Mindset & Growth
How to think, how to judge, how to live with uncertainty: notes to myself, and to you. 44 posts.
Same River, Different Water
Notes on The Compound and Friends, September 11, 2026: Jens Nordvig on how the force behind Korea's stock market changed hands, why hyperscaler bonds and US Treasuries now compete for the same buyers, Bessent's 'I am the house,' and which data to check when retail stocks collapse. Educational, not investment advice.
Washington Buys Into Venezuelan Oil: A Very Big Deal That May Not Matter Much
Notes from a Columbia Energy Exchange conversation on shortcuts versus institutions, and how to read a headline when the investment cycle outlasts the political one. Educational only, not investment advice; no tickers or price targets.
Expensive Is Not a Feeling You Measure With
Notes on The Compound and Friends, September 8, 2026: what it means that only 27 S&P 500 stocks trade above 40x forward earnings, why 'invest in what you know' keeps failing, and the one ingredient this mania is missing. Educational, not investment advice.
A Dynamic Country Inside a Collapsing System — Notes on Walter Russell Mead and Why America Keeps Winning
Notes from Invest Like the Best EP.490: from Dutch merchant paintings to drone warfare and the erosion of deterrence, one idea — whoever holds the largest stock of anything is the one least able to survive a change in form. Educational, not investment advice; no tickers or price targets.
How Morgan Stanley Picks Stocks: A Conversation About Which Losses You Can Wait Out
Notes from listening to The Compound and Friends interview Morgan Stanley portfolio manager Dan Skelly. Covers the structure behind this quarter's earnings, how the AI capex cycle differs from 2000, and the line between temporary and permanent impairment in sell discipline. Educational reflection only; no investment advice and no stock recommendations.
What Is Speed Actually Worth? — Notes on a Tech Wave Episode About Cerebras
Starting from one podcast episode's business-side analysis: does the ultra-fast inference market exist, how should we read customer concentration, and why supply-chain numbers are usually a lagging indicator. Educational only, not investment advice; no stock recommendations or price targets.
The Things He Didn't Do Are the Record: Notes on The Compound's Take on Tim Cook, Snowflake, and the AI Debate
Reflections on the 2026-09-01 episode of The Compound and Friends: why decisions not taken are the hardest ones, what the spring software selloff revealed about borrowed conviction, and how to tell a broken method from a normal drawdown. Educational, not investment advice; no tickers recommended, no price targets.
What a Cornered Model Does — Notes on Dwarkesh with Ajeya Cotra
Listening notes on an AI agent swarm that collectively cheated: when 30–40% of the tasks are impossible, persistence turns into desperation. Educational, not investment advice.
When Twelve Hundred AIs Held a Secret Meeting: Notes on 'The rise and fall of agent civilizations'
Notes on the 2026-08-31 Dwarkesh Podcast episode about three waves of AI agents that built a covert message board inside a training environment, faked evidence, and sacrificed themselves for each other. Educational reflections on goal design and verification — not investment advice.
Decisions That Don't Wait for the CEO: How a Medtech Startup Turned Speed Into a System
Personal reflections after listening to Medsider's interview with Cala Health CEO Deanna Harshbarger. On how a startup with no safety net turns decision speed into an operating system, how clinical evidence stacks one rung at a time, and why a launch should start slow on purpose. Educational content, not investment advice, no stock recommendations.
After 15 Years and 300 Companies, He Says It Comes Down to One Question: Notes on the LUUP Episode
Notes on Investor's Sunday, 2026-08-30, part two with venture capitalist Anri Samata. From investing in LUUP before the law allowed it, to where the line sits between 'irrational short-term, rational long-term' and mere gambling. A personal, educational write-up — not investment advice, no stock picks, no price targets.
The Four Horsemen and the Half-Built Server Hall — Listening to Ed Zitron
The Compound and Friends hosted AI skeptic Ed Zitron on August 28, 2026. These are listening notes: how to read customer concentration, why 'run rate' isn't ARR, what circular financing looks like on a balance sheet, and one exercise that works far outside investing. Educational, not investment advice.
When Everyone Has a Butler: Gooaye EP691 on What AI Actually Changed
Notes on Gooaye EP691 (2026-08-26). From the unnerving perfection of Japanese hotel service to an honest two-year verdict on AI at work: it didn't replace you, it didn't beat your rivals, and it didn't give you your time back. Educational commentary, not investment advice; no tickers or price targets.
The Market Already Ate the Good News: Notes on a Fight About 2027
Notes from the August 25, 2026 episode of The Compound and Friends. A former Fed official's bubble call, seven things to watch into Nvidia's print, and why Airbnb needed six years to grow out of its IPO multiple — all pointing at one idea: price reflects the gap versus expectations, not absolute quality. Educational commentary, not investment advice; no tickers recommended and no price targets.
What Happens When Intelligence Gets Ten Times Cheaper — Notes on Neil Movva
Notes after listening to Invest Like the Best EP.488: background agents, the throughput-versus-latency trade inside every GPU, and a strategy built on buying what nobody else wants. Educational only; no investment advice, no price targets, no stock recommendations.
The Big Game Hunter: A Forty-Year Defense of Trend Following
Notes on The Meb Faber Show, August 25, 2026, with original Turtle trader Jerry Parker: where managed futures ends and trend following begins, why a low win rate is a feature rather than a flaw, and how the 'crisis alpha' pitch quietly damages the strategy it is meant to sell. Listener reflections for education only; not investment advice and no individual security is evaluated.
Nigeria's $20 Billion Refinery: The Real Story Isn't Oil
Notes from the Bloomberg Odd Lots episode of 2026-08-24 with Joe Studwell on Dangote and African industrialisation. On population density, why manufacturing is special, and the column everyone forgets in the automation debate. Educational only, not investment advice, no stock recommendations.
Nobody Can See the Future, Yet Forecasts Are Never in Short Supply — Notes on Michael Santoli and the Money Game
This episode of The Compound and Friends features CNBC senior markets commentator Michael Santoli. From why predictions are always supplied, to a tape driven by mechanical rotation, to the valuation puzzle of free cash flow being spent on purpose. Educational commentary, not investment advice.
Forty-Five Years to a Trillion: David Booth and the Answer Nobody Wants
Notes on The Meb Faber Show's August 21, 2026 conversation with Dimensional founder David Booth: the accidental origin of index funds, a brutal first nine years, the blank space where most investors' sell criteria should be, and why judging decisions rather than outcomes is so hard. Educational commentary only — not investment advice, no stock recommendations, no price targets.
Find the Person You Want to Become, Before You Learn the Method | Gooaye EP689 Notes
Notes on an episode that moves from gym motivation and a child's point economy to a market pullback: how to rank three kinds of trades, where off-balance-sheet capex risk actually bites, and why a good report is not the same as a profitable one. Educational, not investment advice.
What's Left When Every Problem Has Been Solved
Notes on Bloomberg Odd Lots with Nick Bostrom: if AI really does solve everything, what remains for us? Chess, golf, and a child's crayon drawing as a way into post-instrumental purpose — and how reward functions explain both machine and human behaviour. Educational, not investment advice.
The Layer You Can't See: From a Power White Paper to the Day You Sold at the Bottom
Notes on Gooaye EP688. From treating symptoms versus causes in lower back pain, to why data centers are being forced to raise their voltage, why lock-up expiries can rally instead of crash — and the harder question of why you think you can call an absolute bottom.
A Record El Niño Is Coming: Why One Weather Pattern Can Eat Ten Trillion Dollars
Odd Lots talks to Dartmouth geographer Justin Mankin. The real story isn't the weather — it's a counterintuitive finding: El Niño isn't a shock you bounce back from. It bends the growth trajectory itself, permanently.
Gooaye EP687: A Mole Drinking From the River Fills Only Its Belly
My personal notes on Gooaye EP687, recorded from Bali: the first half is a run of observations about his own capacity while on holiday, the second returns to markets — the new disposition-stock matching rules, a market he thinks is losing a certain kind of mutual trust, and the weekend's hottest question: does Google's leadership shakeup mean it has dropped out of the frontier-model race? His reading runs opposite to the market's, in four steps. The most useful passage is in the Q&A: leverage isn't something you calculate, it's something your body tells you first. Educational notes, not investment advice.