What I Am Reading:
How to Live an Asymmetric Life
Graham Weaver's narrative unfolds as a profound exploration of both investing and life, with a focus on the four essential principles that shape an asymmetric existence. Central to his message is the notion of writing one's own story – envisioning and pursuing dreams with unwavering determination. Living an asymmetric life, according to Weaver, means breaking free from fear and playing for the asymmetric upside in every aspect of existence
What I Am Watching:
The Most Misunderstood Concept in Physics
Entropy is the tendency of energy to disperse and create disorder, and is intricately linked to Earth's existence. This video vividly explains the vital role played by the sun, which provides Earth with an invaluable stream of high-quality low entropy energy that allows for structure and temperature variations, fostering the conditions for life to flourish. It's a captivating journey into the science behind our planet's sustainability.
What I Am Listening:
"The Formula" by Albert-László Barabási
Too often, accomplishment does not equal success. We did the work but didn't get the promotion; we played hard but weren't recognized; we had the idea but didn't get the credit. We convince ourselves that talent combined with a strong work ethic is the key to getting ahead, but also realize that combination often fails to yield results, without any deeper understanding as to why. Recognizing this striking disconnect, the author, along with a team of renowned researchers and some of the most advanced data-crunching systems on the planet, dedicated themselves to one goal: uncovering that ever-elusive link between performance and success.
A conversation with Renaissance Technologies CEO Peter Brown
In this special episode, Peter Brown, CEO of Renaissance Technologies, talks about his career and building the hedge fund company. He also recounts how the firm navigated market crises such as the “quant quake” and the Global Financial Crisis, and describes how computer models and algorithms have long played a role in Renaissance’s growth.
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What I Am Reading:
The Surprising Science of “Manifestation”
According to Oprah, manifesting is bringing something tangible into your life through attraction and belief. It encourages people to bring a goal to life by making vision boards, writing in manifestation journals, and speaking it into existence. Cue eye roll. However, as much as I hate to admit it, manifesting may have benefits—but not for the reasons self-help gurus say it does.
What I Am Watching:
DO IT TODAY: My philosophy for success, health, wealth, and happiness
Are you tired of putting things off and ready to make a change? Darius shares relatable anecdotes, practical tips, and actionable advice to help you overcome procrastination and start taking massive action. He shares strategies to boost productivity, improve well-being, and create a life filled with purpose and joy.
What I Am Listening:
Hexapodia L: Why Is Such a Good Economy Seen as Bad?
An episode on the puzzling disconnect between the U.S. economy's strong performance and the lackluster confidence of American consumers and voters. They explore various factors and they share insights from past economic experiences and discuss potential explanations for this discrepancy. Tune in to unravel the mystery of why many Americans are feeling down about an economy that, on paper, appears to be thriving.
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What I Am Reading:
The hottest new programming language? Biology
mRNA is just one example of a synthetic biology technology. As we speak, people around the world are bending biology to all sorts of precise, ambitious, and (at times) controversial ends. A quick list: resurrecting wooly mammoths, reversing disease, growing meat in a lab, editing genes, producing waste-free materials.
The Secret Tool of Elite Athletes for Achieving your Career Goals
The difference between those who succeed and those who fail in their goals is the transformation of identity. "The act of stepping into a new identity that you're unfamiliar with is a surprisingly effective brain shortcut to change. The human mind is wired to protect its identities, even in the face of irrefutable contradicting facts…
The case for reading all of your emails, according to Tim Cook
“I religiously start looking at customer notes every morning, starting around 5 am or so,” he says. It’s not uncommon for him to forward them to other Apple employees, the feedback having sparked an idea.
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What I Am Reading:
Scientists Reconstruct What You're Looking at by Enhancing Reflection in Your Eye
Researchers at the University of Maryland have developed an eerie technique that can reconstruct 3D images from the reflections in your eyes, by building on a neural network model called neural radiance fields (NeRF).
Astronomers detect largest cosmic explosion ever seen
The explosion is more than 10 times brighter than any recorded exploding star - known as a supernova.
The Impact of Stress on the Well-Being of Startup Founders
Startup Snapshot's insightful and provocative research sheds light on the big picture of founder mental health needs and solutions.
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What I Am Reading:
Octopus time
“We humans are forward-facing, gravity-bound plodders. Can the liquid motion of the octopus radicalise our ideas about time?”
For when someone says “I’ve seen this before, it didn’t work”
“If you’re a founder you’ve probably heard someone say “oh, I’ve seen this idea before - it didn’t work” or “isn’t this just like that other thing that person/company X tried?”
As a founder, I heard this dozens of times. It’s likely to come from investors, but you hear it from other founders, potential employees, advisors, customers, even family members. Like it or not, pattern matching is strong.”
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What I Am Reading:
Deviate: The Science of Seeing Differently
Perception is the foundation of human experience, but few of us understand why we see what we do, much less how. By revealing the startling truths about the brain and its perceptions, Beau Lotto shows that the next big innovation is not a new technology: it is a new way of seeing.
In his first major book, Lotto draws on over two decades of pioneering research to explain that our brain didn't evolve to see the world accurately. It can't! Visually stunning, with entertaining illustrations and optical illusions throughout, and with clear and comprehensive explanations of the science behind how our perceptions operate, Deviate will revolutionize the way you see yourself, others and the world.
With this new understanding of how the brain functions, Deviate is not just an illuminating account of the neuroscience of thought, behavior, and creativity: it is a call to action, enlisting readers in their own journey of self-discovery.
Building JoonBug was a fascinating, engrossing experience, and there were all kinds of moving parts, from the tech side, to the finance side, to the social and entertainment aspects of working in nightlife. And peppered throughout those experiences were, of course, celebrity encounters! My team and I met and mingled with some of the true glitterati of that time, many of whom are still famous today. It was almost always a transient, happenstance kind of thing, a fun or exciting or just plain weird moment in time. These are just a few that stand out in my memory.
Biggest Fan
During my college years, but technically before JoonBug, I often went to a lounge called Spy Bar and tried to get in. It was the hotspot, the hardest place to get into, and the best place to be seen. I had a few hits, but mostly misses, trying to get past the velvet ropes. Spy Bar was a celebrity hotspot, so “ordinary” people had a tougher time getting in than they might have at a large mega club, where doormen were looking to pack the giant venue out with an eclectic crowd.
What I Am Reading:
The secret history of Elon Musk, Sam Altman, and OpenAI
After three years, Elon Musk was ready to give up on the artificial intelligence research firm he helped found, OpenAI.
The nonprofit had launched in 2015 to great fanfare with backing from billionaire tech luminaries like Musk and Reid Hoffman, who had as a group pledged $1 billion. It had lured some of the top minds in the field to leave big tech companies and academia.
But in early 2018, Musk told Sam Altman, another OpenAI founder, that he believed the venture had fallen fatally behind Google, people familiar with the matter said.
And Musk proposed a possible solution: He would take control of OpenAI and run it himself.
Altman and OpenAI’s other founders rejected Musk’s proposal. Musk, in turn, walked away from the company — and reneged on a massive planned donation. The fallout from that conflict, culminating in the announcement of Musk’s departure on Feb 20, 2018, would shape the industry that’s changing the world, and the company at the heart of it.
What I Am Reading:
The Art of the Good Life: 52 Surprising Shortcuts to Happiness, Wealth, and Success
The Art of the Good Life is a toolkit designed for practical living. Here you'll find fifty-two happiness hacks -- from guilt-free shunning of technology to gleefully paying your parking tickets -- that are certain to optimize your happiness. These tips may not guarantee you a good life, but they'll give you a better chance (and that's all any of us can ask for).
Crazy Train
Semper Augustus Client Letter 2022
PROFITLESS PROSPERITY; INVESTING IN FLATION; AND – BERKSHIRE: GETTING BETTER ALL THE TIME
The Munger Operating System: How to Live a Life That Really Works
It’s such a simple idea. It’s the golden rule so to speak: You want to deliver to the world what you would buy if you were on the other end. There is no ethos, in my opinion, that is better for any lawyer or any other person to have. By and large the people who have this ethos win in life and they don’t win just money, not just honors. They win the respect, the deserved trust of the people they deal with, and there is huge pleasure in life to be obtained from getting deserved trust.
What I Am Reading:
First Ever Recording of Dying Brain May Shed Light on Our Final Moments
“Scientists gain an accidental glimpse into an age-old question about what happens to the human brain as we die.”
After The Fact
“Everything has a price, and prices aren’t always clear. The price of exercise isn’t just the workout; it’s avoiding the post-workout urge to eat a ton of food. Same in finance. The price of building wealth isn’t just the trouble of earning money or dealing; it’s avoiding the post-income urge to spend what you’ve accumulated.”
hat I Am Reading:
Planning Ahead Is the Key to Living With More Spontaneity
“It may seem counterintuitive, but spontaneity often can’t happen without a bit of advanced planning”
23 semi-controversial predictions for 2023
The Munger Operating System: How to Live a Life That Really Works
“To get what you want, deserve what you want. Trust, success, and admiration are earned.”
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What I Am Reading:
Bear Market Investing Strategies
“Harry Schultz has been identifying bear market warning signals and teaching people how to prepare a profitable survival portfolio in light of these signals for over thirty-five years through his highly acclaimed newsletter, The International Harry Schultz Letter, which reaches subscribers in over ninety countries. The 1960s' classic book Bear Markets has been fully updated and revised to reflect the unprecedented changes taking place in today's volatile economic environment-making it extremely relevant to the current financial market. This book provides the necessary tools for investors to construct a portfolio that will allow them to protect and grow their money under the most severe bear market conditions through technical analysis and models of numerous bear market variables. Bear Market Investing Strategies offers practical and approachable strategies that every investor needs today.”
How scientists want to make you young again
“Research labs are pursuing technology to “reprogram” aging bodies back to youth.”
Old Frugal Habits Die Hard: Why I Force Myself to Spend More
“Why enjoying your money is so damned hard!”
What I Am Reading:
Scientists are using AI to dream up revolutionary new proteins
“Huge advances in artificial intelligence mean researchers can design completely original molecules in seconds instead of months.”
The Crypto Story
“What follows is his brilliant explanation of what this maddening, often absurd, and always fascinating technology means, and where it might go.”
How to complete an impossible challenge
“There’s no need to hide under the bed covers – with the GOD principle you’ll be able to achieve your goals, big or small”
What I Am Reading:
You weren’t supposed to see that
“Widespread prosperity, it turns out, is incompatible with the American Dream. The only way our economy works is when there are winners and losers. If everyone’s a winner, the whole thing fails. That’s what we learned at the conclusion of our experiment. You weren’t supposed to see that. Now the genie is out of the bottle. For one brief shining moment, everyone had enough money to pay their bills and the financial freedom to choose their own way of life.
And it broke the fucking economy in half.”
We now know the big bang theory is (probably) not how the universe began
“The Big Bang still happened a very long time ago, but it wasn’t the beginning we once supposed it to be.”
Why Greatness Cannot Be Planned: The Myth of the Objective
“Why does modern life revolve around objectives? From how science is funded, to improving how children are educated -- and nearly everything in-between -- our society has become obsessed with a seductive illusion: that greatness results from doggedly measuring improvement in the relentless pursuit of an ambitious goal. In Why Greatness Cannot Be Planned, Stanley and Lehman begin with a surprising scientific discovery in artificial intelligence that leads ultimately to the conclusion that the objective obsession has gone too far. They make the case that great achievement can't be bottled up into mechanical metrics; that innovation is not driven by narrowly focused heroic effort; and that we would be wiser (and the outcomes better) if instead we whole-heartedly embraced serendipitous discovery and playful creativity.
Controversial at its heart, yet refreshingly provocative, this book challenges readers to consider life without a destination and discovery without a compass.”
What I Am Reading:
Five Things I Know about Investing
In this essay, Dartmouth finance professor Kenneth R. French explains five investment principles that he uses as the foundation for a holistic approach to portfolio design.
The Key to Behavior Change is Identity Change
Use the psychology of self-image to transform your habits for good.
How Unboxing Elaborate Packages Became an American Pastime
American consumers can’t resist the lure of a well-designed container.
What I am Watching:
Who made these circles in the Sahara?Deep in the Sahara, far from any towns, roads, or other signs of life, is a row of markings in the sand. There are dozens of them stretching for miles in a straight line in central Algeria, each consisting of a central point surrounded by a circle of 12 nodes, like numbers on a clock. And when we started making this video, no one seemed to know what they were.
What I Am Reading:
How to Understand Things“what we call 'intelligence' is as much about virtues such as honesty, integrity, and bravery, as it is about 'raw intellect”
The Benefits of Optimism Are Real“Having a positive outlook is the most important predictor of resilience.”
Why Talking to Strangers Is the Best Thing You Can Do for Your Mental Health
“If we can only break through the awkwardness barrier, striking up conversations at random is the cheapest form of therapy there is.”
Fecal Transplants Reverse Key Signs of Aging
“Scientists from England’s Quadram Institute and the University of East Anglia have found that transplanting fecal microbiota from young mammals into older ones may help reverse key signs of aging in the gut, brain, and eyes.”
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What I Am Reading
I can only promise you that it's going to get weirder
“Technology is always changing the nature of human life.”
Keanu Reeves Knows the Secrets of the Universe
“Guy’s always working—sixty-eight movies in thirty-five years. Playing killing machines, doofuses, romantics, messiahs, and devils. But always Keanu. Which always means something more.”
How to Remember You’re Alive
“One way to appreciate virtually any moment of your life is to pretend that the whole thing is already over.”
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What I Am Reading
Same As It Ever Was
This is a few short stories about things that never change in a world that never stops changing.
Four Thousand Weeks: Time Management for Mortals
“Drawing on the insights of both ancient and contemporary philosophers, psychologists, and spiritual teachers, Oliver Burkeman delivers an entertaining, humorous, practical, and ultimately profound guide to time and time management. Rejecting the futile modern fixation on “getting everything done,” Four Thousand Weeks introduces readers to tools for constructing a meaningful life by embracing finitude, showing how many of the unhelpful ways we’ve come to think about time aren’t inescapable, unchanging truths, but choices we’ve made as individuals and as a society—and that we could do things differently.”
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What I Am Reading
This is how your brain makes your mind
“Your mind is in fact an ongoing construction of your brain, your body, and the surrounding world.”
The New Science of Clocks Prompts Questions About the Nature of Time
“Studies of the simplest possible clocks have revealed their fundamental limitations — as well as insights into the nature of time itself.”
You'll Never Login the Same Way Again
“Wallet-based authentication will dominate in the next decade because it puts the user in control, where we want to be. The wallet replaces the username, the password, and the cookie.”
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What I Am Reading
The Power of the Marginal
“If you really want to score big, the place to focus is the margin of the margin: the territories only recently captured from the insiders. That's where you'll find the juiciest projects still undone, either because they seemed too risky, or simply because there were too few insiders to explore everything.”
The Tacit Knowledge Series
“Tacit knowledge is ‘knowledge that cannot be captured through words alone’.
This series explores how expertise is tacit, why the research around extracting tacit knowledge is more important than the literature on deliberate practice, and how to go about acquiring tacit knowledge in the pursuit of skill acquisition.”
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