacking stuff) & personal development stuff (books, classes, workshops and conferences)
Always keep one year’s worth of expenses worth of cash in hand. A must and priority for everyone.
Pay yourself first, after your emergency cash, make sure you are putting aside 10-20% and investing it in index funds. One side of the barbell of personal finance.
Equity matters, always try to get and build equity in businesses or real estate (not your home but cash flowing real estate). This is the other side of the barbell.
Track and write down all your spending. It helps you understand where your money is going. I might add that I did not do this from 2002-2013, my most out of control time.
Use money to save time, especially services like Clear at the airport. Or house cleaning services.
Business class flights are only worth it if you have brutally long flights over 15 hours. Paying for airport lounges makes no sense.
Know what gives you pleasure: for me it’s books, good food, gifts or nice things for my loved ones and travel
Focus on the big expenses, don’t waste time on saving money by cutting small pleasures like coffee or such. Save on the big stuff like cars or hotel rooms unless you really care about these things.
Manage your costs but you should really focus on making more much more money
I spent much of my life chasing money. I’m probably still chasing it to some extent but I do feel like I’ve gotten a better handle on it by now. It’s probably something we all will struggle with but it’s important.
As Naval once said: "Money is not going to solve all of your problems, but it's going to solve all of your money problems."Money is a tool and scorecard for a better life. Better to understand and master it as soon as possible so you can use it to improve your family's life.
Excellence is Hard: Deion Sanders & The Need for Straight Talk
I was chilling one evening and going through my Linkedin and saw something pop up on the feed. It was a clip from 60 minutes about how Deion Sanders came in to turn around a college football team. He encouraged the team to transfer out. During the interview with the reporter he was direct and when he made the comment, “you got here and you didn’t pull punches, those of you we don’t run off, we will make you quit, you made it very clear”
Deion says:
“If you were into that, and were able to let words run you off. We ain’t for you cuz we are old school staff. We coach hard, we coach disciplined. So if you are allowing verbiage to run you off because you don’t feel secure with your ability, you ain’t for us.”
The reporter responds: “I’m sure this straight talk was appreciated by some but do you think this scorched earth policy is good for college football or for the kids?
Deion goes to say: “I think truth is good for kids. We’re so busy lying that we don’t recognize the truth no more in society. We want everybody to feel good. That’s not the way life is. Now it’s my job to make sure we have what we need to win. That makes a lot of people feel good. Winning does.”
The reporter: “I gotta push back, you’re the father of college athletes? If they called you and told you we got a new coach and they are telling me to get in the transfer portal.”
Deion responds: “Then you must not be doing well. Because you should be an asset and not a liability.”
Right on. I’ve been known for being a tiger dad and brutally honest to my founders. I’ve long stated that I’ve hated the stupid “everybody gets a trophy for playing” garbage. It’s not reality and it’s sociologically corrosive. This is why America is losing. That’s why the West at large is losing because of this attitude.
It reminds of what Larry Summers said at the 2023 All in Podcast Summit: “We have gone from thinking self esteem comes from achievement to thinking achievement comes from self-esteem.” The sooner we acknowledge this, the sooner we can fix it. Thank goodness America still has pockets in excellence in plenty of new immigrants and immigrant kids who believe otherwise. This may be what saves us and gets us back to winning.
The Real Life World’s Most Interesting Man: Gianluca Vacchi
I stumbled upon this character Gianluca Vacchi on social media a few years ago. An Italian industrialist playboy who owns the Bologna-based family conglomerate IMA, he is also a professional DJ and social media impresario. He has over 22.4 million followers on Instagram and 21+ million followers on Tiktok. Estimated to be worth between $200-500M usd, he is one of the few super rich guys who seem to be having legit fun in life.
Found out he released a documentary called “Gianluca Vacchi: Mucho Mas” on Amazon Prime and it’s really fun to watch. We follow him on his adventures as he embarks on parenthood while living the glamorous and hedonistic lifestyle.
There is something to be learned from him, even though it helps to have the wealth and resources like he does. One of the things he said was: “I’ve always tried to make my life interesting to myself, first of all. Then, obviously, like all the things you do out of passion, they may become interesting to others as well.”
While he inherited the foundations of his family business, he went into debt, buying out his relatives and building the business substantially, taking various businesses public. He 100Xed his inheritance and became a known financier and industrialist in Italy. IMA is considered one of top 5 best led family run businesses in the world.
It was not all a smooth ride to the top. He suffered financial challenges along the way with the Parmalat scandal but he was tenacious and fought through it even though the Italian government confiscated his fortune at the time. Vacchi said: “I remember that….it was a nightmare. I struggled. I did, for sure. Life has its own weird balance. It gives back what it takes from you, and that is unavoidable. I woke up one morning and said, ‘I need to find the strength to fight this.’ And so I did.” He showed grit and 18 years later he was vindicated and fully cleared by court.
Vacchi says: “Common people think that with money everything comes naturally. That is just a myth we need to go past, though. My current assets are 100 bigger than what my father had. I was a businessman and I became one of the most well known people in the world, which I also did not inherit from anyone.
Probably, at 60 I won’t have the life I have now. Because I am open to reinventing myself again. Do you know why I won? Because I showed what kind of person I really am. I have legitimized the freedom to do whatever you want, whatever you wish to do. The freedom to do whatever the F–k you want.”
He really does has fun. He also is unabashed about enjoying what he has: his private plane jet setting adventures to exotic places, the luxury homes and luxury handbags. Like most Italian men, he is so damn well dressed all the time with his tailored shirts. He is authentic to himself and doesn’t seem to care what others think. And is not afraid of looking silly. Boy, does he like to dance. His Insta’s have always brought a smile to my face. He dances, he skis, he sails and in the most beautiful places too. He even became a professional DJ at age 50.
He is a family man. While he became a father at relatively older 54 years old, he jumped into parenthood with all the energy he had. He loves his daughter and it comes across. Like me, he grew up in a strict household which shaped him.
He is disciplined and spends a lot of time and energy on health and wellness. Every morning, 2 hours in a hyperbaric chamber which helps increase growth hormones & stem cells as well as fighting bacteria. He follows this by time in a cryogenic chamber, below freezing temperature that helps with mood as well as muscle recovery, similar to an ice bath which he seems to do too. Then a one hour workout with heavy weights in the gym. He does this everyday, religiously and it shows in his body and vigor.
“Just as I built what I have by working my ass off, I’ve done the same to build my look, my body, by working my ass off. My life, more than a sin of vanity, is a constant search for the best psychophysical condition, and I live everyday thinking of that as well. After all, as I always say, your body is the only house you are forced to live in. All the other places you can choose.”
He lives a self sovereign life and is completely independent because he is financially independent. He can do whatever he wants, whenever he wants and with whoever he wants to. He splits his year, 6 months in Bologna, Italy, where he grew up and 6 months in Miami. Bear in mind this documentary was in 2021 and most of the world was still shut down from the cursed covid lockdowns, so Miami was one of the few still open and functioning cities in the world.
No real point to all this. But it’s nice to see people like Gianluca out there. Successful, strong & fit and having the time of his life. Interesting as F–k. Maybe the lesson is to just be a bit more like Gianluca in life. Have a zest for life.
In his words: “Enjoy ....because, at the end of the day, enjoy means play, have fun, sweat, dance, celebrate.”
Marvin’s Best Weekly Reads October 27th, 2024
“No great achiever – even those who made it seem easy – ever succeeded without hard work.” – Jonathan Sack
"When we ignore, repress and disown the parts that cause resistance, we allow them unconsciously run the show and rob us of what we truly want. We let them keep us in our status quo, or keep moving backward. We get stuck. We get scared. We stay small. We lose confidence in ourselves. We shame ourselves. We numb ourselves. We remain polarized. We start and quit—a lot!
So I have some bad news. No matter how much a future vision of your life is motivating you, no matter how dissatisfied you are now, you can't force out resistance. Doing so would mean either unconsciously ignoring it, or consciously rejecting parts of yourself that are actually trying to help you. Instead, you have to open the door, invite those parts in, ask them questions, appreciate how they’re trying to help you, and eventually choose how you want to move forward.
So what is resistance, really? It’s the unconscious and conscious parts of ourselves that hold us back. So, to begin the change process we need to understand the types of resistance and how to work with them.
Identifying and getting to know your resistance, especially the parts that get triggered and stop you in your tracks, is how you’ll begin to go beyond what you thought was possible and appreciate and relate to yourself more fully. With practice and presence, you’ll see that different types of resistance emerge depending on the situation and context—what you’re doing, who you’re with, what’s at stake, etc. In other words, resistance is fluid, dynamic, and slippery. Yes, it’s difficult to nail down, but I have good news—it’s not impossible."
https://www.wheretheroadbends.co/p/why-is-it-so-hard-to-change
2. A deeply philosophical discussion. How to have a "cathedral building mindset". This was really interesting.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rf1nXskea9Q
3. "But this is just part of a larger pattern of Beijing’s efforts to leverage the Chinese diaspora for foreign influence. In the U.S. and elsewhere, Chinese Communist Party-linked individuals have funneled money, served as politicalbrokers, and harassed Beijing’s critics. Pro-government groups lined the streetsof San Francisco last year to welcome Chinese leader Xi Jinping, and anti-CCP activists were assaulted.
The best offense is proactive defense. We should not let Beijing claim to speak for all ethnic Chinese nor all Asians. Elected leaders should work with legitimate Asian American grassroots organizations to reach out to local communities and gain a better understanding of issues important to them, such as public safety or affirmative action. Sustained engagement beyond election periods will undermine Beijing’s narratives of diaspora marginalization and democratic dysfunction. The federal and state governments should support robust Chinese American civil society networks that reflect the community’s diversity.
The Chinese community in the U.S. is only growing. Tackling these issues now is an investment in future resilience. Just as how strengthening U.S. democracy is fundamental to countering Beijing’s narrative of a failing West, embracing diaspora communities as assets will strengthen America while limiting Beijing’s ability to weaken the U.S. internally."
https://time.com/7025773/china-foreign-meddling-us/
4. "In some ways, this should come as no surprise. The incredible human talent in the venture capital industry has always been global. Vinod Khosla grew up in India. Peter Thiel was born in Germany and raised, in part, in southern Africa. Sequoia’s Michael Moritz is Welsh. Many of the top talents we associate with success in venture have found their way from somewhere in the world to Silicon Valley.
In fact, all five of the top investors on this year’s Midas List were born outside of the United States. Sequoia’s Alfred Lin (#1 on the list) emigrated to the US from Taiwan when he was six years old. Micky Malka (#2) grew up in Venezuela and first moved to Silicon Valley as an adult. China’s Neil Shen (mentioned above) ranks 3rd. The VCs at #4 (Mayfield’s Navin Chaddha) and #5 (Redpoint’s Satish Dharmaraj) were both raised in India, but have made their VC careers investing here in California."
https://99tech.alexlazarow.com/p/midas-goes-global
5. A deep dive into the creative process of the original OG creator Ben Thompson.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=igh0JeaUHzo
6. "China extracts and refines many minerals that are needed for semiconductors in our computers and the batteries in our electric cars. Some companies are concerned about relying too much on one country and are looking for other options. But as NPR's Emily Feng reports, it's not easy."
7. "Fifty years later, a new Gang of Four has emerged: China, Iran, North Korea and Russia. This grouping is not a formal alliance committed to defending one another. But it is an alignment driven by shared antipathy toward the existing US-led world order and features mutual exchanges of military, economic and political support.
This Gang of Four seeks to prevent the spread of Western liberalism domestically, which they see (correctly) as a threat to their hold on power and to the authoritarian political systems they head. They also oppose US leadership abroad, including the norms the United States and its partners embrace, above all the prohibition on acquiring territory by the threat or use of force."
https://www.aspistrategist.org.au/the-new-gang-of-four/
8. Robotics is here. What an amazing time. Gecko Robotics: hardware + core software infrastructure.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sFEtPGsQRyc
9. Arrogance kills. US Military will be learning things the hard way sadly.
"Tingle believes the military branches are at least partially writing off the conflict based on assumptions that the U.S. would not struggle with the same types of problems as Ukraine, such as establishing air dominance over Russia.
Those assumptions may be true, Tingle said, but that doesn’t mean the war has nothing to teach.
“There are lessons about modern warfare in general that we are not getting because of that attitude.”
https://www.defenseone.com/policy/2024/09/us-military-learning-enough-ukraine/399893/
10. I always enjoy listening to Trae share his wisdom as a VC at Founders Fund & cofounding Anduril & working at Palantir.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gbp6QOPeBYs
11. "Conversations about the business will become the norm. Newbies will realize that they have to learn the numbers — all of them — if they want to contribute to discussions. And nobody will think that they can stall or evade by questioning the data.
The part that people miss is how long that takes. I think it’s measured in quarters, not weeks or months. It takes that long to retrain everyone how to think. And what the numbers mean. And to decide which numbers you really want.
Every leadership team should strive to have conversations about the business using the numbers. The only way I know how to do that is to pay the piper first."
https://kellblog.com/2024/09/30/talking-about-the-numbers-vs-talking-about-the-business/
12. A deep dive into Sequoia Capital's internal processes and culture. Intense is probably the best description.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VaEX_bjwj8w
13. Incredible. Great news for Fillmore Street in SF. One of my favorite neighborhoods.
"We’re going to restore and revitalize these properties. We aim to bring in a rich diversity of local businesses, with a focus on food and beverage, that will delight the community and discourage the kinds of impersonal chain retailers that would make Fillmore look like anywhere else.
We’re going to achieve this by offering below-market leases to committed entrepreneurs who will reinvigorate Fillmore Street. And we’re going to help our tenants navigate the friction, complexity, and anxiety that have sadly become an inevitable part of running a business in San Francisco. We are thrilled to welcome these new tenants, but contrary to what has been reported, we haven’t evicted anyone or forced anyone out."
https://sfstandard.com/opinion/2024/09/30/neil-mehta-100-million-fillmore-project/
14. This is worth watching a few times. IA Ventures is legendary and Roger has some of the best macro views on venture.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tPSUW3Ht4vo&t=1s
15. Fascinating conversation. Calling out the bureaucracy & stupidity in America right now. That and why capitalism is the best.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c1GL6Wnyi84
16. What a time to be alive. Exciting developments in Longevity Biotech from Altos Labs.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uUjF3RG28SQ
17. Incredible discussion on the art and science of scaling startups and also investing in startups. So much to absorb here. I will listen to this a few times.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DVZXnaH7Agg
18. "People who don’t face real physical dangers in life from time to time develop a warped mentality where they start over-stressing little things that don’t matter.
The mind when not used to real dangers will invent dangers where they don’t exist.
This is the real reason why you see a lot of “anxious” and fearful people in today’s society. People who are afraid and stressed out by little things.
I mean things like overthinking and worrying about what someone else thinks of you, or stressing about being late for a flight, or handling not getting to eat a fruit platter on a plane as if it was a real crisis.
Go out in the world and face some real dangers.
It makes you stop caring about meaningless things."
https://lifemathmoney.com/how-to-not-sweat-the-small-things-the-importance-of-facing-real-dangers/
19. Solid discussion on AI and the future by the CEO of Anthropic.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7xij6SoCClI&t=1013s
20. This was so timely for me.
Steve articulates a lot of what many of us investors have felt at some moment in our last few years of the ZIRP era of investing.
Sitting in a pitch meeting and thinking you "just don't care." You may be burned out. How do you become present and thoughtful about your life.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=33NnZcSRoDs
21. "Earlier in the year, we saw failing companies find reasonable landing places, with outcomes that were fair (but not great) for founders, employees and investors alike. More recently, we’re seeing an increasing number of drawn-out acquisition processes as potential acquirers cut, and cut, and cut their offers, until founders have no choice but to accept a pittance for their years of hard work.
Thousands of companies around the world are looking for landing spots right now. And hundreds of VC firms are simultaneously insisting to their LPs that those companies are still deserving of their inflated 2021 valuations."
https://chrisneumann.com/archives/things-i-think-i-think-q3-2024
22. Wallenberg family dynasty, running their businesses for over 150 years. Amazing.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rW0mfMNu8gE
23. "Walt Whitman wrote, “America…counts…for her justification and success…almost entirely on the future. . . For our New World I consider far less important for what it has done, or what it is, than for results to come.”
San Francisco, too, counts for its justification entirely on the future. It is a synecdoche for America. The future is what is important. This is its sin and its charm, its peril and its undeniable promise.
In San Francisco, the future, too, is hot and cold. When the next round closes, the sun is on your face. When the acquihire falls through, the shade is cold as ice. On Monday, AGI and universal prosperity are at hand. On Tuesday, apocalyptic doom looms, or worse, stagnation—progress’s dreaded asymptote. Feast or famine. Fever is the nature of the future."
https://every.to/chain-of-thought/a-day-at-the-center-of-the-ai-boom-2023
24. Some interesting takes on economics around the world.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5-OLPsdJGmY
25. Eye opening conversation with Erik Prince of Blackwater Fame or infamy.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BScLEx5tibw
26. "Like software monetization, software valuations are fat-tailed:
Most companies have unremarkable valuation multiples
A few, however, skew well to the right, creating a long tail of multiples
This tail skews the distribution of multiples and increases the variance between public software companies. I'd imagine the situation is even more extreme among private software companies."
https://whoisnnamdi.substack.com/p/dark-matter
27. A really solid discussion to understand where the landscape of software and AI technology is going and how the tech can be used by companies.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vRhPc0zt2IE
28. A must watch for anyone interested in building a successful creator entrepreneur life. Strong recommend.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pZ7oo4bYayE
29. Tactical shoot training is probably worth learning.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JuSjsaflS24
30. A Masterclass in the science of selling vertical Saas. Process and leverage.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6I_GzoqlVVU
31. "I know it's been a tough year to be long cyclical commodity names - at least the ones I'm long - but with rate cuts now materializing and China rushing to make conditions easier for investors, I think there's a good chance some of these unloved names start to get more love in the near future.
We've also discussed continued geopolitical events (asymmetry). I don't think the world is going back to normal any time soon. I don't think the US debt problems are going back to normal any time soon. I think we're headed towards a currency crisis / government default and possibly WW3. I think it's a good time to invest in hard assets both inside and out of financial markets. I think it's also a good time to build personal resiliency and improve the options your family has in the case of major disruptions to your lifestyle - be it from weather, conflict, or financial chaos.
There was a man in Asheville who was reportedly laughed at for building a house on stilts. All his neighbors were washed away."
https://calvinfroedge.com/review-of-names-discussed-this-year/
32. Actually a very interesting conversation. If you want to understand crypto investors and financial nihilism, this is a good start.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MhtO4tdosa8
33. This is a fun conversation, how to hustle (in a great way). So many great nuggets here. Get on a plane and win. Get off email.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7lomqcrFNv8
34. This is a must watch. Wake up Americans and Europeans. "Palmer's I told you so Tour 2." Thank Goodness for Palmer and Anduril Industries.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bq-kukOA4gQ&t=11s
35. Another great episode: good to watch if you know what's up in Silicon Valley.
Find Your Delta: Investing In the Future
I think most of us tend to be dissatisfied with our lives at some point in time. Others more often than not. It’s so easy to do so these days as we compare ourselves against others on TV or social media. Or worse against what we had expected of ourselves when we were younger.
I swore I was going to be a billionaire or worth at least a hundred million by the time I hit 50 when I was a stupid young kid back in Canada. Well I’m very far off from that number, I admit. And there are days when I think about that.
Yet overall, I am grateful for my life in general. And hopefully I am wiser and more experienced than that dumb kid 30 years ago. I’ve had grand adventures traveling the world, helped build many businesses and had fun along the way.
I was never one of those people who lived for the weekend. I think people who live for the weekend are losers. You have done something badly wrong in your life by picking the wrong work. I used weekends to rest, read and for family time so I could prepare to go back to crank at work or business Monday. I looked forward to Mondays in most of my career except for that awful working year of 2019. Otherwise, it’s been an amazing and fun time.
I’ve also learned a few things I hope to pass on to folks starting the journey. Things I should have valued more or been more thoughtful about along the way.
Health is wealth: health also drives performance and helps you manage the inevitable ups and downs in life
Always keep family in mind and never skimp time with them when it matters
Value good and smart people: it is everything in business and life
No Risk, No Gain: Don’t be so fear driven and take more risks in life
Choose chasing interest and curiosity over what is popular or sexy
Learn how money and business works as early in life as possible: Money is important and does increase happiness
Anything is possible as long as you play the long game
Keeping these in mind and paraphrasing the immortal Han in Fast & Furious Tokyo Drift: Life is simple. Know what you want, figure out the Delta & gap from where you are now. Know the price of it and pay it. You will get there if you put your mind to it and do the hard work.
It is the Best of Times: Life in the Post ZIRP-Boom Silicon Valley
I love being in Silicon Valley most of the time. It is by nature a “Gold Rush” town with fierce boom and bust cycles. The boom is fun but it does get silly and stupid near the end. Filled with get rich quick carpetbaggers that just seem to ruin everything. I admit I was one of these folks when I got here in the first Dotcom bubble in the late 90s. Thankfully after 25+ years I’ve absorbed some of the core values here.
But the bust that started in 2022 is still in full swing despite the insanity we see lingering in Generative AI. Nature is healing after the last 5 years of the ZIRP (Zero Interest Rate Phenomenon) induced craziness that started in 2016 and ended in 2022.
We are going back to basics. And many of these basics are the core values that made this place special.
We are back to building and back to “show me, don’t tell me” phase of Silicon Valley. This is the best time, when everyone has written you off but you and your team are quietly building and selling in the background. It’s fun, scary and exciting.
Your background doesn’t really matter unlike on the east coast. We don’t care what school you went to or where you worked before whether McKinsey, Goldman or Google.
All that matters is: are you willing to get your hands dirty and do the work. Are you willing to grind at something for the long term. Long term here means 5-10 years not 2 years, or even 3 years. That you are going to do whatever it takes to make it happen. That you are building something that fulfills your curiosity, solves a real problem in an interesting, novel way and is also a net positive for society.
This attitude is what originally made Silicon Valley the wonder of the world and will keep us there. Exciting times for founders and investors and I am personally glad to still be here.
HaLT: The Stages of Relapse & Importance of Discipline
Chris Williamson is one of the best new podcasters around. Great interviewer and goes deep with some top guests. Bedros Keulian was no different. I learned a key term called HALT.
Hungry, Lonely or Tired. These are the stages when you relapse to your old bad habits, lose control or fall back on progress. It’s important to understand how each of these feelings affect you. For me I get especially irritable, affected or weak when I am tired.
This is also why building strong habits are so important for progress in your life.
It’s why the military drills you like crazy to overcome these stages. Some anonymous Navy SEAL once said: “Under pressure, you don't rise to the occasion, you sink to the level of your training. That's why we train so hard.”
So instilling strong regular habits into your brain, drilling your mindset to be more optimistic and be more action oriented is key to growth. There are many times when you are Hungry, Lonely or Tired, especially when you travel. Long flights, bad food, no sleep because of crazy schedules and jet lag.
This is where discipline and the strength of routines come into play. I force myself to do the cold showers, meditation and work out routines even when I am tired or seem to be running out of time. You make the time because if I don’t do these things I feel like I am breaking a promise to myself. And there are big differences in your performance and effectiveness during the day when you don’t follow through. Discipline and routines help you overcome the stages of HaLT.
Marvin’s Best Weekly Reads October 20th, 2024
“You can’t use up creativity. The more you use, the more you have.” – Maya Angelou
"When people think about the risks of outsourcing, the first thing that comes to mind is usually IP (intellectual property). In actuality, the impact of outsourcing on a company’s IP is generally low. A typical contract with an outsourcing agency or freelancer will make clear which aspects of the work product belong to the company and which (if any) belong to the contractor. So there should be no surprises.
However, there is an indirect impact that outsourcing has on IP that many founders underestimate: the institutional knowledge that a startup loses out on by not having solved the problem itself.
When you outsource development of something, the project is typically defined in terms of input and output. Rarely, if ever, does the project specification define how that should be done. The company will likely make some suggestions based on their experience and expertise, but the “how” is usually left up to the agency or freelancer. As a result, the startup doesn’t get the benefits of all of the lessons learned along the way while building the project.
And those lessons and their associated learnings can be significant."
https://chrisneumann.com/archives/why-i-dont-invest-in-outsourced-startups
2. "Starting in the late 19th century, the elites running global governments made a deal with the plebes. If the plebes handed over more and more of their freedoms, the “smart” people running the state would create a calm universe by keeping entropy, chaos, and volatility at bay. As the decades progressed and the role of government became greater in every citizen’s life, it became extremely expensive to maintain a veneer of ever-increasing order in a world becoming more complex as our knowledge about our universe increased.
Previously, a few men wrote books that were the definitive source of truth about how the universe operated. They killed or shunned any man that practised science. But as we removed the shackles of organised religion and thought critically about the universe we inhabit, we realised we know nothing and things are much more complex than you would otherwise believe if you just read the Bible, Torah, or Koran, for example. It is then understandable that humans flocked to politicians (mostly men, a few women) who replaced priests, rabbis, and imams (always men, never women) in offering a prescriptive way to live that promises safety and a rubric to understand how the universe operates. But whenever volatility spiked, the response was to print money and paper over whatever problems were ailing the world so as not to admit no one knows what the fuck is going to happen in the future.
Just like when you hold an inflated ball underwater, the deeper you push the ball, the more energy is required to maintain its position. The distortions are so extreme globally, especially for Pax Americana, that the amount of printed money required to maintain the status quo grows exponentially each year. That is why I can say with confidence that the amount of printed money from now until the eventual system reset will dwarf the total amount that has been printed from 1971 to date. It’s just maths and physics.
Assuming you don’t misuse fiat leverage, the real risk is when the elites can no longer suppress volatility, and it surges to its natural level. At that point, the system resets. Will it be a revolution like in Bolshevik Russia, where bourgeois asset holders got wiped out entirely, or like the more common varieties where one group of corrupt elites is replaced by another and the misery of the masses continues under a new “ism?”
In any case, everything goes down, and Bitcoin just falls less vs. the ultimate asset … energy. You are still outperforming, even though your overall wealth is diminished. Sorry, there ain’t nothing in the universe that is risk-free. Safety is an illusion peddled by charlatans pining for your vote on election day."
https://cryptohayes.substack.com/p/volatility-supercycle
3. Seriously valuable discussion on the art and science of practicing venture capital from one of the best.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dKQLq4NxMro
4. "A model that is trained on a specific problem, by a team who intimately understands each industry’s control points, with an excellent user experience focused on a specific vertical, can gain a lot of traction in today’s SaaS world. More traction, in fact, than many are giving it credit for.
We’re at a pivotal moment where several factors are converging to create a perfect storm of vertical SaaS innovation. The endpoint of this shift is what we call “the verticalization of everything:” AI empowered vertical companies are going to unbundle and dominate compared to horizontal SaaS.
Great companies are changing the way they look at software in general – it’s not just about incorporating algorithmic intelligence. It’s like hiring a superstar employee. The ability to understand and execute job tasks at a high level is only the beginning. Those hires distinguish themselves by understanding the larger context of the organization, and the domain you’re operating in, and fluently translate that understanding to others.
AI-powered companies with deep vertical expertise should be like superstar employees. Perhaps we may even think of them that way in the future."
https://www.nfx.com/post/verticalization-of-everything
5. This was a great episode for what’s up in Silicon Valley.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EJSHXl36e9M
6. Actually, really insightful discussion this week. The section on VC and AI killing call centers was excellent.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xAUA9QgqkxM
7. This was a thoughtful interview and discussion from one of this generations best founders and entrepreneurs.
Zuck was widely known as a great strategist but he really has come into his own in recent years.
Learning through suffering.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QciJ9ubeLQk
8. Fun discussion this week on NIA. Mr Beast Memo teardown.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c5vvxhhl5HA
9. One of the best operating execs around. It's clear now that it was skill not luck. Google, Softbank and Palo Alto Networks.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q7sSi9h6nYM
10. This is an important geopolitical discussion around AI, lots of alternative and "spicy" takes. Worth listening to.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_d6U0t8wTI4
11. Lots of great insights from a top vc for founders and investors: have an internal locus of control. 1517 Fund.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IiEqLvZKOb4
12. "Because it’s probably the country least affected by anti-growth, anti-progress, and anti-technology ideology, China represents the future of energy technology better than anyone else. And that future appears to be slow growth in nuclear, but an explosion of solar.
Nuclear still has important uses — in particular, where land and sunlight are scarce. But it’ll be a relatively niche energy source — a backup to the solar and batteries that form the backbone of our energy usage.
We shouldn’t hate nuclear power, or fear it. It really is good for the environment, and it really did get mistreated by the regulators and social movements of the 20th century — especially in America. Our failure to build nuclear when it was the best alternative energy source is a cautionary tale in how panic and misguided ideals can lead to national self-sabotage. And it will certainly be a useful supplement to solar and batteries.
But at the same time, we need to let that nuclear retrofuture go. We need to understand that even without regulation, nuclear would have been passed up by solar and batteries. We might have gotten the glossy 50s-poster atompunk future for three decades or so, but we missed our chance. Fortunately, the only reason we missed our chance is that we found something even better. Sometimes the future you get is even more amazing than the ones you merely imagine."
https://www.noahpinion.blog/p/let-go-of-the-nuclear-retrofuture
13. This talk happened 9 years ago. I was there and it was instrumental in changing my views on the world of work. If you rewatch this, Peter Levels was incredibly prescient.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HD8eC_hSMCU
14. This is a masterpiece and incredible state of the VC & Startup Industry. Must watch. Explains a lot of the situation in Silicon Valley right now.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nWcoZVSx1T8
15. Incredible teardown of the amazing career of Francis Ford Coppola. So much about the business of creativity.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9i5WT7YWttA
16. For Silicon Valley OGs, this is one of the top conversations around.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D7ZKbMWUjsM
17. One of the top shows on what's up in Silicon Valley news, sentiment and trends.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nIHB620QUYY
18. Energy in America and how Data centers are driving increasing demand. This is a very helpful video to understand what's happening in America in this important driver of our economy.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b6uCUuQwEog
19. "The fix is on the demand side. If we want to stop illegal immigration, we need to decrease demand by raising the costs and enacting real deterrence. The quickest route to a solution would involve punishing employers. Create a biometric database of documented immigrants. Then levy any employer who knowingly hires somebody who’s not on it with a $10,000 fine. No restaurant is going to risk getting hit for $50,000 hiring five cooks or dishwashers without papers. No chicken processing plant is going to risk a $1 million fine for hiring 100.
This, of course, will likely not happen. Too many of the people who employ undocumented workers also employ lobbyists and give significant money to politicians. Those politicians are happy to accommodate their backers and exploit the racism and fear of many Americans by continuing to tell lies about immigration.
I believe one of the keys to healthy relationships and relative harmony is to not inject agita (argue, get upset, etc.) when the stakes are low. To not create disharmony where there isn’t a real problem. Yes, illegal immigration is a real problem, but why let it divide us when neither side seems genuine about fixing it, or even having an honest discussion? I believe we will have immigration reform once the perception of the problem appears to eclipse the benefits of our existing hush-hush system. And maybe that time has come.
The fix will need to come in the middle of the election cycle; the issue is too easy for politicians to demagogue when they’re campaigning. Again, if we’re serious about the issue, why was the legislation presented during an election year?"
https://www.profgalloway.com/unserious-people/
20. Good stuff this episode. How to turnaround the Japanese economy.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wV264WqRdg8&t=1s
21. The first 3/4 of this podcast are excellent when they speak about Silicon Valley and startups, I disagree with their take on geopolitics and Russia-Ukraine. I think they are misinformed here (and don't travel enough).
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=43Rd-y2xe84
22. Fun and interesting conversation on consumer AI trends.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s4egz4IiHNY
23. The new intellectual Renaissance in San Francisco.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_rCJbZwooE4
24. A must watch with one of the most thoughtful frontier tech investors around. Been following Compound for a while. Incredibly insightful.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kZmLtgKzfN4
25. "Investing has never been harder than it is today because there are so many distractions tempting us to trade and speculate on anything, anywhere, all the time, but investing is supposed to be a passive endeavor.
We have a stock market that has averaged 9% returns annually for the last century, and, sure, future returns of that level aren’t guaranteed, but the track record looks good so far. Less than a year ago, you could get a guaranteed 5% return on 10-year treasuries. You can just invest your money here, keep adding money over time, let compounding do its thing, and you’ll be just fine.
But no one wants to talk about long-term compounding when you can trade your way to a 100% return, right here, right now. Just hit the correct buttons, of course. And that’s why investing is so hard in 2024: how are you supposed to take a “long-term” perspective on anything when your brain is constantly stimulated by temptations begging you to make a trade?"
https://www.youngmoney.co/p/investing-in-an-age-of-distraction
26. I love the Great Gatsby. This is a great history of the book and how it became so popular.
https://oldbooksguy.substack.com/p/how-an-obscure-book-became-a-classic
27. "When AI products are sold as services, they replace in-house labor. This changes internal processes.
When the internal processes change, the opportunity to replace the system of record arises because the existing workflows are no longer relevant.
Selling service-as-a-software enables a startup to change the way a customer works. Behavior change is hard. But successfully executed, it’s a moat."
https://tomtunguz.com/services-as-vector-sor/
28. "Caro’s experience reminded me of what it was like to be an investor. Paradoxically, good investing is boring, yet discovering a great investment is exciting. It’s like the investor looks around, stops, squints, and goes “Oh, that’s weird.”
This is also what made great investors interesting to me. They spent their lives trying to find what others missed and their careers seemed like portfolios of surprising insights. I found the same curiosity in both Caro and Mr. Beast and it felt as inspiring as their passion."
https://alchemy.substack.com/p/the-truth-sifters-can-you-find-gold
29. "In 2021, everyone wanted to become a VC, and it was easy to raise. It attracted the wrong crowd. We don’t want people to get into VC because they think it’s easy or cool or the pathway to a lifestyle.
Now, interest rates are higher, and fewer are trying. But there’s still capital there for people with the vision and expertise to go after it. And you should go after it. We need people to get into VC because they have a vision for the future that others don’t, and believe they can make the vision a reality.
If we have the same types of people looking for the same types of investments, we’re never going to get big, radical ideas off the ground."
https://www.nfx.com/post/how-to-start-your-own-vc-fund
30. Zuck's view of the future. It's pretty fascinating and exciting.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oX7OduG1YmI
31. "If winners hire winners, and losers hire losers, what do bureaucrats hire? More bureaucrats of course.
The reason is that companies that highly prize consensus, process, etc., will inevitably hire the people who are good at executing against this set of constraints. This continues and continues, until the moment the company is required to actually move nimbly to face off against an entrepreneurial new startup (example: car companies versus Tesla) or a big technology trend occurs (example: AI and Europe). Because there’s so much that’s unknowable about these situations, and so much of what’s required is just to try things and learn things fall apart. The highly consensus-driven, collaborative organization that has become staffed with self-replicating bureaucrats end up not being able to bureaucrat themselves out of the situation.
The cycle of life
This phenomenon is so ubiquitous that it’s almost a cycle of life within tech.
A new, nimble startup with an aggressive new founder(s) emerges
To scale, it hires well-intentioned, competent managers
It wins the market (woohoo!) and IPOs
Later, bureaucrats who are attracted to peacetime (and brand, and stability) sneak into the company. They have shiny resumes
The entrepreneurial people quit, or leave, and can’t deal with the new processes. The bureaucrats take over. The founder either checks out, or retires
The company is in Bureaucrat Mode
A new, nimble startup then emerges…
Without this cycle of life, the tech industry would not exist. I saw this first hand at Uber, which was respected as the fastest-moving big company led by an aggressive founder, and eventually things got bogged down as it grew."
https://andrewchen.substack.com/p/bureaucrat-mode
32. "Unlike with previous generations of software companies, investors and founders are underwriting science risk as well as product risk. In the 2000s era of SaaS, we knew the cloud worked, and we knew how to make software on it.
The only question was if you could make a product that used the cloud in a way that benefited customers. With agents—both tooling and models—we haven’t completely figured out the science of making it work, let alone the product.
That is a mouthful, so let me repeat myself as simply as possible: This shit does not currently work, but investors are betting it can. Many assume we are just one or two scientific advancements away in models or tooling to make agents available at scale."
33. "The last post in this series discussed the ways in which the supply networks underlying modern economies can break down: concentrated dependence on an upstream supplier like Russia; the complexity trap of economy-wide gridlock when most of the nodes and links in a large system are simultaneously hurt by, say, spiking energy prices. During the crisis triggered by Russia’s war, German business leaders were lobbying the government aggressively to take these arguments seriously in forging its foreign policy.
They were successful. But, in August 2022, despite Germany’s forbearance, Moscow turned off the taps, closing the critical Nord Stream 1 pipeline.
The expected economic apocalypse? It never came. Germany's economy actually grew by nearly 2% in 2022. Winter brought only a "technical mini-recession".
How did Germany defy forecasts of economic doom? The answer lies in a textbook macroeconomic idea whose origins go as far as 1955: Economies are far more adaptable than individual companies—they have more substitution possibilities. Think of the economy as a forest ecosystem: while a single tree species might struggle with changing conditions, the forest as a whole can adapt and thrive.
By reviving and quantifying this insight, a team of leading economists accurately predicted that the overall impact on Germany of cutting ties with Russia would be small. If some firms could substitute Russian imports in their production, even imperfectly, they could provide a route for the German economy as a whole to go around the missing Russian gas.
While some heavily gas-dependent firms struggled, others found creative solutions."
https://www.noahpinion.blog/p/strategies-to-secure-americas-supply
34. This is a great discussion on excellence whether in Olympics, Navy Seals and Startups.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5c8Jrj3v8qM
35. "In this example of aligning interview questions with core values, we took one value I care about and organized a series of common questions around it to assess how the candidate responds and presents their answers. Entrepreneurs would do well to enumerate their core values and ensure that, during the interview process, they have a series of questions for each core value and a rubric to score responses accordingly."
https://davidcummings.org/2024/09/28/align-interview-questions-with-core-values-2/
36. "So why is this allowed? And why do consumers continue to eat this junk? A major reason is the food industry’s lobbying power, which spent $28 million last year to keep the same ingredients banned in Europe legal in the U.S. The influence of processed food giants has a direct impact on public health policy, allowing known harmful ingredients to remain in circulation.
Other causes of this health epidemic include a lack of food education, the loss of the art of cooking, misleading advertising and seductive labelling with words like “natural.” Food deserts, where fresh food is difficult to access, affect 17 per cent of Americans. Even when fresh food is available, the long distances it must travel often deplete its nutritional value, necessitating the use of preservatives. Some foods are so laden with chemicals that even mould refuses to grow on them, no matter how long you leave them on the counter.
Adding insult to injury, the pharmaceutical industry preys on the health problems caused by processed food. Americans spend an astronomical amount on medications, accounting for about 45 per cent of the global pharmaceutical market. The pharmaceutical industry spends significantly more than the food industry on lobbying efforts to ensure consumers remain dependent on medications."
37. "Don’t be a YouTube creator.
Don’t be a personal brand.
Don’t be an influencer.
Be you. But in a place where your work can be discovered, followed, and supported. Right now and for the foreseeable future, that’s on the internet.
The internet is a tool.
Social media is a tool.
Software is a tool.
If you think these things are toxic and negative, that’s a direct reflection of yourself. Algorithms show you more of what you pay attention to. Social media, for the right people, is the singular thing that will change their life. If you believe it’s toxic, you close yourself off to that reality.
These new forms of technology are tools to display your work, your art, your findings in the unknown that others can benefit from.
Jordan Peterson isn’t a “content creator.”
He goes on tours, writes books, leverages social media as a base, and uses all of the tools at his disposal to spread his life’s work. He isn’t worried about the latest content idea trend. His mind outperforms any of those myopic growth strategies. The quality of his ideas is what sets him apart and changes people’s lives (regardless of your opinion on Peterson)."
https://thedankoe.com/letters/the-death-of-the-personal-brand-and-what-comes-next/
38. "So yes, another game changer. We are going into a phase of more uncertainty sure, but Israel has boldly re-arranged the power balance, reasserted deterrence and regained the initiative."
https://pieterdorsman.substack.com/p/eliminated
39. "Taking the human out of the loop opens up a massive new frontier, and a troubling one at that.
This is what’s so important to understand. The man-in-the-loop (MITL) control concept is hugely restrictive on what lower-end drones — including longer-range kamikaze types — could potentially do. This is especially true if you are trying to hit a dynamic target or target of opportunity at significant distances. These barriers rapidly degrade when the drone has the ability to pick its own targets using commercially available sensors and onboard artificial intelligence-enabled hardware and software.
What you end up with via the injection of machine learning/AI into lower-end weaponized drones are far smarter, more dynamic, and far less predictable weapons that are harder to defend against. With the current ‘man-in-the-loop’ shackles cast off, these weapons will take on a much more impactful role on the battlefield of tomorrow than what they have already achieved."
https://www.twz.com/news-features/drone-warfares-terrifying-ai-enabled-next-step-is-imminent
40. “Your time is limited,” Steve Jobs said in his famous commencement speech, “so don't waste it living someone else’s life.” Well yes. What he doesn’t mention is how many people it took to stage the story in which he was the main character.
That’s not necessarily a bad thing. You can of course be true to yourself working for other people (and getting Apple stock must have been a sweet deal). I’m not saying don’t compromise. I am saying the world is ready for you to cast you as an extra in someone else’s story. To avoid this regret, you have to build something like an anti-force field around your truth.
We’re so used to doing the opposite. We’re rewarded for pitching ourselves, for condensing our lives into easily digestible tiny Hero’s journeys. But words shape reality and the stories we tell get etched into our minds. One day, we wake up and think that’s us. Decades later, we wake up and regret."
https://alchemy.substack.com/p/dying-without-regrets-how-to-see
41. "The very best entrepreneurs are not just storytellers. And the very best business builders are not just chasing payoffs. The people who build the most exceptional businesses are those that understand the artistically nuanced balance between big promises and big payoffs. Do they deliver every time? No. But they deliver enough to maintain that balance; that equilibrium between fantasy and reality.
The best stories are those that compel you to believe in them, but its the payoff that rewards the faith people put in storytellers. Its when I'm promised a product or feeling or experience that compels me. And then I get it!
Bezos' customer obsession principle isn't "pay super close attention to what the customer wants so we can tell them a nicer and nicer story." You're obsessed with the customer because you want to understand the payoff they're hoping for and then tell them a story that will compel them to believe you long enough for you to deliver.
Investors spend a lot of time wondering about the question, "what do you have to believe?" But as you spend more time with a company or a founder, you also need to start asking yourself, "why should I believe this?" One of the most common phrases at Contrary Research that we use to push back on each other is “prove it.”
https://investing1012dot0.substack.com/p/loudest-or-proudest
42. Good perspective on global macro and end of globalization by Zeihan. Massive inflation coming over the next 5 years.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FbZ6NFuFjao
43. This show is always fun and educational. Two accomplished people talking about new and interesting things.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Iq8iS5VsAHQ
44. "Anxiety and depression are now twice as common among students as concerns about academics or relationships.
Don’t expect more positivity in popular culture until we reverse these trends.
But we might have already created a vicious circle where a bleak society leads to gloomy songs and stories, which further amplify the depression and desolation.
In other words, the culture is not just an effect—it’s also a cause.
If that’s true, the people who have the most responsibility here are entertainment execs as well as technocrats who run the main cultural platforms—TikTok, Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, etc.
Their algorithms and addictive interfaces are literally the growth engines for dysfunction. They amplify it, they disseminate it, they help it go viral."
https://www.honest-broker.com/p/how-did-pop-culture-get-so-gloomy
45. Fascinating conversation with Silicon Valley thinker and intellectual, Samo Burja.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cfLUxVHbXSA
46. "What does this mean for VCs? The overall basket of early-stage investing is nowhere near as attractive as it was in 2014. The AVERAGE manager is likely going to produce far less exciting returns in today’s environment, than those of these previous vintages.
Early-stage investors need to figure out their “right to win more” than ever and practice discipline to ensure they are breaking away from the crowd. Those that do are likely to deliver returns that resemble those that look far more like the 1999–2000 vintages.
What does this mean for LPs? They need to look back at managers from prior vintages and determine whether past performance was driven by skill or luck. Michael Mauboussin often writes on the entanglement of these and the danger of focusing on outcome > process.
Turns out a lot of prior managers benefitted from a bull market (some of which were more lucky than skillful), so it may be worth considering new managers capable of addressing the needs of today’s market rather than assuming the prior returns will persist."
https://medium.com/@EqualVentures/untangling-luck-from-skill-bbda640bee5e
47. "So, when she was named CEO of Food52 in April, the appointment felt odd.
While Barstool serves an audience of young men seeking sports takes and blue humor, the chic food media firm, started by New York Times journalists Amanda Hesser and Merrill Stubbs, caters to an affluent, primarily female readership with a penchant for boutique flatware and seasonal cooking.
The two media publishers—on the surface, at least—could hardly be more different. But Badan sees it as a “natural fit.”
“I think to evolve your career, you need to do things that scare you, and I knew I wanted to work with a different kind of customer,” Badan said. “There is never going to be another Barstool, but I liked the idea of an organic content experience that can be monetized in multiple ways and serve a commerce business.”
https://www.adweek.com/media/erika-badan-food52-barstool-sports/
Life as an Introvert in a People Business: How to Thrive
For those who have known me in my various business careers, they are usually surprised to find out that I am pretty introverted. My natural inclination is towards books and the internet versus meeting. It’s not that I don’t like meeting and hanging out with people. I do and enjoy it. But like many introverts, too much social time is draining. In fact it’s both physically and mentally exhausting.
I only learned this during my time at Yahoo! traveling the world, meeting colleagues, business partners and clients all over for days and weeks on end.
I tend to have pretty good health but I found myself getting very sick all the time. It wasn’t the travel, it was the intense level of social activities and constant meetings every single day. Even on weekends. I discovered the cure was pretty simple. Just taking a day to myself every week. Just one day of time to myself to recover my energy, literally hiding in my hotel room just reading and surfing the web or watching stupid movies, ordering room service.
Resting ethic is important. It’s no different than taking time after a heavy work out at the gym. You need recovery time. Same with your mind & emotions. It’s the only way you can be your best self. Time for yourself to recover, to read and think and get perspective. It’s great to be able to do your own thing by yourself. It helps you rebuild energy to effectively engage others when you can jump back into the fray.
The Red Queen Effect: Infinite Competition in the New World Order
The Red Queen Effect comes from the famous “Alice in Wonderland” story. Basically it posits that you have to run twice as fast to stay in the same place you are. It certainly sounds like hell to most people I am sure. But I’ve never shied away from reality.
Think about the world we are in. Massive changes are increasing all the time. Change driven by geopolitics on one side as the world splits into the 3 big spheres of the Global West (US/ Europe/Japan) versus the Global East (Russia/China) versus the Global South (Latam, SE Asia & Africa). Globalization as we know it is over as these blocks focus on self sufficiency versus trade with other blocks.
Yet, what will not change is the globalization of talent and the increasing capability and expertise from hungry, hard working, well educated workers from the developed world. Ie. Emerging markets of India; Eastern Europe etc. People Willing to work harder and cheaper than those workers in the developed world.
All of this is enabled by the continuing growth trend of technology. Look at the previously much hyped Artificial Intelligence (AI), as exemplified by ChatGPT. As the excellent folks at BowtiedBull state:
“AI is just a scarier word for software. It is the same thing. The only difference is that the software is improving its capabilities in an exponential fashion. That “small difference” of course is enormous but the point stands. AI is simply advanced software.”
One of the fastest growing and adopted technology products ever: think of it as a booster for your brain. This kind of AI enables a white collar worker to do the job of 4-5 people (maybe more as it gets better). It also raises the requirements and the bar for anyone working in their occupation. It provides massive leverage for companies but consequently fewer jobs.
This is leading to massive future shock of the populace who are having a hard time adjusting, let alone understanding what is happening to their world and their jobs. These three massive trends will crush white collar jobs. Even previously in-demand and secure jobs like Software engineers will be in big trouble.
We are entering a brand new world of ruthless, severe, crushing competition. Driven by ever higher levels of desperation among the world’s populace. It will be player versus player, all the time! This will be a very harsh and tough world. And it will certainly not be a fair one. In fact, it will be completely merciless.
For those who either hate their work or want to coast in life, you will be in big trouble. Complacency, laziness, a lack of curiosity and mediocrity will be punished severely by the market. You will become irrelevant quickly and probably replaced by software or someone willing to do your work for a fraction of your pay. I’ve spoken publicly about this for a decade but it’s now becoming more glaringly obvious.
Harsh Strongman (yes, this person exists) of Life Math Money wrote:
“What I can tell with certainty is that for the vast majority of people, life does not get better with time. In fact, it gets worse.
Their bodies grow older, they put on weight, their income doesn’t rise much, and the stress from their jobs shows on their face.
Life does not get better unless you make it better. If you are not working to actively make life better, it will only get worse."
This will be a boon for someone who is ultra competitive. And also for someone who has been lucky enough to find something they enjoy and am somewhat good at. I literally spend all my time trying to perfect my craft. It’s fun. And thus it becomes my sustainable competitive advantage.
This new environment will be doubly beneficial for you if you have any inkling of entrepreneurial instincts, sense or interests. It will be perfect for anyone who is interested in personal growth & personal development, obsessed with solving problems, independent minded and searching for control of their own destiny.
This will be your time as you can harness all these massive forces to build a business and the life you truly desire.
It’s Always Darkest Before the Dawn: Hang in There
It’s ugly right now in Silicon Valley. The VC money train is over and lots of startup founders and employees used to the ZIRP era environment of cash are facing the harsh reality of a down cycle. Layoffs abound, runways are getting short and founders are getting desperate. It’s a tough spot to be in and the pressure is high. It’s easy to despair during these times.
I faced this back in 2001, after getting laid off and unemployed for 6 months, down to my last $500 usd in the bank. It sucked. I admit that year was the only other year beyond 2020 that I seriously thought of offing myself. Things looked that bad. It was dark and all I felt was a massive sense of failure and shame. Literally no hope.
But I hustled and ended up through luck at Yahoo! which transformed my career and ultimately my life. My life was never the same after in a good way. In fact it has been a wondrous adventure overall.
It’s so easy to give up in life and you think things can’t get any worse. Yet, sometimes it does. However it’s all up to you. You can quit or You have to reach down deep. Remember the reason you are around: your mission. If you are a startup founder looking into the abyss, don’t hide or isolate yourself.
Go exercise, get some sun, go talk to fellow founder friends. And believe in yourself and fate. All you can do is your best and the rest is not up to you. There is something freeing about that. And also remind yourself things always change. You have to be there when the cycle turns as it always does.
Nothing is permanent except for death. Keep going and worse case you go down fighting, this may be the dent you leave in the world.
As Seneca said: “Sometimes even to live is an act of courage.”
Marvin’s Best Weekly Reads October 13th, 2024
“Your most important work is always ahead of you, never behind you.” – Stephen Covey
Really educational discussion between Jwaller and Tai Lopez. Good stuff.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E8sHJEKRrxM
2. "Electronic warfare (EW) is a bit of a sleeper in the US arsenal. The US invented its modern form and has used it to great effect in every war we’ve fought, especially since 1990. Indeed, if you want to know what the literal “war” in “chip wars” is, it’s this. The US spends about as much on it as its much cooler and flashier younger sibling, cyberwarfare (around $5b) and spending is due to increase. Likewise, the Chinese think of it as essential to their victory in a potential war against the US. Finally, it has become a defining aspect of the war in Ukraine, with Russian and Ukrainian forces playing a cat and mouse game between drones and electronic attacks.
My specific prescription is a strategy around nimbleness and autonomy. The Chinese are investing heavily in EW and if we want to remain dominant, we need to be able to adapt fast. This nimbleness and autonomy will come out of some amount of industrial policy, but the primary locus will be improved AI and autonomy."
https://www.noahpinion.blog/p/the-us-needs-to-pay-more-attention
3. End of an era here.
"Twenty years ago, when my kids were little, the thought of having more money ten years later was pressing. Now, having more money ten years from now seems like the epitome of play stupid games, win stupid prizes. Right now I have enough money to do what I want. I don’t have enough money that other people do what I want. To me that sounds like the perfect place to be.
Even so, it took me a while to get to writing this. It’s hard to step away from a position where I could probably ride the coattails of my previous success for another decade, at least. It’s hard to step away from being relevant. The easy path would be to do what most VCs seem to do and just pretend I’m still investing. But, man, that’s a lot of time wasted just to get people to return my emails."
https://reactionwheel.net/2024/09/resignation-letter.html
4. Important discussion on Nuclear power on BG2. We are behind here in the West.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TYCTfrec6FE&t=608s
5. "Let me make this very clear: if we run out of ammo, spare parts, and ships because we expended or lost all of them in the Western Pacific with minimal in reserve, then none of those shallow China bills matters very much. You don’t win wars banning Xi’s family from buying stocks, you win them with well-armed and well-trained warfighters.
You win wars by not having a fragile, compromised defense supply chain that has been running on minimal manning and production up until the last two years and is still trying to overcome anemia and supply shock.
It takes years to build these things up, you can’t do it overnight. COVID and Ukraine have taught us that much. You win wars with good strategy and strong coordinated policy, reliable budgets, training, ammunition, and advanced technology applied to the right operational design. You don’t win it with a media cycle."
https://www.breakingbeijing.com/p/the-potemkin-village-of-natsec-policy
6. Luke Belmar is the man. Break free from the matrix.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PygNdfLp60M
7. "Selling AI is being discovered because the technology is new. Buyers don’t know how to use it or how to buy it.
Because the sales motions are new, we can’t apply the previous playbook to the new sales process. The CEO/founder should hire a sales leader that they fully trust who focuses on ultimate success. The sales process is a part of the product : using both the customer’s language & the ultimate use of the product through success efforts"
https://tomtunguz.com/software-playbook/
8. "Savoir faire is ergo a social skill and thus largely about adherence to unwritten rules of conduct. In the Silicon Valley land of engineers, we don’t talk much about social skills. We prefer our numbers, facts, and figures.
But to say these rules are unwritten is not to say they don’t exist. I’ve been repeatedly reminded of them in the past few months, courtesy of several encounters with people who were simply, for lack of a better term, doing it wrong.
More interestingly, when I tried to give these people feedback, the reactions I got were defensive and either hostile or passive aggressive. You can argue this is about me, my direct style, or my not having earned the right to offer such feedback. But I believe it was primarily about the nature of the feedback itself."
9. "There is just 13 ships in the United Kingdom’s RFA serving a nation of 69 million.
For comparison, the United States’ Military Sealift Command has 125 ships serving a nation of 330 million.
Just look around. The USA, UK, our friends … all while China grows in strength, size, and capability.
We don’t own the seas or the international order. It must be defended and maintained.
Which way Western man? Which way?"
https://cdrsalamander.substack.com/p/the-sad-shadow-of-a-seapower
10. This is quite the ad. Anduril's Barracuda-M.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fzVD4vb5ZxU
11. The OG of Enterprise SaaS Sales leaders, turned growth stage VC. Lots of good stuff here.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aF--PmtqLWQ&t=1998s
12. Good discussion on AI and the future.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8CvjVAyB4O4
13. This interview helped me really understand the possible future for AI and how it will affect the startup and enterprise world. The Agent Era, Bret Taylor.
https://joincolossus.com/episode/taylor-the-agent-era/
14. Another great discussion on all things Silicon Valley this week.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6XKQcUc1wy4
15. "Not every one of these firms or investors started as an “N of 1”, but they evolved there. These firms compete ruthlessly against themselves to build their monopolies, making the competition against the rest of the market comparatively easy. Simply put, you don’t want to be an investor competing against these firms for a deal and you are likely terrified if they back a competing company. If I were a LP, I’d be spending my time exclusively focused on finding these “N of 1” firms. We often say “competition is bad for business” and these firms did some pretty damn good business by avoiding the competition and their LPs have benefitted handsomely.
Even if/when one of these strategies fails, the gains are offset by the incredible returns of those that succeed. Success as an “N of 1” doesn’t yield a 3x outcome…it’s more likely to lead to 10 bagger outliers that simply can’t be achieved with consensus strategies. That might be a volatile portfolio, but I’d wager that it’s also one that drives above market yield for investors who enter these funds before the market wises up and copies these strategies (which inevitably happens)."
https://medium.com/@EqualVentures/being-an-n-of-1-firm-9dad6fe3061e
16. Always an orthogonal & interesting discussion with Peter Thiel.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SYRunzR9fbk
17. So many things to take from this conversation. This is a must watch for startup founders.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Phiq7Ytnzo8
18. "Low-paying jobs, particularly first jobs, tend to be shitty. That is as it should be — almost everybody with a great job now started out doing something tedious and hard for not much money. How do you make a lot of money? A: By starting to make money … any money.
For young people, though, an early job is as much about socialization as it is about cash. Somebody working on the front lines in service or retail can’t help but learn a lot about themselves and the rest of humanity. Pro tip: The biggest tippers are people who’ve worked in service jobs and now have money.
You learn how to work on a team, how to deal with co-workers and managers and customers who can be jerks. You learn how to get people to buy something from you, which is the key skill in a capitalist economy (i.e., the U.S. and anywhere else you’d want to live). In short, you learn how to develop and deploy social capital and begin connecting work and talent with money, and money with a better life. It sounds obvious, but many never make the connection. They want success, but aren’t willing to sacrifice for it. Few things build a young person’s self-respect, sense of purpose, and willingness to buy into society more than their first paycheck.
The assault on the prosperity of the young is especially mendacious, as it’s taken place in concert with the greatest increase in national wealth registered in history. Be clear: This has been purposeful. Americans over the age of 70 are 72% wealthier than 40 years ago, and people under the age of 40 are 24% poorer. Money is the transfer of time and work. To give someone or something money is to love them. And America loved me, connecting my effort with prosperity. At an early age, I understood the assignment.
Our youth now are depressed, anxious, obese, and broke. It’s not globalization, network effects, or some other bullshit narrative fomented by the incumbents. It’s the wealth transfer, and, like I said, it’s been purposeful. And the most elegant, effective means of reversing this lack of care/regard/love for the young in America would be a massive increase in the minimum wage. It would be costly — and worth it."
https://www.profgalloway.com/doing-the-minimum/
19. If you love Roman history as much as I do, this is a great interview. 3.5 hours flew by.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DyoVVSggPjY
20. Insightful conversation on how to drive innovation.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NEOiyCmNU6E
21. "Last week, an entrepreneur reminded me that one of the greatest gifts you can give someone is to believe in them. I’ve been working with this entrepreneur for a long time, and they recently launched their new business. As part of the launch, he sent me a note expressing his gratitude that I believed in him. This reminded me of one of my earliest entrepreneurial endeavors."
https://davidcummings.org/2024/09/14/the-gift-of-believing-in-someone/
22. "If history's best scientists and artists were finding their ideas on forest walks (Nietzsche) and dreams (Kekulé), then perhaps the future masterpieces won't be unlocked by apps, spreadsheets, trackers or A.I...but by a sincere invitation to the Muses."
https://oldbooksguy.substack.com/p/take-the-muse-pill
23. "For the past few years, civilian life in northern Norway has been under constant, low-grade attack. Russian hackers have targeted small municipalities and ports with phishing scams, ransomware, and other forms of cyber warfare, and individuals travelling as tourists have been caught photographing sensitive defense and communications infrastructure.
Norway’s domestic-intelligence service, the P.S.T., has warned of the threat of sabotage to Norwegian train lines, and to gas facilities that supply energy to much of Europe. A few months ago, someone cut a vital communications cable running to a Norwegian Air Force base. “We’ve seen what we believe to be continuous mapping of our critical infrastructure,” Roaldsnes told me. “I see it as continuous war preparation.
Most Western governments do not appear to think of themselves as being at war with Russia. Russia, however, is at war with the West. “That’s for sure—we are saying that openly,” the Russian representative to the United Nations recently declared. Most attacks are deliberately murky, and difficult to attribute.
They are acts of so-called hybrid warfare, designed to subdue the enemy without fighting. The strategy appears to be to push the limits of what Russia can get away with—to subvert, to sabotage, to hack, to destabilize, to instill fear—and to paralyze Western governments by hinting at even more aggressive tactics. “They do it because they can do it,” an air-traffic controller told me, of an electronic-warfare attack that imperils civilian aviation. “Then they deny everything, and they threaten you, saying that, if you don’t stop accusing them of what you know they’re doing, bad things will happen to you.”
Ever since Russia annexed Crimea, in 2014, its military and intelligence services have been experimenting with hybrid warfare and influence operations in Kirkenes, treating the area as “a laboratory,” as the regional police chief put it to me. Some attacks were almost imperceptible at first; others disrupted everyday life and caused division among locals. To understand what was happening in her district, she started reading Sun Tzu.”
https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2024/09/16/russias-espionage-war-in-the-arctic
24. Jim Rogers is an investing legend and I grew up reading about his international investing adventures.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8o5bepJgopQ
25. Mega Bullish on Poland. This is a great list of recommendations for making Poland even more powerful & Influential.
"Poland’s economic rise has been among the world’s most remarkable. In 1991 it was a third as rich as countries like the UK, Japan, or Spain. But after three and a half decades of nearly uninterrupted growth, it’s almost as rich as those, and has already surpassed Portugal and Greece."
https://www.noahpinion.blog/p/six-ideas-for-poland
26. "But what to say that this leadership void has to be filled solely by state actors. What happens if in the new world of social media, AI, and the resurgence of populism/nationalism that individuals, or egos have who could be non state actors) could fill the global leadership void.
The rise of the personality cults around Trump, Putin, Xi, even Modi and Musk could suggest that prominent leaders, or personalities, have reach beyond their own states, and while they might be state actors (leaders of states) their own interests typically end up pre-empting, subsuming overwhelming those of the states that they are supposed to represent.
The idea here is that it is in a work of social media and AI is is increasingly becoming a work of global egos and personalities as much as states or even ideologies - and often the three are intertwined with egos such as Trump using the platform as POTUS, and the ideology of populism, to push his own agenda which seems to be one to achieve pre-eminent global fame (infamy to many) and ultimately huge wealth.
In a G-Ego world we could perhaps think of who would be in the top ten of global egos with power, or influence, which extend beyond their state but which threaten the pinnacle of global leadership or influence."
https://timothyash.substack.com/p/from-a-g-zero-to-a-g-ego-world
27. Some geopolitical thoughts. Veers a lot toward tin foil hat territory. Worth listening to though as an alternative to present narrative.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Eut7golb9c0
28. Entering and investing in a new era of technology, driven by AI. Good conversation.
https://joincolossus.com/episode/guo-the-power-of-conviction
29. This was great for new emerging VC fund managers to listen to.
https://x.com/twistartups/status/1834664789655835055
30. "One of the greatest tools for keeping a government from overreaching or becoming authoritarian is when people can speak privately and share ideas without Big Brother watching. It encourages dissent and debate, and allows people to feel safe from the jackboot of retribution that a totalitarian state may employ.
In short, anonymity is essential for the embers of rebellion to rise and to protect the open societies most of us currently live in.
When the government is watching and listening to everything you say—or even if there is the assumption they may be—it leads people to self-censor and not speak their minds. This is how the Mauryan Empire controlled its population via its network of spies, and this is how our modern governments will achieve the same some 2,300 years later through the use of a digital ID linked to social media."
https://anticitizen.com/p/you-will-give-all
31. This is an important discussion on how to prevent civilizational collapse. It's hard not to see signs of this decline around us.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A3Zd2K0BJoI
32. Insight dense convo on leading edge medical treatments and AI-driven innovations for the enterprise.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TtNrCJCwwlc
33. This is a masterclass for consumer startup founders building apps. Well worth watching.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bhnfZhJWCWY
34. "Every day that passes without decisive action from the West, Ukrainians face relentless Russian attacks. Missile strikes on Kyiv, Kharkiv, and Odesa have left cities in ruins, indiscriminately targeting schools, hospitals, and homes. Western leaders have been endlessly talking about support, but they refuse to deliver the instruments Ukraine needs to defend itself effectively. The reasoning behind these delays is an irrational fear of provoking Putin, but this logic is deeply flawed. Putin’s Russia has already shown that it will escalate regardless of Western restraint. The war must be moved to Russia’s doorstep if we want it to end.
Ukraine is not asking for Western troops; it is asking for weapons – long-range missiles that would allow it to strike back at Russian military infrastructure deep inside Russia’s borders. The war must not be limited only to the territory of Ukraine. It is absurd that the West binds Ukraine to a defensive position, practically denying it the right to conduct an offensive defense.
An invasion can only be repelled when the aggressor is forced to experience the consequences of his actions. The Ukrainian army’s operation in the Kursk region proved how effective a counterattack on the Russian side is in defending against aggression. This action shocked Moscow, leaving it paralyzed to respond.
We must remember: this is not a war that Ukraine chose. It is a war for its survival. By denying Ukraine the means to strike Russian bases and logistical hubs far from the front lines, Western leaders are prolonging Ukrainians’ suffering. Ukrainians are bleeding and dying, while the West is caught up in meaningless diplomatic finesse and fear of offending a terrorist state that does not shy away from targeting civilians."
https://www.kyivpost.com/opinion/39056
35. "It is equally important to recognize that Ukraine is already executing an effective strategic interdiction campaign. Ukrainian long-range drones have repeatedly and successfully targeted Russian oil refineries and other critical infrastructure targets thousands of kilometers from the frontline.
Despite their relatively unsophisticated nature, these drones have managed to breach Russian airspace on several occasions, including in areas heavily protected by modern Russian missile and air defense systems. In the medium to long term, these strikes will strain and diminish Russia’s warfighting budget, and accelerate Russian attrition.
As a result, providing Ukraine with the means to conduct an effective deep strike campaign is not about enabling a new capability; it’s about scaling an existing one. This can be achieved by allowing Ukraine to use current Western missile systems in its arsenal, such as ATACMS and Storm Shadow/SCALP-EG, for deep-strike purposes into Russia. Additionally, new systems like the German Taurus KEPD-350 or American JASSM and JASSM-ER land-attack cruise missiles could be provided.
If this approach is considered too risky from an escalation management perspective, Ukraine could be given the tools to expand its own long-range strike weapons programs domestically. For instance, supplying critical components like sensors or turbojet engines, or providing computerized numerical control (CNC) machine tools for precision manufacturing, could accelerate Ukraine’s domestic missile and long-range drone production."
https://missilematters.substack.com/p/the-value-of-striking-deep-how-a
36. One of the best observers of Global macro right now. Lynn Alden.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jSoBjkVRUXM
37. Great discussion on the basics of venture capital from a multistage vc's perspective. 20 years in the business.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9Sze6f8WDSU
38. "The point is that the value of income from a biz is worth more than any career/job because you can sell it later.
Why Online? Our *bias* is always going to be for online income streams because you can move. We saw some crazy stuff happen with COVID and major companies like Tesla are even voting with their feet to leave high-tax states. This is just an example in the clear and growing trend of flexibility.
If you can take your income anywhere, it can: 1) reduce your taxes and 2) help you create a different work schedule. While the taxes can be calculated, the freedom and mobility is really an intangible asset that should be worth something. We’d wager a ton of money that people would rather make 80% of what they currently make if they were allowed to work anywhere in the world.
Why Invest? This is redundant for anyone following this side of the web, but countries will continue to print and print. Even if tech helps create some deflation that has ramifications for job loss, potential UBI/unemployment claims etc.
Outside of a few blips in time, over decades, the amount of money being printed has a clear trend.
The world has changed tremendously over the past 25 years. High paying careers/jobs don’t really offer the stability or *quality of life* that it did years ago. Excel sheets don’t lie and none of this is necessarily bad. If you’re a smart worker, it isn’t too difficult to be well liked and use technology to help you produce better results than your co-workers. The path forward is clear, it just isn’t the same as it was in the late 1990s.
One of the major traps is getting comfortable with any sort of high paying position. If you want to motivate yourself, it’s a good idea to track down the people who are in their late 30s - early 40s. Figure out how many of them really sustained a high paying position for a decade, how many dropped off and look into how steep the decline can be if “called into the conference room with HR” in the middle of a work week.
We would not bet against America. America is home to practically every single innovation. Europe is largely just a museum outside of Airbus and ASML. Latin America is improving but outside of Mercado Libre haven’t seen a major innovation. Asia is on the come up with things like TSMC and Alibaba but in the end it pales in comparison to everything in the USA (Mag 7 and a litany of successful entrepreneurs)
A second passport is largely an insurance policy for a high net worth individual or family. If there is a world changing event (war, another pandemic, or sudden governmental changes - tax, regulation, etc)."
https://bowtiedbull.io/p/second-passport-and-sovereign-individual
39. Fun interview with the wild man of Sports & Pizza Media!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=37Tz3TpELxc
40. Business legend, and a story of constant career reinvention. Michael Ovitz.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fBGH_Hq0Bm4
41. "So many geopolitical moving parts this morning."
https://timothyash.substack.com/p/so-many-geopolitical-moving-parts
42. Been pretty disappointed with the Biden administration's foreign policy across Ukraine, Haiti, Red Sea, Latam and pretty much everywhere. Weaksauce, half-as-ed.
"The counter argument to my criticism here would be the US is in a good place. Russia is weakened, China’s economy is in shambles, Israel will handle Iran and it’s proxies, Haiti is a small country so it doesn’t matter.
These things are true, but I don’t think it’s what the Biden admin was thinking. Why would you give these people hope but not actually push them across the finish line? The most likely answer is just fear. All of these half measures come from a fear of making big decisions, they’re scared to make a mistake. What do you do when you fear? You pick what on the surface seems like the safest route."
https://www.globalhitman.com/p/bidens-fence-sitting-administration
43. "With the use of network disruption increasing and the prohibitions against it melting away, here’s what we can expect.
Israel’s pager attack is a crude preview of what a significant zero-day disruption would look like. For example, a conflict with China over Taiwan could result in millions of modified devices (large and small) malfunctioning, catching fire, or bricking the moment the conflict begins. This would be followed by relentless disruptive attacks on critical infrastructure (cyber and physical/drone).
Conflicts will become increasingly deadly to the civilians of the participants as they are stripped of their protective status. Furthermore, disruptive attacks by the protagonists will cause waves of failure that cascade across borders. For example, the destruction of the Nord Stream pipeline and the Houthi drone blockade on global shipping (related to the Israel/Hamas war).
Small states and established non-state groups will become increasingly adept at using increasingly autonomous drones to project power, damage enemies, and profit from conflicts. However, they will quickly learn that the effectiveness, sustainability, and impact of their drone operations become radically better when they are focused on network disruptions (regardless of the civilian impact) rather than direct military engagements."
https://johnrobb.substack.com/p/disrupting-everything
44. "I’m roughly ten years into building Precursor Ventures, and I am not the same person I was when I started the fund. My life circumstances have changed, I’ve changed, and I’ve learned a lot about the business of running a venture capital fund. Being in the market as a venture capitalist teaches you a lot about how things work in this business.
Every long-tenured manager I know has a handful of things that he or she thought would be important that don't matter and a handful of smaller things that end up being important but feel trivial at the moment. Whenever a new VC manager asks me for advice, I pause and ask myself if my experience is useful and still relevant.
One of my mentors always reminds me that in life, you are almost always an example or a warning, and you don’t always know which one you are at the moment."
https://chudson.substack.com/p/youre-not-the-same-fund-manager-you
45. "A union representing 85,000 US dockworkers—spread across 36 US ports on the East and Gulf Coasts—will start the largest shipping strike the country has seen in nearly 50 years if a deal isn’t reached by Tuesday. Ports and other infrastructure are getting congested as importers scramble to reroute their goods.
Experts predict that the consequences will be severe, retracing the steps of the pandemic-induced supply chain chaos of 2021–2022. Container traffic jams will bring ports to a standstill, shipping prices will spike, and many retailers will ultimately be left out of stock for the holidays. The consequences for US commerce will reverberate for years, likely reawakening inflation.
This is just the latest in a series of supply chain disruptions over the last three years—the last one being the ongoing shutdown of Red Sea shipping due to war in the Middle East. In some cases, supply chains have adapted successfully, while in other cases their fragility has led to lasting scar tissue. Rising geopolitical tensions across the Pacific threaten to test the fabric of world commerce more severely than anything we have seen yet.
This raises some pressing questions about the economy. When is the world’s network of supply chains fragile, and when is it resilient? Researchers have made surprising discoveries about how supply networks break down and what keeps them healthy."
https://www.noahpinion.blog/p/americas-supply-chains-are-a-disaster
46. "We are all in “the matrix”.
Unlike the matrix movie, the real matrix is not centralized.
The matrix is a mixture of various powerful financial and other vested interests who all benefit from manipulating you into a certain type of voluntary servitude."
https://lifemathmoney.com/matrix1/
47. "Startups are like blitz chess. What you achieve is important, but just as important is how quickly you achieve. When a startup raises a seed round they often think about their Series A milestones – what they need to accomplish to unlock their next round of funding. They might set the following goals to unlock their A: “Launch the product, derisk a key piece of the technology, and get at least 3 customers signed for $100k+ contracts.” That's classical chess thinking.
Why? No speed goals. In classical chess, players can afford to sink into long bouts of strategic contemplation. But in blitz chess, every second counts. Spending too much time finding the perfect moves can cost you the game because time – not just the position on the board – is an ultimate arbiter.
Founders should think just as much about how quickly they can achieve milestones as they do about the milestones themselves. Better goals would be “Launch the product within 4 months, derisk a key piece of the technology within 8 months, and get at least 3 customers signed for $100k+ contracts within a year.”
Why is this important? Because speed unlocks speed."