Hello friends.
This is the second round of my newsletter. My goal is to write one of these per week. Sometimes I’ll write more, sometimes less. To start, I’ll be sharing key ideas (and occasional commentary) on things I come across. For articles, I’ll share a link to the article and, if I found it through another newsletter, share which one. Let’s get started.
Why I Started This
For a good place to start with Idea Gallery, check out Idea Gallery #1.
Practice
Tyler Cowen is an economics professor at George Mason University, and is one of the leading thinkers in neoclassical economics. He also keeps a blog, a podcast, and an online university focused on economics. On his blog, he wrote about how he “practices” being a thought-leading economist, podcaster and writer. For some people, it is obvious how they can practice their craft. For others, specifically knowledge workers, it’s hard. Outside of “just getting reps” in your profession, how do you know what to practice? How do you know you’re improving? He ends the article with a penetrating question:
Recently, one of my favorite questions to bug people with has been “What is it you do to train that is comparable to a pianist practicing scales?”
I think it begins with defining one’s domain and expertise. For me, my domain is being a professional investor. I make decisions about where to bet time and capital - essentially, I make judgments for a living. My expertise is in consumer products, particularly food & beverage. I use my expertise to enhance my domain, and after I’ve made an investment, I’m often using my domain to enhance my expertise. This applies to most executives and business owners as well, but generally anyone who is applying knowledge to build value.
To exercise good judgment, you have to understand things about the reality and then apply these understandings to specific problems. You have to understand how the world works. Many learn things in school and then forget them later in vocational life, but I derive insight and perspective for life from studying culture (anthropology & sociology), people (psychology & religion), and systems (economics, physics, biology, computer science). I am a big fan of this Charlie Munger saying:
Well, the first rule is that you can’t really know anything if you just remember isolated facts and try to bang ‘em back. If the facts don’t hang together on a latticework of theory, you don’t have them in a usable form.
Therefore, for me, my practice is two-fold: (1) it is in building a latticework of theory. Shane Parrish from Farnam Street collects and documents these isolated facts in the form of what he calls “Mental Models.” I am not that deliberate, but I do appreciate what Shane is doing. I make a practice of studying one highly technical, hard subject at a time (it’s Physics for me in second half 2019), and writing notes to myself after I learn hard materials, essentially demonstrating to myself I can teach it. By self-teaching and constantly increasing the difficulty of material, I know I am building a better “Judgment Engine,” something I’ll write about more in the future. (2) I believe one’s specific expertise requires practice as well. Some of our portfolio company managers or former clients are reading this, and I’d love your feedback on areas I should grow in. For the most part, I often hear: (a) “help us get better at selling products to retailers,” and (b) “help us grow and our manufacturing operations more efficient.” These are the two areas I am spending most of my time learning and meeting new people.
Internet Trends
Mary Meeker’s iconic Internet Trends Report started as one of the best research reports on information technology in 1995. In 2019, the state of technology has become the state of the culture. As you’ll see, the idea that technology is pervasive is a drastic understatement. Over the next few newsletters, I’ll share some of the most interesting tidbits from this 300+ page presentation. Here are my top 16 learnings from the first 150 or so pages. Topics include smartphone trends, online gaming, online advertising, the business models that are driving the apps you use, and language.
The Emperor’s New iPhone
Whatever optimism Meeker’s Internet Trends might spark, Peter Thiel puts a damp towel on. Peter Thiel was the founder of PayPal and Palantir (a big data company that specializes in analytics). He was also an early investor in Facebook, Tesla, and SpaceX. If nothing else, Peter Thiel is a singular personage. For starters, he has been deeply involved in several of the major cultural developments of the last 20 years. Second, is a conservative in Silicon Valley, where you are about as likely to find an albino gorilla walking around Menlo Park. But beyond that, he has some unique views on the current trajectory of Western Civilization.
He argues in his semi-autobiographical, semi-manifesto Zero to One that most, if not all, of the innovation in the developed world since 1970 has been in technology, specifically software, but that the material world has not seen much new invention. He argues on Eric Weinstein’s new podcast, the Portal, that the world of “bits” has seen much innovation, but the world of “atoms” is simply masquerading as having developed and in fact is stagnating. He believes this has produced a culture of political and individual cabals formed to protect individual or closely held interests, not through genuine innovation or competitive improvement, but through politics and spin. In his view, we talk about and celebrate progress, but it’s a mirage. If you’re interested, his fascinating commentary on the subject starts here:
Tilde Cows Come Home
I just learned that if you type Alt+164 on your keyboard, you can put a tilde on an N. Try it out, Señor!
Article Link: How to Put a ~ on an N
Physics
Did you spend too much time flirting with your future wife in Physics junior year? If not, have you forgotten everything you did learn? I’m about 1/3 of the way through Thinking Physics, by Lewis Carroll Epstein. It’s beautifully structured for learning. You may laugh, but I like reading children’s books on technical subjects outside my domain. I often find the material challenging and engaging, and when I put my ego aside, it is a great starting point for compounding knowledge.
Every subject in the book is introduced in the form of a problem that you have to try and solve before he provides text on the subject matter. In David Epstein's (no relation) Range: Why Generalists Triumph in a Specialized World, he talks about the most effective way to learn being to start with a test, obtain feedback, then consume content to help bridge the gap between test and feedback. I can attest to this method working well for me. I’ll share more of what I am learning in future newsletters.
Books
In future newsletters, I’ll also be sharing excerpts, insights and truths from great books I am currently reading. I read widely when I can and simply focus on conversing with the author and taking in his or her thoughts. I have two rules: (1) Never read a book so you can sound smart at a cocktail party. You’ll be as bad as the guy who breaks out the guitar. Be more like the guy who brings the wine. (2) You have to read at least 50 pages before quitting if you don’t like it (also stole from Farnam Street), but after that, if it doesn’t float your boat, put it down and pick up something else immediately. Just keep reading.
Current docket:
In the First Circle by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
Isaiah: God Saves Sinners by Ray Ortlund
Ficciones by Jorge Luis Borges
Zero to One by Peter Thiel
Saving Life of Christ by Major Ian Thomas
Range: Why Generalists Triumph in a Specialized World by David Epstein
Thinking Physics: Understandable Practical Reality by Lewis Carroll Epstein
Successful Founders and Good CEOs
What If?
Yikes
Criticism
Friends, please help me get better at this. Many of you come from different backgrounds (business owners, attorneys, wealth managers, pastors, construction workers, private equity professionals, start up founders, etc.), and I’d love to find the best way to share all this with you. If you have feedback, or this sucked, please tell me.
Finally, to borrow from my one of my favorite newsletter writers, Anand Sandwal at CB Insights, “if you like this newsletter, send it to a friend. If you don’t, send it to an enemy.”
Cheers.