Mindset & Growth
How to think, how to judge, how to live with uncertainty: notes to myself, and to you. 61 posts.
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.
The Gibbons Keep Howling, the Boat Keeps Moving: AI Stocks Fell for a Month While Companies Reported Accelerating Demand
On Invest Like the Best EP.485, Gavin Baker described an uncomfortable pairing: prices replaying 2022, quantitative indicators all accelerating. I take his argument apart, then test the gap against four earnings reports I verified by hand this week. Educational content, not investment advice.
Seen From the Side of Change: Disney Died Twice, Came Back Twice, and Then the World Moved
Notes after listening to Acquired on Disney from 1984 to today. Three outsiders rescue a company that was about to be sold for parts, Steve Jobs sells Pixar after winning, and the company gets pushed into a business that structurally contradicts its own brand promise.
No Editor Should Ever Have to Ask 'Can We Afford This': The NYT CEO on Running a Media Business in the Age of AI
Odd Lots hosts New York Times CEO Meredith Kopit Levien. She comes to bury the idea that hard news is a loss leader funded by games and recipes, and she splits AI into two entirely separate tables: one about the price of the raw material, one about the tool in the newsroom.
Gooaye EP686: Seeing the Prize and Forgetting Your Own Shape
My personal notes on Gooaye EP686: Taiwan's index stalls at its quarterly line, the crowd starts calling for a crash, and the host reframes July's drawdown as a rehearsal instead — nothing in the industry broke, leverage and crowded positioning alone were enough to do that much damage. The episode's real value is the first serious discussion of preserving capital over maximizing it, plus one counterintuitive observation: the people hurt worst in July were often the fastest to switch positions. Educational notes, not investment advice.
Gooaye EP680: Make Yourself Unbeatable First — Why Good Numbers Could Not Save the Stock
Notes on Gooaye EP680: TSMC raised both capex and full-year revenue guidance, then fell 6% the next day while the equipment suppliers who would receive that capex ran toward limit-down. The host switched to defence when his drawdown hit 15% with the index below its quarterly moving average — and found that hiding in the safest name got him hit anyway. Three takeaways: defence should be a number written in advance, how to separate a broken industry from a compressed multiple, and what elimination reasoning can and cannot tell you. Educational notes, not investment advice.
Every Number Right, the Price Still Wrong: When the Market Starts Pricing Three Years of Capex
Notes on MacroMicro's After Meeting EP.207. Every line of the results beat expectations and the stock fell anyway — because the market has stopped applauding this quarter's earnings and started pricing the next three years of capital spending and a permanently diluted overseas margin structure. Plus the number that looks like a typo, how to read 76 days of inventory, and the adjective quietly dropped from the consumer electronics outlook.
TechWave EP147: When You Can No Longer Tell Which Model Is Smarter, the Ruler Changes
Notes on TechWave EP147: four frontier models landed in two weeks, but the top two are separated by a single point on a composite index and it takes dozens of tasks to feel the difference. Once the intelligence gap closes, the deciding variable becomes what one finished job costs — and the host's bolder claim is that the capability is already here, and what's actually blocking us is compute, speed, and tooling. Educational notes, not investment advice.