Ember

old truths. new attention

[Ember @Emberxbt]

https://t.co/NiuPatJUal

[Ember @Emberxbt]

@8clerk8 Good info

[Ember @Emberxbt]

In a Fall 2025 MIT lecture, students each pick a number from 0 to 100. There is a correct answer, almost no one lands on it, and it is why most people lose in markets.

Pick at random and the average is 50, so two thirds of that is 33. But if everyone knows that, they aim for 22. Keep going and one number is left standing.

MIT charges $66,720 a year to sit in that room. The whole course is posted free online.

The lecturer is Ian Ball, teaching 14.12, Economic Applications of Game Theory. The topic is rationalizability: what a rational player does when everyone else is rational too.

The 82-minute lecture in this video is Ball at the blackboard, working that game down to one unbeatable answer.

The game is the beauty contest, and the only rational answer is 0. Each round of "they will think that too" drags the guess lower. It is about how many steps ahead everyone thinks.

Keynes described the stock market as this exact game in 1936. You are not paid for picking the best company. You are paid for picking what everyone else picks, before they do.

A strictly dominated strategy loses no matter what anyone else does. Rational players delete it, then delete what only worked against the deleted. What survives is what you can defend.

Funds that sell this reasoning charge 2 and 20: two percent of your money a year plus twenty percent of the gains, for guessing the crowd one step better than you.

The room never answers 0 first try. People stop after one or two steps. The edge is taking one more.

A fund charging 2 and 20 on $1 billion collects $20 million a year before a client sees a dollar.

"Rationality by itself is a very weak requirement, because it doesn't constrain or discipline the beliefs that player i forms."

That is Ball warning that being rational buys almost nothing alone. What pays is reasoning about how everyone else reasons.

The lecture and the full notes are free on MIT OpenCourseWare. The alternative is $66,720 a year.

The lecture is public. Almost everyone who trades against this logic has never watched a minute.

The game theory is free. The willingness to take one more step than the person across the table is far rarer than the brains to follow the game.

[Ember @Emberxbt]

In a Fall 2025 MIT lecture, students each pick a number from 0 to 100. There is a correct answer, almost no one lands on it, and it is why most people lose in markets.

Pick at random and the average is 50, so two thirds of that is 33. But if everyone knows that, they aim for 22. Keep going and one number is left standing.

MIT charges $66,720 a year to sit in that room. The whole course is posted free online.

The lecturer is Ian Ball, teaching 14.12, Economic Applications of Game Theory. The topic is rationalizability: what a rational player does when everyone else is rational too.

The 82-minute lecture in this video is Ball at the blackboard, working that game down to one unbeatable answer.

The game is the beauty contest, and the only rational answer is 0. Each round of "they will think that too" drags the guess lower. It is about how many steps ahead everyone thinks.

Keynes described the stock market as this exact game in 1936. You are not paid for picking the best company. You are paid for picking what everyone else picks, before they do.

A strictly dominated strategy loses no matter what anyone else does. Rational players delete it, then delete what only worked against the deleted. What survives is what you can defend.

Funds that sell this reasoning charge 2 and 20: two percent of your money a year plus twenty percent of the gains, for guessing the crowd one step better than you.

The room never answers 0 first try. People stop after one or two steps. The edge is taking one more.

A fund charging 2 and 20 on $1 billion collects $20 million a year before a client sees a dollar.

"Rationality by itself is a very weak requirement, because it doesn't constrain or discipline the beliefs that player i forms."

That is Ball warning that being rational buys almost nothing alone. What pays is reasoning about how everyone else reasons.

The lecture and the full notes are free on MIT OpenCourseWare. The alternative is $66,720 a year.

The lecture is public. Almost everyone who trades against this logic has never watched a minute.

The game theory is free. The willingness to take one more step than the person across the table is far rarer than the brains to follow the game.

[Ember @Emberxbt]

In 1997 a broke ex-Marine wrote a $17 paperback that sold more than 32,000,000 copies and became the best selling personal finance book in history. The free classes built on his name now end at a $45,000 invoice.

He once slept in a car. Today he says he owns 1,400 rental apartments and eight oil wells. The advice that made him rich made financial planners resent him.

His name is Robert Kiyosaki. He is 79. He flew Marine gunships in Vietnam, then wrote Rich Dad Poor Dad, the book TIME questioned him about.

The interview in this video is Kiyosaki at TIME's studio, taking reader questions on money and debt.

The fee no statement highlights. A 2 percent annual charge on a retirement account does not cost you 2 percent. Compounded across a 40 year career it eats close to half your final balance.

Why your house is not the asset you were sold. On a $400,000 mortgage at 6.5 percent the first payment is about $2,528, and $2,167 of that is pure interest. Only $361 touches the balance you own.

The tax nobody votes on. At 3 percent inflation, $100,000 left in cash loses about $26,000 of its buying power in ten years while the balance never moves.

The one line that carries the whole book. An asset puts money in your pocket, a liability takes it out. The $600 a month boat is a hole most owners still call an asset.

Where the free lesson becomes a bill. The intro seminar is free, the three day class is $500, the final package reaches $45,000, for the method the paperback already gave you.

Rich Dad Poor Dad has sold more than 32,000,000 copies at about $17 each. The method fits on one index card.

"Get off your butt. You have to get smart. You have to look for teachers."

That is his answer when a reader with no money asks how to begin. No fund, no hot tip. Find people who already did it and study them.

The interview is free on TIME's channel. The book costs less than dinner. The seminar that repackages both is the expensive door.

Millions bought the book. Almost none finished acting on the first chapter. That gap is the entire edge.

The paperback is cheap. The willingness to treat your own home as a bill instead of a trophy is the part almost nobody pays.

[Ember @Emberxbt]

In 2013 a Wall Street quant walked into an MIT classroom and derived, on camera, the one equation his industry uses to price every option you will ever be sold.

It does not care whether the stock rises or falls. It ignores your opinion. It still hands the seller the exact price of your bet before it settles.

MIT charges $66,720 a year to sit in that room. The same lecture, same instructor, has been free on MIT OpenCourseWare for a decade.

His name is Vasily Strela, a derivatives quant at Morgan Stanley, JP Morgan and RBC Capital Markets who did his doctorate at MIT under Gilbert Strang.

The full lecture in this video is Strela at the chalkboard, building the formula from a two-horse bet up to the closed-form price of a call.

Structured notes. Americans buy $48 billion of them a year, and research finds buyers pay near 7 percent annually in fees on products marked up near 6 percent at issue. Each is priced with this formula.

Order flow. In one quarter of 2021 the five biggest brokers made $587 million selling retail options order flow, more than on stocks. That gap is the space between this formula's fair price and your actual fill.

Drift is irrelevant. The lecture proves an option's price ignores whether the stock rises or falls. Only volatility and the rate move it. Every "buy calls, this runs tomorrow" pitch rests on the input the formula deletes.

Volatility. Four inputs are public: price, strike, time, rate. The fifth, volatility, is the only number the seller picks, and it is where the markup on every option, note and buffered ETF hides.

Quant funds start new researchers who can derive this at $200,000 to $400,000 in year one. Top firms go past $650,000.

"Markets look a lot less efficient from the banks of the Hudson than the banks of the Charles."

That is Fischer Black, who co-wrote this equation, on why he left MIT for Goldman Sachs.

The full derivation is free on MIT OpenCourseWare. A seat in the room it was filmed in costs $66,720 a year.

Millions can open this lecture. Almost no one who buys an option has watched a minute of it.

The formula has been free for a decade. The willingness to sit through the whole derivation before buying a call is rarer than the nerve to buy without it.

[Ember @Emberxbt]

In 2013 a Wall Street quant walked into an MIT classroom and derived, on camera, the one equation his industry uses to price every option you will ever be sold.

It does not care whether the stock rises or falls. It ignores your opinion. It still hands the seller the exact price of your bet before it settles.

MIT charges $66,720 a year to sit in that room. The same lecture, same instructor, has been free on MIT OpenCourseWare for a decade.

His name is Vasily Strela, a derivatives quant at Morgan Stanley, JP Morgan and RBC Capital Markets who did his doctorate at MIT under Gilbert Strang.

The full lecture in this video is Strela at the chalkboard, building the formula from a two-horse bet up to the closed-form price of a call.

Structured notes. Americans buy $48 billion of them a year, and research finds buyers pay near 7 percent annually in fees on products marked up near 6 percent at issue. Each is priced with this formula.

Order flow. In one quarter of 2021 the five biggest brokers made $587 million selling retail options order flow, more than on stocks. That gap is the space between this formula's fair price and your actual fill.

Drift is irrelevant. The lecture proves an option's price ignores whether the stock rises or falls. Only volatility and the rate move it. Every "buy calls, this runs tomorrow" pitch rests on the input the formula deletes.

Volatility. Four inputs are public: price, strike, time, rate. The fifth, volatility, is the only number the seller picks, and it is where the markup on every option, note and buffered ETF hides.

Quant funds start new researchers who can derive this at $200,000 to $400,000 in year one. Top firms go past $650,000.

"Markets look a lot less efficient from the banks of the Hudson than the banks of the Charles."

That is Fischer Black, who co-wrote this equation, on why he left MIT for Goldman Sachs.

The full derivation is free on MIT OpenCourseWare. A seat in the room it was filmed in costs $66,720 a year.

Millions can open this lecture. Almost no one who buys an option has watched a minute of it.

The formula has been free for a decade. The willingness to sit through the whole derivation before buying a call is rarer than the nerve to buy without it.

[Ember @Emberxbt]

https://t.co/NiuPatJUal

[Ember @Emberxbt]

In 2015 MIT's business school ran a graduate course on winning at poker, filmed all eight lectures and posted them online for zero dollars. The first lesson is the opposite of what you would guess.

It does not teach you how to win big. It teaches you how to lose slowly.

MIT Sloan charges $91,892 a year to sit there. The lectures shot inside it cost nothing.

His name is Kevin Desmond. He taught 15.S50 at MIT Sloan in January 2015, a course moving poker analytics into trading and investment management.

The video attached is that full opening lecture, Desmond teaching it inside an MIT Sloan classroom.

The scoreboard is money per hour, not chips. A solid online grinder makes 5 big blinds per 100 hands, roughly $50 to $200 an hour. A big cash means nothing if the hourly is red.

Effective stack. The most you can lose in a hand is the smaller of the two stacks, not your whole pile. Position sizing is the same: risk 1 to 2 percent an entry, fix max loss before you act, and whoever skips that number goes broke.

M ratio. Effective stack divided by the blinds and antes, how many rounds you last folding every hand. Your runway is the same fraction: cash divided by monthly burn.

Four player types: tight or loose, aggressive or passive. The fish calls everything and is where the table money comes from. In any market the person who cannot fold is the fee everyone else collects.

Become a small winner first. Desmond tells the room to lock a tiny edge long before chasing a big one, because whoever sizes for the maximum gets wiped by variance.

Trading desks hire for that instinct. A new graduate trader at Jane Street starts near $200,000 in base pay, before a bonus that can carry the year past $400,000.

"You want to be a slightly winning player way before you want to become a huge winning player."

That is Desmond on why survival beats aggression.

All eight lectures and the notes sit on MIT OpenCourseWare for free. The seat that produced them runs $91,892 a year.

Millions can open the course today. Almost no one who gambles their savings watches a minute.

The lectures are free. The willingness to sit through eight of them before risking a dollar is far rarer than the nerve to risk it blind.

[Ember @Emberxbt]

@geminchoo Simple line, but it changes how you bet.

[Ember @Emberxbt]

In 2015 MIT's business school ran a graduate course on winning at poker, filmed all eight lectures and posted them online for zero dollars. The first lesson is the opposite of what you would guess.

It does not teach you how to win big. It teaches you how to lose slowly.

MIT Sloan charges $91,892 a year to sit there. The lectures shot inside it cost nothing.

His name is Kevin Desmond. He taught 15.S50 at MIT Sloan in January 2015, a course moving poker analytics into trading and investment management.

The video attached is that full opening lecture, Desmond teaching it inside an MIT Sloan classroom.

The scoreboard is money per hour, not chips. A solid online grinder makes 5 big blinds per 100 hands, roughly $50 to $200 an hour. A big cash means nothing if the hourly is red.

Effective stack. The most you can lose in a hand is the smaller of the two stacks, not your whole pile. Position sizing is the same: risk 1 to 2 percent an entry, fix max loss before you act, and whoever skips that number goes broke.

M ratio. Effective stack divided by the blinds and antes, how many rounds you last folding every hand. Your runway is the same fraction: cash divided by monthly burn.

Four player types: tight or loose, aggressive or passive. The fish calls everything and is where the table money comes from. In any market the person who cannot fold is the fee everyone else collects.

Become a small winner first. Desmond tells the room to lock a tiny edge long before chasing a big one, because whoever sizes for the maximum gets wiped by variance.

Trading desks hire for that instinct. A new graduate trader at Jane Street starts near $200,000 in base pay, before a bonus that can carry the year past $400,000.

"You want to be a slightly winning player way before you want to become a huge winning player."

That is Desmond on why survival beats aggression.

All eight lectures and the notes sit on MIT OpenCourseWare for free. The seat that produced them runs $91,892 a year.

Millions can open the course today. Almost no one who gambles their savings watches a minute.

The lectures are free. The willingness to sit through eight of them before risking a dollar is far rarer than the nerve to risk it blind.

[Ember @Emberxbt]

In 1997 a broke ex-Marine wrote a $17 paperback that sold more than 32,000,000 copies and became the best selling personal finance book in history. The free classes built on his name now end at a $45,000 invoice.

He once slept in a car. Today he says he owns 1,400 rental apartments and eight oil wells. The advice that made him rich made financial planners resent him.

His name is Robert Kiyosaki. He is 79. He flew Marine gunships in Vietnam, then wrote Rich Dad Poor Dad, the book TIME questioned him about.

The interview in this video is Kiyosaki at TIME's studio, taking reader questions on money and debt.

The fee no statement highlights. A 2 percent annual charge on a retirement account does not cost you 2 percent. Compounded across a 40 year career it eats close to half your final balance.

Why your house is not the asset you were sold. On a $400,000 mortgage at 6.5 percent the first payment is about $2,528, and $2,167 of that is pure interest. Only $361 touches the balance you own.

The tax nobody votes on. At 3 percent inflation, $100,000 left in cash loses about $26,000 of its buying power in ten years while the balance never moves.

The one line that carries the whole book. An asset puts money in your pocket, a liability takes it out. The $600 a month boat is a hole most owners still call an asset.

Where the free lesson becomes a bill. The intro seminar is free, the three day class is $500, the final package reaches $45,000, for the method the paperback already gave you.

Rich Dad Poor Dad has sold more than 32,000,000 copies at about $17 each. The method fits on one index card.

"Get off your butt. You have to get smart. You have to look for teachers."

That is his answer when a reader with no money asks how to begin. No fund, no hot tip. Find people who already did it and study them.

The interview is free on TIME's channel. The book costs less than dinner. The seminar that repackages both is the expensive door.

Millions bought the book. Almost none finished acting on the first chapter. That gap is the entire edge.

The paperback is cheap. The willingness to treat your own home as a bill instead of a trophy is the part almost nobody pays.

[Ember @Emberxbt]

@venmilxbt That's the whole reason it's worth a watch

[Ember @Emberxbt]

@qentuaxbt And barely anyone actually watches them

[Ember @Emberxbt]

@GadgetMontana37 Anything is possible, but to be honest, I don't know myself

[Ember @Emberxbt]

In 1997 a broke ex-Marine wrote a $17 paperback that sold more than 32,000,000 copies and became the best selling personal finance book in history. The free classes built on his name now end at a $45,000 invoice.

He once slept in a car. Today he says he owns 1,400 rental apartments and eight oil wells. The advice that made him rich made financial planners resent him.

His name is Robert Kiyosaki. He is 79. He flew Marine gunships in Vietnam, then wrote Rich Dad Poor Dad, the book TIME questioned him about.

The interview in this video is Kiyosaki at TIME's studio, taking reader questions on money and debt.

The fee no statement highlights. A 2 percent annual charge on a retirement account does not cost you 2 percent. Compounded across a 40 year career it eats close to half your final balance.

Why your house is not the asset you were sold. On a $400,000 mortgage at 6.5 percent the first payment is about $2,528, and $2,167 of that is pure interest. Only $361 touches the balance you own.

The tax nobody votes on. At 3 percent inflation, $100,000 left in cash loses about $26,000 of its buying power in ten years while the balance never moves.

The one line that carries the whole book. An asset puts money in your pocket, a liability takes it out. The $600 a month boat is a hole most owners still call an asset.

Where the free lesson becomes a bill. The intro seminar is free, the three day class is $500, the final package reaches $45,000, for the method the paperback already gave you.

Rich Dad Poor Dad has sold more than 32,000,000 copies at about $17 each. The method fits on one index card.

"Get off your butt. You have to get smart. You have to look for teachers."

That is his answer when a reader with no money asks how to begin. No fund, no hot tip. Find people who already did it and study them.

The interview is free on TIME's channel. The book costs less than dinner. The seminar that repackages both is the expensive door.

Millions bought the book. Almost none finished acting on the first chapter. That gap is the entire edge.

The paperback is cheap. The willingness to treat your own home as a bill instead of a trophy is the part almost nobody pays.

[Ember @Emberxbt]

https://t.co/NiuPatJUal

[Ember @Emberxbt]

@PacificMist Yes, this book really is very good.

[Ember @Emberxbt]

@torreslauren180 Yeah, that's for sure

[Ember @Emberxbt]

In 2008 the most sophisticated risk models on Wall Street failed all at once. One former options trader had spent two decades warning they would, and built everything he did around the day they finally broke.

He does not predict the crash. He says prediction is a fool's game and the next disaster will come from something nobody put in the model. He just makes sure that when it lands, he is on the right side of it.

His name is Nassim Taleb. He traded options for decades, wrote The Black Swan, and made his name proving that the rare event is the only one that ends up mattering.

The lecture in this video is Taleb at Darwin College, explaining why extreme events break the math almost everyone trusts.

Take 55 years of the S&P 500. A single day accounts for about 80 percent of the extreme moves. Misjudge that one day and the risk model running your money is fiction.

You do not go broke from a hundred bad days, you go broke from one. A bet that wins 99 percent of the time and loses everything on the hundredth is a losing bet, not a winning one.

The bell curve your advisor leans on treats a crash as almost impossible. In real markets it is not. A tool that calls 2008 a once in a billion year event is not conservative, it is broken.

His fix is the barbell. Park the large majority of your money in something boringly safe, put a tiny slice on huge asymmetric bets, and never sit in the fragile middle.

In 2008 the tail-risk fund built on his thinking reportedly returned more than 100 percent while the S&P 500 fell 38 percent.

"Once you die there's no more."

That is Taleb on why survival comes first. You can be right for thirty years and one blow up erases all of it, so you protect against ruin before you chase return.

The lecture is free on YouTube. The book that made the argument costs about $18.

Millions repeat the phrase black swan. Almost none have watched the man explain why the tail is the only part of the curve that pays or ruins you.

The lecture is free. The discipline to give up a little return every year to guarantee you survive the one bad day is the part almost nobody keeps.

[Beaver @Beaver_0x]

https://t.co/bnTUVXMGpH

[Ember @Emberxbt]

In 2008 the most sophisticated risk models on Wall Street failed all at once. One former options trader had spent two decades warning they would, and built everything he did around the day they finally broke.

He does not predict the crash. He says prediction is a fool's game and the next disaster will come from something nobody put in the model. He just makes sure that when it lands, he is on the right side of it.

His name is Nassim Taleb. He traded options for decades, wrote The Black Swan, and made his name proving that the rare event is the only one that ends up mattering.

The lecture in this video is Taleb at Darwin College, explaining why extreme events break the math almost everyone trusts.

Take 55 years of the S&P 500. A single day accounts for about 80 percent of the extreme moves. Misjudge that one day and the risk model running your money is fiction.

You do not go broke from a hundred bad days, you go broke from one. A bet that wins 99 percent of the time and loses everything on the hundredth is a losing bet, not a winning one.

The bell curve your advisor leans on treats a crash as almost impossible. In real markets it is not. A tool that calls 2008 a once in a billion year event is not conservative, it is broken.

His fix is the barbell. Park the large majority of your money in something boringly safe, put a tiny slice on huge asymmetric bets, and never sit in the fragile middle.

In 2008 the tail-risk fund built on his thinking reportedly returned more than 100 percent while the S&P 500 fell 38 percent.

"Once you die there's no more."

That is Taleb on why survival comes first. You can be right for thirty years and one blow up erases all of it, so you protect against ruin before you chase return.

The lecture is free on YouTube. The book that made the argument costs about $18.

Millions repeat the phrase black swan. Almost none have watched the man explain why the tail is the only part of the curve that pays or ruins you.

The lecture is free. The discipline to give up a little return every year to guarantee you survive the one bad day is the part almost nobody keeps.

[Ember @Emberxbt]

In 1988 a former Cold War codebreaker launched a fund that went on to compound at 62 percent a year, then sealed it shut to every outsider on earth. You cannot buy a single share at any price.

He was not a trader. He broke Soviet codes for American intelligence and chaired a university math department. He never read an earnings report in his life.

His name was Jim Simons. He died in May 2024 at 86, worth about $31 billion, almost none of it made the way Wall Street says money is made.

The interview in this video is Simons on the TED stage in 2015, talking to Chris Anderson about math, money and how he actually did it.

The highest fees ever charged. Renaissance took 5 percent of your capital every year plus 44 percent of all profits, while the standard hedge fund takes 2 and 20 and most still lose to a plain index.

What was left after that still compounded near 37 percent a year from 1988 to 2021. One dollar became roughly $42,000. The same dollar in the S&P 500 became about $40.

Renaissance caps the fund near $10 billion on purpose, because letting it grow would kill the returns. Bigger is not better when you are already this good.

The fund you can actually buy is a low cost index. It has returned about 10 percent a year over the long run, and it beats most managers charging you to try to win.

Medallion has been closed to outside investors since 1993. Every dollar in it belongs to Simons and his own staff. No amount of money opens that door.

"We charged the highest fees in the world at one time. Five and 44, that's what we charge."

That is Simons on stage, explaining why clients never blinked. What was left after those fees still buried every rival in the industry.

The talk is free on TED. The fund behind it takes no new money at any price.

Millions can quote his returns. Almost none have watched the talk where he explains how a mathematician actually thinks about a market.

The talk is free. The patience to test a pattern ten thousand times before betting a dollar on it is the part almost nobody has.

[Ember @Emberxbt]

@venmilxbt Nobody's is, that's the whole point, the door has been shut since 1993.

[Ember @Emberxbt]

In 1988 a former Cold War codebreaker launched a fund that went on to compound at 62 percent a year, then sealed it shut to every outsider on earth. You cannot buy a single share at any price.

He was not a trader. He broke Soviet codes for American intelligence and chaired a university math department. He never read an earnings report in his life.

His name was Jim Simons. He died in May 2024 at 86, worth about $31 billion, almost none of it made the way Wall Street says money is made.

The interview in this video is Simons on the TED stage in 2015, talking to Chris Anderson about math, money and how he actually did it.

The highest fees ever charged. Renaissance took 5 percent of your capital every year plus 44 percent of all profits, while the standard hedge fund takes 2 and 20 and most still lose to a plain index.

What was left after that still compounded near 37 percent a year from 1988 to 2021. One dollar became roughly $42,000. The same dollar in the S&P 500 became about $40.

Renaissance caps the fund near $10 billion on purpose, because letting it grow would kill the returns. Bigger is not better when you are already this good.

The fund you can actually buy is a low cost index. It has returned about 10 percent a year over the long run, and it beats most managers charging you to try to win.

Medallion has been closed to outside investors since 1993. Every dollar in it belongs to Simons and his own staff. No amount of money opens that door.

"We charged the highest fees in the world at one time. Five and 44, that's what we charge."

That is Simons on stage, explaining why clients never blinked. What was left after those fees still buried every rival in the industry.

The talk is free on TED. The fund behind it takes no new money at any price.

Millions can quote his returns. Almost none have watched the talk where he explains how a mathematician actually thinks about a market.

The talk is free. The patience to test a pattern ten thousand times before betting a dollar on it is the part almost nobody has.

[Beaver @Beaver_0x]

https://t.co/bnTUVXMGpH

[Ember @Emberxbt]

@qentuaxbt They lined up because what was left after those fees still beat everyone charging a fraction of it.

[Ember @Emberxbt]

@geminchoo Pattern recognition doesn't care which industry you learned it in first