Charlie Munger turned 99 today
Warren Buffett's partner at Berkshire Hathaway is a fountain of knowledge and wisdom
I have compiled 99 Charlie Munger quotes in celebration for his birthday:
10 WAYS TO PLAY ROBOTICS IN 2026
1. $TER tests AI chips & owns the cobots through Universal Robots
2. $NOVT precision photonics & motion inside surgical & industrial robots
3. $OUST eyes & perception for physical AI machines that need to see & map physical world
4. $HIMX provides vision & display chips that help robots process images, depth & sensor inputs at edge
5. $AMBQ low power edge AI layer for robots & devices that need intelligence without burning massive amounts of energy
6. $ON becomes physical AI edge stack after acquiring $SYNA combining power, sensing, connectivity & edge AI for robotics
7. $SYM warehouse automation pure play using robotics & software to redesign how goods move through fulfillment centers
8. $VPG sits in force sensing & precision measurement layer that helps robots understand pressure, weight & real world movement
9. $TSLA humanoid platform bet with Optimus combining custom hardware, AI inference, autonomy software & real world manufacturing scale
10. $CCXI gives public market exposure to Agility Robotics which is one of clearest pure play humanoid robotics companies through its Digit warehouse robot
The researchers getting rich off Anthropic secondaries are cheering for the thing that would make them ordinary employees again.
Right now they are paid like NBA free agents because they are the labs’ most visible moat. The frontier labs are struggling to hold a durable, ownable edge: models get copied, undercut, or matched by cheaper and open rivals within months. So the real advantage lives in a few hundred people who know how to push the frontier, and who can also leave, raise billion-dollar, double tranched seed rounds, and compete directly.
That is why the labs are paying them not to leave. with secondaries as retention payments, mission / fear, etc...
Pharma shows where this can end up. In a drug company, the value does not belong to the scientist. The scientist can be paid well, but not hundreds of millions over three or four years, because the durable value sits in the patent and the FDA approval. The researcher who discovered the molecule can quit tomorrow, but the company still owns the asset.
A regulatory moat would do something similar for AI labs. It would move value from the person to the institution.
Regulation is a wall against three threats at once: competitors, open source, and the labs’ own researchers. The researchers getting rich off secondaries today are, by cheering the regulated future, voting to end the exact leverage that made them rich.
Tim Cook, who told The Wall Street Journal that the jump in costs was unlike anything he had seen “in any area in over 40 years.”
Biggest price jump in anything I’ve ever seen too. https://t.co/aypJGgssnN
At a very hi level, free cashflow = operating cash flow - capex.
The hyperscalers are deep into an investment cycle so they are consuming their operating cash flow. It is incorrect to look at this and assume their FCF has collapsed because operating cash flow has collapsed.
It hasn't. Capex has exploded.
This cycle should be eerily reminiscent of Amazon's approach over the past 20 years when they did the same thing related to e-commerce and AWS buildout. The question should be what moat did Amazon create at the end of that cycle and what kind of moat could the hyperscalers build now related to AI after this cycle?
🚨🎙️ ZLATAN IBRAHIMOVIĆ ON LIONEL MESSI'S INFLUENCE ON ARGENTINA AFTER THEIR WIN OVER AUSTRIA:
“I'm obsessed with watching Messi.
Not because he's my friend.
Not because of nostalgia.
Because after all these years, I'm still trying to understand how one player can control a football match without touching the ball every minute.
I watched Argentina today and the first thing I noticed wasn't the scoreline.
It was the way Austria reacted whenever Messi moved.
One step to the left, defenders follow.
One drop into midfield, the entire shape changes.
One glance over his shoulder panic.
That's not football.
That's psychological warfare.
And that's why I laugh when people reduce him to goals and assists.
They don't understand what they're watching.
Messi isn't just Argentina's best player.
He's Argentina's system.
He's their confidence.
He's their belief.
He's the reason every teammate walks onto the pitch thinking the impossible is possible.
People ask me about the GOAT debate.
What debate?
Seriously.
What debate?
For me, there isn't one.
The debate exists because television needs content and social media needs arguments.
When I watch football, I don't see a debate.
I see Messi.
Then I see everybody else.
That doesn't mean other legends weren't incredible.
It means I've never seen another player influence a match, a team and an entire generation of football the way Messi has.
And today was another reminder.
He didn't need a hat-trick.
He didn't need to score from 40 yards.
He just needed to be Lionel Messi.
And suddenly Argentina looked like a completely different team.
That's greatness.
Not when everything depends on you.
When everybody becomes better because you're there.
I've played against great players.
I've played with great players.
But Messi is the only player I've ever watched and genuinely thought:
'This isn't normal.'
The scary thing?
Opponents know exactly what he's going to do.
And they still can't stop it.
That's why I don't waste my time with comparisons anymore.
Some players become legends.
Some players become icons.
Messi became a category of his own.
And after today's performance, if you're still asking me who the greatest footballer of all time is...
You're asking the wrong question.
The right question is:
Will football ever produce another one like him?”
Many people think any given ML project is 99% training.
In reality, it’s 50% evaluation, 40% data cleaning, 8% integration, and 2% training.
The first two set the noise floor for learning. No ML magic matters; the model cannot lower the noise floor, as that’s the optimal bound of Shannon encoding of your data.
Thus, not a single day goes by without me thinking about ontology. Even the old labels have to be constantly reviewed.
This post by @DavidSacks about the Anthropic/Fable situation is noteworthy, but not for the reason most people think.
Put the details aside for a second.
Anthropic released a blog post with their side of the story a few hours ago. David is responding with a bullet point list in a tweet about a different side of the story.
Years ago both sides would be jockeying to get mainstream reporters to tell their version of the truth and the American public would be fed some edited narrative that was filtered through a bureaucratic media organization.
That world doesn't exist anymore.
Now both sides share their versions publicly so the American people can hear directly from them. It is up to the individual citizens to make up their mind who they believe.
I haven't read a single article about the situation, but rather just read the various players' statements.
Fascinating how fast the world has changed.
The US government, citing national security authorities, has issued an export control directive to suspend all access to Fable 5 and Mythos 5 by any foreign national, whether inside or outside the United States, including foreign national Anthropic employees.
The net effect of this order is that we must abruptly disable Fable 5 and Mythos 5 for all our customers to ensure compliance.
Access to all other Claude models is not affected.
We apologize for this disruption to our customers. We believe this is a misunderstanding and are working to restore access as soon as possible.
Read our full statement: https://t.co/bwn0sximKZ