Insights

A detailed analysis with lots of background infos. On May 18th, 2020, SoftBank announced that it recorded losses of more than $17 Bn in the Vision Fund for the fiscal year that ended on March 31st, representing one of the largest write-downs in private equity fund history. An incredible 47 investments, representing 64% of the…
Read more

We’re constantly encouraged to become extraordinary. It’s all over the internet. It’s what makes up today’s pop culture. And it’s the bane of the self help industry. Over and over we’re sold this ridiculous idea that we’re all somehow destined to do our own big great thing. We’re all made of something special and all…
Read more

“It’s long been understood that an industrial food system built upon a foundation of commodity crops like corn and soybeans leads to a diet dominated by meat and highly processed food. Most of what we grow in this country is not food exactly, but rather feed for animals and the building blocks from which fast…
Read more

Loneliness has more to do with our perceptions than how much company we have. It’s just as possible to be painfully lonely surrounded by people as it is to be content with little social contact. Some people need extended periods of time alone to recharge, others would rather give themselves electric shocks than spend a…
Read more

Maria Konnikova, who gave a pop-up lecture on poker, has a new book coming out next called The Biggest Bluff. I had an advance copy and wanted to share a passage on learning. “Most real-world environments are … “wicked”: there’s a mismatch between action and feedback because of external noise. Activities with elements of surprise, uncertainty, the…
Read more

Michael Gibson still remembers his first day working for Peter Thiel. Like many of Thiel’s hires, he’d met the contrarian investor through several of the PayPal founder’s variously eccentric political ventures. A onetime self-described “unemployed writer in L.A.,” who’d left a doctoral program in philosophy at Oxford, Gibson had met Thiel through his work at…
Read more

Given that some 4,600 years have elapsed since the completion of the Great Pyramid of Giza, the structure stands remarkably intact. It is a polyhedron with a regular polygon base, its volume is about 2.6 million cubic meters, and its original height was 146.6 meters, including the lost pyramidion, or capstone. We may never know exactly…
Read more

“Not-to-do” lists are often more effective than to-do lists for upgrading performance. The reason is simple: what you don’t do determines what you can do. Here are nine stressful and common habits that entrepreneurs and office workers should strive to eliminate. The bullets are followed by more detailed descriptions. Focus on one or two at…
Read more

It’s fun to think about getting an MBA. They’re attractive for many reasons: developing new business skills, developing a better business network, or — most often — taking what is effectively a two-year vacation that looks good on a resume. In 2001, and again in 2004, I wanted to do all three things. This post…
Read more

How can we stop wasting time on unimportant details? From meetings at work that drag on forever without achieving anything to weeks-long email chains that don’t solve the problem at hand, we seem to spend an inordinate amount of time on the inconsequential. Then, when an important decision needs to be made, we hardly have…
Read more