Tom

Work at a UK focused investment fund in the day, build the rest of the time

[Tom @Tom__Toad]

@MerrynSW Why do you think they struggled / refused to grasp it?

[Tom @Tom__Toad]

This is so good from @HelenMiller_IFS @Dieter_Helm and @levell_peter

Energy is one of those topics that I'm sure many of us think we understand but really really really don't.

https://t.co/6ZKn0tk2eD

[Tom @Tom__Toad]

@John_Stepek @MorganE07969703 Yeah, listened to a podcast and now want to save some thoughts etc.

As you say, the harder and more valuable part is finding the relevant bits at the right time

[Tom @Tom__Toad]

Would love thoughts on this idea:

Imagine talking through your week (walks, commutes, wherever) and getting back a page on Sunday evening that made sense of it all.

Decisions you made, ideas you've had, ideas you keep coming back to. Stuff you think you should be doing.

Like having someone who listened to your whole week and handed it back to you, clearly.

Would you see value on this idea? @s8mb @bswud @isnit0 @davidsenra @John_Stepek @patrick_oshag (tagged you guys as your minds always seem on!)

[Tom @Tom__Toad]

@MorganE07969703 @John_Stepek Yes, there’s a lot in the space, albeit most seem to be focused more on personal improvement and journaling rather than ideas / thoughts on the back of meetings and podcasts that you don’t want to forget.

[Tom @Tom__Toad]

@MorganE07969703 @John_Stepek Diary is a bit more of a ritual.

I’m always having ideas when I’m out and about which aren’t fully formed / don’t always have a pen and paper to hand.

You would simply ramble away and then at the end of the week, get a smart summary of what you’ve covered that week

[Tom @Tom__Toad]

@John_Stepek Yes, very much agree. Think there’s something there but would need to be as frictionless as possible and give you something useful

[Tom @Tom__Toad]

@vadym_petryshyn I think there’s something there but not quite sure what it is / how many people would use it.

I know I would but think I’m quite different in that regard.

[Tom @Tom__Toad]

What if your walk-to-think-something-through actually produced something at the end?

Building a voice-first thinking tool for founders. Ramble about your business. Get back structure - your key conclusions, open questions, decision log over time.

You then get something searchable, that you can play around with.

Not a journal. Not a task manager. A system for your own thinking.

Something I've started doing with Claude, but that has its limitations - would you use this?

[Tom @Tom__Toad]

@rcolvile State pension as % of welfare bill.
House prices as multiple of earnings over the last 30 years.

[Tom @Tom__Toad]

@WallStRollup Which podcast is this?

[Tom @Tom__Toad]

@alexisohanian Is this only on YouTube? Cant seem to find the podcast

[Tom @Tom__Toad]

@Simmons__ Totally agree, and it’s baffling how few people are willing to accept this.

[Tom @Tom__Toad]

The M&S in Richmond station still enforces a food-with-alcohol rule dating from 2007, when the "Friends of Richmond Green" residents persuaded the council that M&S wine was not prohibitively expensive to deter youths drinking on the Green.

You don't find out about the rule until you're at the checkout, there are cheaper shops between the station and the Green, and being forced to buy a banana alongside your Chablis does nothing to deter anyone.

I emailed multiple times, had to chase for a response, and then got some drivel about it preventing overcrowding on the Green and they see it as paramount to ensuring safety in Richmond. When I pushed on the logic, they ignored me.

This from a council that spent heavily on a three-storey bike shed with a living green wall (the bottom floor is never full, the old one still half-empty), and took the better part of a year to repair a river path between Richmond and Kew.

Fundamentally not serious people! Very sad

[Tom @Tom__Toad]

@Frencheconomics This is brilliant. Feels like there is a world where we take more of this path but also where we accelerate on our existing path!

[Tom @Tom__Toad]

@MerrynSW @John_Stepek @stephenyiu Will the talk be online?

[Tom @Tom__Toad]

So good from @davidsenra on James Dyson. If you're interested in entrepeneurship or just about what can happen if you have a go at life, it's well worth a listen (https://t.co/dZhRonOsPn)

Another one where I found myself jotting great bits down.

James Dyson spent 14 years and 5,127 prototypes before he had a product.

There is so much more to this than just being persistent.

Each failed prototype added to a store of understanding that no amount of thinking at a desk could replicate. The failure wasn't the cost of eventually getting it right. It was the point.

His mentor Jeremy Fry was suspicious of experienced people. The logic was that experience means knowing why things won't work. The naive person has no such map, so they're forced to think harder and try more. By accident, they're using the right method.

Same logic applies to ideas. Any competent person in the room can kill a new one. Experts are particularly effective at this as they genuinely know twelve reasons why it won't work. That knowledge is the problem. Protect early ideas from scrutiny. Test them before you explain them.

Run enough experiments and something illogical will occasionally occur and work. You can't manufacture that moment but you can position yourself to encounter it.

One condition: do the work yourself. Reading results someone else produced is not the same as running the test. The tacit knowledge lives in the doing and disappears when you compartmentalise too much.

All of this compounds into what eventually looks like intuition. But intuition isn't instinct. It's the accumulated result of getting out there, trying things, and experiencing what happens. You can't shortcut to it.

The other thing he keeps returning to: you can't do everything, even with a large team. Decide the most important thing and hold to it.

[Tom @Tom__Toad]

@s8mb Looks like an amazing opportunity

[Tom @Tom__Toad]

@tarakeeney Love building but the hardest part is staying focused on one idea when you’ve got to distribute

[Tom @Tom__Toad]

@tarakeeney Love building but the hardest part is staying focused on an idea

[Tom @Tom__Toad]

@davidsenra @t_xu @DoorDash Your podcast with him is fantastic