theo

Sharing interesting things 🧠 Being successful right away is less stressful, but, when it takes longer, it’s often sweeter 💯

[theo @file_theodore]

If only they would saved that $4 on Starbucks everyday by making coffee at home...

[Ken Klippenstein @kenklippenstein]

Hedge fund CEO: I lost $3 billion, my company, my home, and now my wife

Me: Have you considered budgeting?

[Viktor Bunin 🛡️🇺🇸 @ViktorBunin]

Never in my life did I think I would be a Marco Rubio fan, but this is just so damn good.

[𖣂Prince𖣂 @OS3992]

Motivational video for the day

You become what you think about most of the time. — Brian Tracy

50/252

[Katherine Boyle @KTmBoyle]

American Dynamism.

[Katherine Boyle @KTmBoyle]

Incredible to see a political leader translate how a new technology can promote human flourishing with such clarity. Exceptional speech.

[Abril Zucchi @abrilzucchi]

i can’t stop thinking about this Nietzsche quote

[Chamath Palihapitiya @chamath]

Let me add to this to clarify...when I was young, one great piece of advice I got was be the non-complainer. When asked by someone to do something, I would do it.

When asked to build a deck, I did it. And obsessed about every word, transition, image and animation until I felt it was pixel perfect. This took time.

When asked to build a model, not only did I try to understand the purpose, I made the model flexible, structurally sound and elegant. This took time.

When asked to work on a project, I took it on head first, developed some sense of it and then wrote a few pages explaining what I had learned and why it may be valuable as the project went forward, or didn't. This took time.

Meanwhile, I didn't have time to gossip, I didn't have time to make friends at work, I didn't have time to complain.

I made myself indispensable to my superiors by being a reliable worker. They then took me into the rooms they were in because I was essential to them doing well. Eventually, as they transitioned further upwards, I took command of the rooms they used to run.

This is how the process is supposed to work.

So if you want to get into the rooms where it happens, don't complain and don't get distracted. Be a reliable worker to those you work for and with. The rest takes care of itself.

[theo @file_theodore]

@TimmerFidelity You were on RV awhile back and you said you make all your charts in Excel is that still true? You are a wizard! 🧙‍♂️🤯

[Nat Friedman @natfriedman]

@tszzl The mistake people make is following advice. Instead, you should use it to understand someone else's world model so that you can improve yours.

[Brianna Wu @BriannaWu]

Want to give a high-level view of what the next few decades of history will look like, and how it should shape what we prioritize politically.

There are three world-changing conflicts going on high now. Russia/Ukraine, the destabilization of the Middle East signified by Israel/Hamas, and the increasing possibility that China will invade Taiwan.

All of this is a slow end to the rules-based international order we saw in the aftermath of WW2. Conflict used to be an aberration, and it's going to become the norm.

Democracy itself is on trial. If you enjoy living in a country where you can vote out your leaders and criticize your government, please understand THE FUTURE OF THIS FORM OF GOVERNMENT IS VERY UNCERTAIN. The authoritarians are winning. Theocrats are winning. Secular democracy is on the defensive.

We are prioritizing issues like personal pronoun use, and who can compete in high school sports when we need to be thinking about trade policy and the very real risk that our standard of living will plummet. The likelihood of a long Cold War means the world will be separated into economic zones. Russia and China are driving a new trade bloc that could steal a massive chunk of the West's GDP.

All of this is why I talk a lot less about women's equality in the game industry than I used to. It matters, but the world has changed so radically, and people are worried about the wrong problems.

The core thing I care about in 2024 is fighting for democracy itself. That's why so much of my frustration lately has been aimed at the fringe left, who increasingly want to set our democracy on fire.

The stakes are high. If we don't get serious, the future of America is one where a hostile trade bloc holds control of key resources, bleeds us dry - and the West slides into authoritarianism as we blame each other.

[theo @file_theodore]

@Brad_Setser I have heard @anasalhajji talk about how their overall breakeven price may be in the $75-$80 dollar range but their operating breakeven (aka existing facilities) is likely in the $30/b range.

Could that postpone how soon SA moves into current account deficit?

[The All-In Podcast @theallinpod]

2,851 Miles by @bgurley from the @allinsummit

now available in full on @x

(0:00) 2,851 Miles
(24:44) In conversation with @bgurley

[theo @file_theodore]

@MichaelNaussCMT Hi Michael, what indicator do you use in the top panel in TradingView?

[Sahil Bloom @SahilBloom]

In 2009, Stanford business professor Tina Seelig split her class into groups and issued a challenge:

Each group had $5 and 2 hours to make the highest return on the initial money.

At the end, they'd give a short presentation on their strategy.

The results were fascinating...

Most of the groups followed a basic approach:

• Use the $5 to buy a few items.
• Barter or resell those items.
• Repeat
• Sell final items for (hopefully) more than $5.

These groups made a modest return on their initial $5.

A few groups ignored the $5.

They thought up ways to make the most money in the 2 hours of allotted time:

• Made and sold reservations at hot restaurants.
• Refilled bike tires on campus for $1 each.

These groups made a better return on their initial $5.

The winning group took an entirely different approach.

They had three core realizations:

1. The $5 was nothing more than a distraction.

2. The 2 hours of time was not enough to make an attractive, outsized return with a mini-business (like selling restaurant reservations or filling bike tires).

3. The most valuable "asset" was actually the presentation time in front of a class of Stanford students.

Realizing the value of this hidden asset, they offered the presentation time to companies looking to recruit Stanford students.

They struck a deal to sell the time slot for $650, netting a monstrous return on the $5 of initial capital.

The losing groups thought in linear, logical terms and achieved a linear, logical outcome.

The winning group thought differently.

So, what can we learn from this story?

There are two types of problems:

1. Low-Stakes: Lower potential, linear rewards. Decisions are easily reversible.

2. High-Stakes: Higher potential, asymmetric rewards. Decisions are not easily reversible.

With low-stakes problems, given the reward potential is low and the decisions are easily reversible, we can use shortcuts and heuristics to choose our path. We can take a logical, linear approach.

With high-stakes problems, the high, asymmetric reward potential means we need to think differently. We want to take a creative, non-linear approach.

Three steps to start thinking differently:

Step 1: Avoid the Distraction

There will always be an "obvious" solution that is simple, clear, and entirely wrong.

In the challenge, the $5 was nothing more than a distraction. It was a trap.

To find the best path, you have to avoid the distraction.

Step 2: Ask Foundational Questions

Ask and answer questions that expose and vet underlying assumptions and logic.

• What's the real problem you are trying to solve?
• What's your hypothesis? Why?
• What are your core assumptions? Why?
• What evidence do you have?
• What are your core options?
• What alternatives exist?

This takes time, but it's an essential exercise when facing a problem with the potential for non-linear rewards.

Step 3: Select the High Leverage Approach

Slow down and evaluate the options on the table.

Select the path most likely to generate the asymmetric, attractive risk-adjusted returns.

If the story teaches us one thing, it's this:

Creative, non-linear, asymmetric thinking generates creative, non-linear, asymmetric outcomes.

If you enjoyed this or learned something, follow me @SahilBloom for more in future.

[Josh Wolfe @wolfejosh]

The kids are alright! LOVE THIS

[theo @file_theodore]

@hasantoxr For everyone… with alpha

[Scott Lincicome @scottlincicome]

YEP: "The far more likely explanation is that voters, by the tens of millions, will simply alter their positions on issues to fit whatever the partisan politics of the moment dictates."
https://t.co/6UIItB3qQB

[한국항공우주연구원 @kari2030]

다누리, 달에서 임무 수행 이상 無!

📷사진 설명
상단 왼쪽부터 시계방향으로
1. 고해상도카메라로 촬영한 치올콥스키 크레이터 영상
2.고해상도카메라로 촬영한 슈뢰딩거 계곡 영상
3. 편광카메라로 촬영한 비흐만 크레이터 편광 영상
4.고해상도카메라로 촬영한 실라르드 엠 크레이터 영상

[theo @file_theodore]

@jelleprins @Jason @theallinpod - would love to hear this covered on the pod with @friedberg

[Diego Saez Gil @dsaezgil]

In a way the Earth already is a super-computer.

Map of submarine internet cables: https://t.co/gWoRytldwj

[Marc Andreessen 🇺🇸 @pmarca]

Why AI Won't Cause Unemployment

"In retrospect, I wish I had known more about the hazards and difficulties of [running] a business." -- George McGovern

Fears about new technology replacing human labor and causing overall unemployment have raged across industrialized societies for hundreds of years, despite a nearly continual rise in both jobs and wages in capitalist economies. The job apocalypse is always right around the corner; just ask the Luddites.

We had two such anti-technology jobs moral panics in the last 20 years — “outsourcing” enabled by the Internet in the 2000’s, and “robots” in the 2010’s. The result was the best national and global economy in human history in pre-COVID 2019, with the most jobs at the highest wages ever.

Now we’re heading into the third such panic of the new century with AI, coupled with a continuous drumbeat of demand for Communist-inspired Universal Basic Income. “This time is different; AI is different,” they say, but is it?

Normally I would make the standard arguments against technologically-driven unemployment. And I will come back and make those arguments soon. But I don’t even think the standand arguments are needed, since another problem will block the progress of AI across most of the economy first.

Which is: AI is already illegal for most of the economy, and will be for virtually all of the economy.

How do I know that? Because technology is already illegal in most of the economy, and that is becoming steadily more true over time.

How do I know that? Because, see the chart.

This chart shows price changes, adjusted for inflation, across a dozen major sectors of the economy.

As you can see, we actually live in two different economies.

The lines in blue are the sectors where technological innovation is allowed to push down prices while increasing quality. The lines in red are the sectors where technological innovation is not permitted to push down prices; in fact, the prices of education, health care, and housing as well as anything provided or controlled by the government are going to the moon, even as those sectors are technologically stagnant.

We are heading into a world where a flat screen TV that covers your entire wall costs $100, and a four year college degree costs $1 million, and nobody has anything even resembling a proposal on how to fix this.

Why? The sectors in red are heavily regulated and controlled and bottlenecked by the government and by those industries themselves. Those industries are monopolies, oligopolies, and cartels, with extensive formal government regulation as well as regulatory capture, price fixing, Soviet style price setting, occupational licensing, and every other barrier to improvement and change you can possibly imagine. Technological innovation in those sectors is virtually forbidden now.

Whereas the sectors in blue are less regulated, technology whips through them, pushing down prices and raising quality every year.

Note the emotional loading of the interplay of production and consumption here. What do we get mad about? With our consumer hat on, we get mad about price increases — the red sectors. With our producer hat on, we get mad about technological disruption — the blue sectors. Well, pick one; as this chart shows, you can’t have your cake and eat it too.

Now think about what happens over time. The prices of regulated, non-technological products rise; the prices of less regulated, technologically-powered products fall. Which eats the economy? The regulated sectors continuously grow as a percentage of GDP; the less regulated sectors shrink. At the limit, 99% of the economy will be the regulated, non-technological sectors, which is precisely where we are headed.

Therefore AI cannot cause overall unemployment to rise, even if the Luddite arguments are right this time. AI is simply already illegal across most of the economy, soon to be virtually all of the economy.