New Updates From S. Smalla

1. Something of Value https://www.oaktreecapital.com/docs/default-source/memos/something-of-value.pdf. Howard Marks with the wisdom and clear thought process to dissect value investing and growth investing, and showing why with Technology markets and stocks, this dichotomy might be false. Very fundamental, very good read.
   
2. Balaji Srinivasan on The Future of Bitcoin and Ethereum, How to Become Noncancelable, the Path to Personal Freedom and Wealth in a New World, the Changing Landscape of Warfare, and More https://open.spotify.com/episode/68P6xKEafwR00xOF11CUif?si=zPqtVbl-TTGg2CKmrSbVRA&nd=1. Astounding, fascinating 4-hour podcast by the single most original thinker I follow. Balaji was the one I learned from the most on Covid in February last year (his famous prediction tweet from Jan 31 2020 on Covid still mindblowingly correct: https://twitter.com/balajis/status/1222921758375927808). This podcast is such a delight of things I mostly cannot even disagree with because I don’t understand them.
   
3. Beautiful Google ad https://twitter.com/andrewrsorkin/status/1378715874631241734. Also, how much the Zeitgeist in the US is now differing from Europe.
   
4. You Don’t Know What’s Going On With People https://dailystoic.com/you-dont-know-whats-going-on-with-people/. A good reminder of trying to be non-judgmental and tolerant, always.
   
5. “An obvious point that took me way too long to appreciate: in software engineering, you should probably optimize for speed even when you don’t have to, because it’s one of the easiest/best ways to prioritize subtraction and parsimony in the solution space.” https://twitter.com/patrickc/status/1380556517208825856. Patrick Collison (Founder of Stripe) with the truth.
   
6. Return/Hybrid/Remote https://avc.com/2021/03/return-hybrid-remote/. Interesting thoughts in there and linking to some further interesting articles.
   
7. Paypal culture http://paulgraham.com/paypal.html and https://twitter.com/kgao1412/status/1381729135781949440. Extreme. And extremely interesting.
   
8. Playing Different Games: Or why Tiger is eating your lunch (& your deals) https://randle.substack.com/p/playing-different-games. Tiger Global is disrupting technology investing with a novel approach based on high velocity investing and for founders better/faster/cheaper capital.
   
9. Pinduoduo story in a tweet storm https://twitter.com/businessbarista/status/1378862597043261441. Incredible success and even more incredible speed.
   
10. People’s Expensive NFTs Keep Vanishing. This Is Why https://www.vice.com/en/article/pkdj79/peoples-expensive-nfts-keep-vanishing-this-is-why. Crypto and NFTs specifically is still such an early-stage technology. Fascinating, but so rough still.
    
11. Why Facts Don’t Change our Minds. https://jamesclear.com/why-facts-dont-change-minds. Brilliant! Social pressure and a (totally normal, even required) sense of belonging to a group determines much more than we often believe in. The punchline: “Facts Don’t Change Our Minds. Friendship Does.“
    
12. The short story of the American Investment Banker and the Mexican Fisherman. https://twitter.com/austin_rief/status/1383463889396912135

★ “Additive solutions have sort of a privileged status—they tend to come to mind quickly and easily. Subtractive solutions are not necessarily harder to consider, but they take more effort to find.” — Solving Problems (Complement with The Power of Avoiding Stupidity)