This is my digital garden for "big important ideas" that I think about often.
"Take a simple idea and take it seriously.” (Charlie Munger)
The art of investing is taking finite resources (time, energy, money, attention) and employing them to optimize an outcome. I’m fascinated by the first principles of what it means to simultaneously learn to become a great investor while reinventing the art form.
“When you find a writer whose words enter your mind with deep impact and influence, pay attention. Diversify your library, of course. But when you find someone whose words inspire you, drink deeply from the well they have dug.” I constantly look to collect ideas from the peoplle who most effectively inspire me.
Ever since I came across the Institute For The Future, I’ve been fascinated with the idea of how people predict the future and understanding how we can look at previous predictions to understand the future. What if you could look at how people in the 1900s thought about the 2000s? What did they get right? What did they get wrong? And why?
I’m obsessed with Roam Research. I love Wikipedia. I’m fascinated by the interconnectivity of all the thoughts and ideas that make the world go round. More people should treat their ideas like software that is open source, and in active development. Instead, people treat their ideas like a bridge; stable, but slowly decaying.
I spent a lot of summers with my family in Luna, New Mexico. We would drive through small towns and my Dad and I would talk about “what makes a city.” Cities get built up around natural resources, large companies, universities. What will the cities of the future look like?
As an investor I see too many people think about climate change as a vertical to be weighed and measured alongside construction tech, SaaS, and neobanks. Climate change is not just a threat it is the threat. But it is also a fundamental opportunity. Climate adjustments will represent the greatest global adjustment in the last hundreds of years.
Historically institutions acted as gatekeepers to knowledge. Over time smart people thinking about hard problems started writing letters that transformed a generation of thinking. Mlle de Lespinasse, Benjamin Franklin, Giustina Renier Michiel, John Evelyn, and countless others made up the Republic of Letters. The internet has unleashed a similar dynamic among democratized thinkers and creators.
There are few places I love more than a good bookstore. Two of my very favorites are Green Apple Books in San Francisco, The Elliott Bay Book Company in Seattle, and Powell’s in downtown Portland. While I studied accounting in undergrad I never pursued it professionally. In another life I would love the chance to spend my time thinking through the books for bookstores and how they economically make their business model work most effectively.
On the one hand, people will act in their own self-interest and should be left free to do what they want, giving unfettered power to the people. On the other hand, people are riddled with inadequacies and easily swayed by misaligned incentive. They need guard rails, guidance, and systems to ensure people are protected from each other and themselves.