Category Archives: Uncategorized

Food, Taxes, Uncategorized

[VIC – 151] F*** the golden rule!

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Business & Money

I love the following parable that Howard Marks included at the end of his latest memo.

Suppose that every day, ten men go out for beer, and the bill for all ten comes to $100. If they paid their bill the way we pay our taxes (by taxpayer decile), it would go something like this:

The first four men (the poorest) would pay nothing.
The fifth would pay $1.
The sixth would pay $3.
The seventh would pay $7.
The eighth would pay $12.
The ninth would pay $18.
The tenth man (the richest) would pay $59.

So, that’s what they decided to do.

The ten men drank in the bar every day and seemed quite happy with the arrangement, until one day, the owner threw them a curve ball. “Since you’re all such good customers,” he said, “I’m going to reduce the cost of your daily beer by $20.” Drinks for the ten men would now cost just $80.

The group still wanted to pay their bill the way we pay our taxes. So the first four men were unaffected. They would still drink for free. But what about the other six? How could they divide up the $20 windfall so that everyone would get his fair share?

The bar owner suggested that it would be fair to reduce each man’s bill by a higher percentage the poorer he was, to follow the principle of the tax system they had been using, and he proceeded to suggest the new lower amounts each should now pay.

And so the fifth man, like the first four, now paid nothing (a 100% saving).
The sixth now paid $2 instead of $3 (a 33% saving).
The seventh now paid $5 instead of $7 (a 29% saving).
The eighth now paid $9 instead of $12 (a 25% saving).
The ninth now paid $14 instead of $18 (a 22% saving).
The tenth now paid $50 instead of $59 (a 15% saving).
The first four continued to drink for free, and the latter six were all better off than before. But, once outside the bar, the men began to compare their savings.

“I only got a dollar out of the $20 saving,” declared the fifth man. He pointed to the tenth man, “But he got $9!”

“Yeah, that’s right,” exclaimed the sixth man. “I only saved a dollar, too. It’s unfair that he saved nine times more than me!”

“That’s true!” shouted the seventh man. “Why should he get $9 back, when I got only $2? The wealthy get all the breaks!”

“Wait a minute,” yelled the first four men in unison, “we didn’t get anything at all. This new tax system exploits the poor!”

The nine men surrounded the tenth and beat him up.
The next day, the tenth man didn’t show up, so the other nine sat down and had their beers without him. But when it came time to pay the bill, they discovered something important: They didn’t have enough money between all of them for even half of the bill!

And that’s how taxes work. Tax breaks, quite naturally, flow to those that already pay the highest taxes. Raise rates too much, they get more creative (find loopholes) and take their money elsewhere.

Human Progress

In many (perhaps most) fields, veterans have stark advantages over rookies.

Sometimes the difference is structural. If you want to be an elite lawyer, doctor, or politician (is elite politician an oxymoron?), you simply have to put in your time and pay your dues.

Sometimes it has more to do with experience. Years in the trenches help you more readily recognize patterns and make better decisions.

But I love technology because it does not follow this model. If you come up with a novel new technology or business model, and you are adding real value for your customers, you can do well with almost no experience. It’s pretty 🍌🍌🍌!

Think about when Netscape first rolled out the web browser. At the moment, rookies and veterans were indecipherable because the web browser was brand new for everyone.

The same thing is happening in crypto right now. There are high school seniors that are more adept at building decentralized applications on the blockchain then software engineers that have been working in their field for decades.

In technology, it almost pays to be a rookie, at least in the earliest stages of building something new. It’s the only way to truly think from first principles.

(of course, adult supervision can be a great thing when it’s time to scale)

Philosophy

You’ve likely heard of the “golden rule.”

Treat others how you want to be treated.

To me, it made a ton of sense for a long time. Why would you do something to someone else if you wouldn’t like it done to you? Pretty straight forward.

But when you think about it more closely, the golden rule is ridiculous. In fact, I’d venture to say it encapsulates much of what is wrong with humanity. At the core, people are selfish individuals that can’t help but see the world from a first-person perspective. “Why wouldn’t everyone want to be treated like I want to be treated? After all, my views are right and true and pure.” 🤣

The reality is that people are different and have very different views about how they’d like to be treated. When I get frustrated, I like to be left alone. Quiet time and isolation are my preferred methods for reflection and introspection. Other people want to be comforted and asked if everything is ok. So to treat that person like I want to be treated is to neglect their emotional and psychological needs.

Lucky for me, my coach recently made me aware of the “platinum rule.”

Treat other people the way they want to be treated.

Makes FAR more sense!

My Latest Discovery

If you haven’t been to Koi in Bryant Park, do yourself a favor and go check it out! It’s a tad pricey, but the food is on point. Especially the crispy rice with spicy tuna!

Uncategorized

[VIC – 150] What made you think you could get a Tiger??

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Business & Money

A couple weeks ago, the world lost John Bogle, the founder of Vanguard. For the unaware, Vanguard is the largest provider of mutual funds in the world and the second largest money manager when measured by assets under management.

But Bogle built Vanguard in an unusual way. To explain, let’s contemplate an unrelated industry for a moment.

In the energy industry, many investors focus their attention on the new shiny thing. They want to be involved in renewables, shale, battery technology and the like, all of which are exciting.

But from my perspective, the most exciting thing about the energy industry has been the massive efficiency gains. A 2019 Chevrolet Suburban has better fuel efficiency than a Ford Taurus from 1989. That’s an incredible leap in efficiency. If we get a similar gain in the next 30 years, and can keep fuel prices low, the transition to clean energy might be slower than anticipated.

Similarly, if you think about how to beat the market over the long term, you have 2 options:

You can outsmart other investors by timing the market and/or coming up with new and esoteric ideas.

Or you can aim for efficiency gains by spending less and saving more. (one of Bogle’s famous lines: “In investing, you get what you don’t pay for.”)

Bogle did the latter. He cut out brokers (and their massive fees) and sold funds directly to investors. And he sold these at cost so investors could keep more of their returns. And as a result of those lower fees, Vanguard funds outperformed the majority of asset managers.

And, of course, Bogle got extremely wealthy along the way, though not as wealthy as you might think. While the head of Fidelity is worth an estimated $7.4 billion, Bogle died with $80 million. And I think that’s because Bogle was more focused on his mission and less influenced by ego and greed.

Human Progress

I’ve written on this blog many times about the power of words and language. And I feel a need to return to the subject today. That’s because I keep reading about the concept of a “universal basic income”. I find both universal and basic to be troubling in this context.

I guess universal is being used here because, while the current welfare system is aimed at helping the very poor, the idea is that universal would mean that everyone would receive this benefit regardless of their financial position. But in reality, a word like national might be a better fit here given that any policy would be constrained by national borders.

More troubling for me is “basic”. This might be one of the most subjective words in the English language. Does basic mean access to a shelter, electricity, and running water? Does it also include access to healthcare? Does that healthcare just mean emergency healthcare, or does it extend to preventative care? What about access to contraceptives and reproductive health? And what about education? Would a basic income stop at elementary or high school? or perhaps it includes enough to cover a 4-year undergraduate degree?

These are big questions with big implications. And ones that are not served well by the use of ambiguous short-hand.

Philosophy

On Tuesday I was heading home from work while enjoying a podcast. While I was traversing the subway station toward the relevant platform, I began searching the Apple podcast app for the next episode that I would enjoy after the current one. I guess I was a bit nervous knowing that I would lose service in the next couple of minutes.

But the funny thing was that I was only 20 minutes into an hour-long episode. And a very good hour-long episode at that. And the ride home from the Bryant Park station is perhaps 6 minutes at most. There was virtually no chance of cell service becoming an issue during that brief window.

So I rewinded the current episode about 60 seconds to before I became distracted, locked my phone, put in my pocket, and continued peacefully on my way.

It’s so easy to become fixated with the next thing when the current thing hasn’t even run its course. It’s just like that old saying of thinking about those proverbial birds in the bush while ignoring the one you’re already holding.

My Latest Discovery

If you’re in need of some entertainment this week, check out this Mike Tyson interview by Joe Rogan a couple weeks ago. And if you’re strapped for time and only want to watch 2 minutes, I’d recommend starting around 11 minutes and 45 seconds when Mike answers the question, “What made you think you could get a tiger?”

Uncategorized

[VIC – 146] Adding and removing circles

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Business & Money

Negotiation is an important component of doing business. And there are many different ways to go about it.

At times, you might make an extremely aggressive offer right off the bat, which is to say that your offer is best and final. I think this can sometimes make sense, especially when you have a large stock of trust and rapport to stand on. This is sometimes the case when you are dealing with someone with whom you’ve worked with many times in the past.

But you have to be careful because there are tons of people that will say something like, “I have no interest in a drawn-out negotiation. So please just give me your best price.” I have found that people that say things like that often are the ones that enjoy negotiating more than most others.

On some occasions, it might be prudent to bake in considerable cushion expecting that there will be a lot of back and forth. From my experience, this is often the case when the relationship between price and demand are inelastic (meaning that people are insensitive to price changes), or when pricing is opaque in a market.

Whatever the case may be, I find that it’s always helpful to walk into a negotiation being aware of your must-haves and non-negotiables. And I wouldn’t suggest revealing these at the start as it’s never a great idea to start with 0 leverage.

Human Progress

Another week, another congressional hearing that puts the incompetence of congressional leaders on full display. This time it was Google’s CEO Sundar Pichai taking the heat.

Congressman Smith: To my knowledge, you have never sanctioned any employee for any type of manipulating the search results whatsoever. Is that the case?

Pichai: It’s not possible for an individual employee to manipulate the search results. We have a robust framework including many steps in the process.

Congressman Smith: I disagree. I think they can manipulate the process.

Or how about this one.

Congressman King: I have a seven-year-old granddaughter who picked up her phone during the election, and she’s playing a little game, the kind of game a kid would play. And up on there pops a picture of her grandfather. And I’m not going to say into the record what kind of language was used around that picture of her grandfather, but I’d ask you: how does that show up on a seven-year-old’s iPhone, who’s playing a kid’s game?”

Pichai: Congressman, the iPhone is made by a different company.

Don’t these elected officials have aids or staffers that are screening their questions and prepping them for these sessions? Perhaps not.

So I’m poking the bear a bit, but that’s not to say that this is not a serious topic. I’d say that the dominance of the big consumer technology companies is problematic in more ways than one.

First, it seems that government oversight and regulation is basically a non-issue for them. Our consumer welfare-centric antirust approach leaves them immune to any real antitrust action. You might even say that consumers benefit greatly by taking advantage of often free and incredibly useful products and services.

Second, innovation in consumer tech seems to be stagnating. Investors seem wary to invest in what has become known as “kill zones” (markets adjacent to those dominated by the big tech companies) and enterprise tech firms seem to dominate IPO headlines.

So it seems difficult to conceptualize what might unseat the tech giants and what might be the next big thing in consumer internet. But it was probably equally difficult to conceptualize what might unseat Microsoft and IBM in their heydays.

Philosophy

Human beings are inherently social creatures. We all yearn for cohesion with a group. And you might say that those groups radiate outward in a series of concentric circles. So first might be your nuclear family, then extended family, then your religion, your city or country, and so on and so forth.

Problems arise, though, when the circles for different people radiate out to different distances. For example, one person’s circles may stop at a national or racial border, while another person has a circle with a larger radius that includes all human beings.

The question is, how do we reconcile such differences? Or better yet, is such reconciliation even possible?

If you look to history for examples, it seems it is possible, but not without the drawing of new circles. Put differently, the creation of common enemy is a great uniting force. But this solution often leads to warfare, so it is perhaps less than ideal.

You might also look for the corollary of new circles, namely the erasing of circles. Take the founding of the United States. In one sense, you DO have the creation of a new circle, but you also have the erasure of existing circles. By that I mean that many Americans seem to put their US identity ahead of that of their preceeding heritage.

So I wonder if people are erasing enough circles as they go about adding new ones.

My Latest Discovery

I’ve written here before about using Robinhoob as one of my brokerage accounts. And it has been great and continues to be great for that. So I was excited and intrigued last week when they announced 3% checkings and savings accounts. But it turns out that when things sound too good to be true, they often are. It turns out that these are not traditional bank accounts at all, but instead money-market accounts with couple extra bells and whistles. That means that cash stored in those accounts are invested in US Treasury Bills (the closest thing to no-risk assets) and that it also is not subject to FDIC insurance like it would be if stored in a traditional checking or savings account.

I know I talked to a few of you about this, so I wanted to ensure that people are fully informed before making any changes to your money management strategy.

Blockchain, Cryptocurrency, Uncategorized

[VIC – 145] Start your engines! 🏁

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Business & Money

Many startups seem to spend a lot of time thinking about customer acquisition, which is surely a good thing to think about. But sometimes thinking about customer acquisition seems to trump thinking about customer success and/or customer satisfaction.

In other words, they are trying to acquire lots of new customers while existing customers are unhappy with the product or service.

I am clearly no expert on the subject, but in my mind, that seems backward, at least in the earliest days of starting a company.

So for the project I’m working on now (you can learn more about it here and here if you’re curious), we’re really trying to dive deep with the early adopters to ensure that we are solving a real problem and delivering an incredible experience. And we’re doing that before we give any thought to scaling customer acquisition, raising money, or anything of the sort.

Human Progress

Crypto prices are in the dumps. So many have lost interest. I am not one of those people. And Nick Grossman, an investor at Union Square Ventures, recently showed the following slide in a presentation that captures one reason why.

In the 50s and 60s, IBM was the 800-pound gorilla in computing due to their mainframe dominance.

But then when the open PC hardware standard came along, Microsoft built an operating systems that could run on any computer. So they replaced IBM in the number one spot and became the monopoly de jour.

But then along came the open web and an open-source operating system in Linux. So free distribution and internet protocols allowed companies like Google and Amazon to side-step the Microsoft monopoly and become dominant in their own rights.

So what now? What will unseat this new set of dominant players? The only answer in sight is decentralized technologies. At the center of FANG dominance is the idea of a centralized database of consumer data, on top of which, algorithmic learning can be optimized at scale to offer up the best content and product recommendations. That falls apart when networks and data are decentralized.

So I have no idea when the next wave becomes apparent, what company or companies will claim the crown, or how exactly the scales will tip, but I try to look to history to look for cues about where and how cracks might appear with regards to the dominant technology firms.

Philosophy

Most of you know that I listen to a wide array of podcasts. Well, “wide array” may be a misnomer since most of them center around entrepreneurship, technology, investing, and self-improvement. But you get the point.

One of the podcasts I follow pretty regularly is the Tim Ferris Show wherein Tim’s goal is to interview top performers across many disciplines in an effort to dissect the habits and routines that pave the way to their success.

So when, a couple weeks ago, I saw that Tim was interviewing Lebron James, I became flush with excitement. Lebron is an athletic specimen and seems to defy time and space. He’s in his 16th season in the NBA and seems to get stronger, faster, bigger, and more intelligent with each passing game while most players at the same point in their careers are simply doing their best to stave off decline.

Then the interview happened and I was blown away… Blown away by how utterly pedestrian it was [womp womp]. I’m not sure I can remember a time in recent memory where I felt the same level of under-whelm (perhaps when Anchor Man 2 came out, but I digress).

Lebron spends a ton of money and a ton of energy focusing on recovery. He puts a lot of emphasis on sleep. He tries to avoid processed foods and refined sugars. And everything else that you would expect from a man making hundreds of millions of dollars from a career as a professional athlete.

I took 2 simple yet profound things away from this interview.

First, there is no secret to success. Rest, hard work, discipline, and all of the other boring platitudes about success are all there is to it. The ideas are simple, but executing those ideas day in and day out proves beyond the reach of most people.

Second, we create these fantastical and sensationalized images in our minds of people like Lebron James. And in part that is justified. He will experience many things in his life that most can only dream about. However, he is merely a human being. So the anticipation we feel leading up to an interview and the dramatic imagery in our minds will always exceed the reality of the human being.

My Latest Discovery

RPM Raceway in Jersey City is a damn good time!

Uncategorized 4 Comments

[VIC – 144] Carnitas on fleek 😏

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Business & Money

In Howard Mark’s The Most Important Thing, he talks about how the market is constantly swinging back and forth between extremes of being overpriced and underpriced. Our current place in the cycle would lean toward overpriced.

And if that is the case, then the best investments would have to be contrarian. You have to buy when others are selling and vice versa. So a good place to look is among controversial and unpopular assets.

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again. Facebook is an unpopular asset. It’s down 35% from its high in July. And I continue to add to the position.

Don’t get me wrong there’s a ton that needs to be fixed. And regulation is probably coming, eventually.

But for me, a simple fact remains. The business is sound. The customers (the advertisers, not the users) have not flinched in the face of all the controversy. And that’s because the value that Facebook delivers to those customers is massive.

And to me, the stock is on sale. You’re not supposed to be able to buy a company like Facebook at P/E of 21. The historical PE is north of 50.

We may have further to go down, and perhaps we stay at these levels for a year or maybe even 2. But when I look 3 – 5 years out, this feels like a shot worth taking.

Human Progress

I saw this spray painted on the sidewalk while walking home the other day.

So it’s clear that everyone is not thrilled with the fact that Amazon will be coming to Long Island City with half of its second headquarters. And that makes sense. I’ve seen a ton of arguments for why this is bad for Queens and NYC.

We’ve had lackluster investment in transportation and infrastructure in NYC for years. The subway, regional rail systems, and airports are unimpressive to put it kindly. Our roads are falling apart. So it’s questionable if our current system will be able to support the massive influx of people.

The rent is “too damn high” as it is and this will only push it higher. That leads to gentrification and more income disparity.

But you can’t only look at the downside when there’s so much upside.

To start, Amazon will bring something like 20,000 jobs to NYC. That’s a lot of jobs.

Further, Amazon’s HQ2 will be a magnet for top tech talent. And that serves two benefits, given that people will relocate to the region to work at Amazon, and other companies can simultaneously recruit those workers from Amazon.

You also have to consider NYC’s high tax rates. That means Amazon will pay something like $13 billion in taxes to the city and another $14 billion to the state.

So, generally speaking, I have to say that I’m a fan of growing the regional economy and investing in NYC’s tech sector.

However, being a tech worker myself, I likely have blind spots and an underappreciation of all the issues on the other side of the aisle. So if you feel strongly in the other direction, or know someone that does, please give me the heads up so we can become pen pals. I big reason for this blog is continued hostility toward my own ignorance and naivete.

Philosophy

I was recently talking to someone about a trip they took to Vegas. They talked about how much they loved a particular pool party at one of the hotels. One thing that they remembered well was how the pool had underwater speakers. So the music never stopped, even when you went under water.

That’s pretty cool.

For one reason or another, that anecdote came to mind a few days after the fact while I was walking my dog. I was thinking about how to help friends during times of need when the thought of the underwater speakers came back to my mind.

Bear with me for a moment.

Things sound muffled underwater (though sound waves actually move faster and further distances in water). That’s because our ears have evolved to hear sounds in air.

So you might say that someone going through a difficult time is struggling underwater. They are yelling for our help, but we cannot hear them given that they are under the water. So telling your struggling friend, “you can call me at any time” probably won’t help them. Because you won’t be able to hear the calls.

You have to reach out to them, rather than waiting for them to call you. Or, to stick with the analogy, you have to reach into the water and pull them out.

My Latest Discovery

Hana absolutely crushed this carnitas recipe and I highly suggest that you guys check it out! And the leftovers were even better with 2 fried eggs on top for breakfast! #nomnom

Uncategorized

[VIC – 143] Not enough thank yous to give…

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When I pause today to reflect on the last year, and the last 30, there simply aren’t enough thank yous in the world. I have so much to be thankful for that it’s difficult to know where to start. But if there’s one person that takes the cake, it’s my grandmother. And rather than try to use my own words to explain just how wonderful she is, I’ll use hers. She surprised me last week with the below email out of nowhere…

On March 8, 1989 my life changed drastically. The next day I was scheduled to have a bunion removed from my right foot. About 11 pm I received a call that my daughter [my mom] had been involved in an a driver only accident and hit a telephone pole, went through her soft top convertible and landed 30 ft from the car. She was transferred to Abington Hospital in a life threatening coma. At the time this happened she was married with a 4 month old infant [me].

As a foreword, I was newly widowed in 1986. I had two daughters who had migrated to North Carolina for jobs and a son who remained in the area. My immediate family consisted of my mother, my sister and my four children. My husband had died of prostate cancer in 1986 and my mother and sister had been diagnosed with leukemia related cancers. My father passed away in 1972 from heart disease. My daughter who had the accident was married with a four month infant boy.

At the time I was employed at a major teaching hospital as a House Staff Coordinator.

It was touch and go for my daughter for about two weeks. She had sustained a severe brain injury. Finally, after she stabilized, but not awake, the neurologist attending her case, suggested I return to work because there was nothing I could do. I took his advice finally, but I was criticized by some family and friends. It proved to be good advice as I had a really paper intensive job and it took my mind off the immediate situation

She remained in a coma for about 2-1/2 months and was transferred to a rehab hospital in suburban Philadelphia where she finally woke up. She had to be retaught how to do most things. She could not walk and would not walk again on her own.

I was devastated and seriously did not know how I would handle all the issues that were before me. A sick mother and my only sister: both suffering from cancer. As my mother would say, I shouldered on (an African American saying that indicated you had a lot of problems and challenges). I would continue working and visiting my daughter at least 3 times a week after work; nearly an hour from work.

In August 1989 I traveled with my girlfriends to our annual trek to Virginia Beach for three days. While there I received a phone call that my son-in-law had died. [my mother’s husband, not my father]. He had been newly diagnosed with cancer within the last two weeks and just died. I said to myself can this be any worse and how can I possibly get through this. With this new crisis I became solely responsible for my grandson [me] and daughter [my mom]. Needless to say I was in a deep funk. Not only was I solely responsible, I was out of the child-rearing business with no relatives or friends to help me with any of this.

I finally sent Jeremy to live with paternal grandparents for 1-1/2 years knowing I would have to take him in the near future, which I eventually did. Well Jeremy thrived big-time and the little fellow walked and talked at 8 months and everyone was amazed. This was my first inclination he deserved something different from me as far as education was concerned.

After remaining in the rehab hospital for a year, my daughter was transferred to Beechwood Neurology Rehabilitation, a division of Woods School in Langhorne, PA where she currently resides. About 1-1/2 years later I brought Jeremy to live with me and I enrolled him in Abington Friends Preschool. Meanwhile my mother and sister where being treated for Leukemia; my mother at Temple Hospital where I was employed and my sister at Sloan Kettering in New York. My mother sustained her illness much better than my sister. My sister was hospitalized often and I would travel to New York City often as she was the only sibling I had. During this entire period I began to feel only the grace of God got me through this as well as friends I made at Abington Friends School. When it was time for me to enroll Jeremy in school I considered sending Jeremy to Hershey School. He was tested and accepted. Then my family had an uproar. They said I shouldn’t do this. We should handle it as a family. My oldest daughter said she would raise Jeremy. I really pondered what to do. I remembered before my interview at Hershey there was a mother and daughter with their little boy and in overhearing their conversation it didn’t seem that they were considerate of the little boy as he could overhear their conversation. Needless to say, in making this decision I wondered if I would have a vested interest with Jeremy 60 miles away. I also wondered about my parenting skills as I was not the best disciplinarian. I had four children by age 22 and also had to maintain a full time job. The counselor that accepted Jeremy was not happy with me when I declined to send him to Hershey School.

Again, I was praying for the Lord to get me through this awful time in my life. A counselor at AFS suggested I send Jeremy there full time and that was what I did. The school was less than a 1/4 mile from my house. I said to my self “how in the hell am I going to afford it”. Again with the grace of God, his mother’s social security for dependents, as well as my funds, Jeremy was able to complete his secondary education at AFS which turned out to be a wonderful decision. Jeremy was not your normal bright studious child. He participated in everything. Sports as well as the clarinet. He was completely different from my other children. He never once required assistance with his homework and was a completely dedicated student. He was always prepared and only required school supplies from me. During his early entrance in school he made friends with two boys whose mothers would help me with Jeremy on weekends when I would need to either visit my sister in New York or needed to help my mom.

My mom died in March 1997 and my sister the following year 1998 leaving me the sole survivor in my family. All of this left me completely devastated but my kids helped me through this and Jeremy was not a problem. He basically was a self-sustained youngster. In the summer I would fly him to Charlotte, NC where he would stay with my oldest daughter and my youngest daughter Lisa. He attended a bible camp and he did this until age 12 when he said he had enough. Lol. One time I picked up Jeremy from the airport as he was coming up from the ramp a woman told me “you have quite the young man”. During that time Jeremy became really friendly with his best friends parents and they basically adopted him as one of the family. The mother in this family is a wonderful person and indeed to this day he is treated as one of the family.

During Jeremy’s teenage years the self-starter in him became a camp counselor, he traveled around the country playing AAU basketball, played soccer and baseball, and studied the clarinet. When he became eligible to get his driver’s license he was there the first day when they opened and secured his license the first time. Shortly thereafter with money he saved he bought his first car with my help. Jeremy then delivered pizzas, sold Cutco knives to his friends’ parents as well as others. Thankfully for me, Jeremy was very little problem (with the exception of a few teenage escapades – a story for another day). Jeremy was a great student but very silly. He overcame some of that in High School and went on to complete four advanced placement courses. At graduation Jeremy received three substantial scholarships. It was college decision time. Full scholarships came in the mail and we traveled to several destinations and Jeremy visited some colleges without me. But it was New York University and New York City that really excited him. That was is where he went with a part time job every year. In the summer Jeremy was very fortunate to have internships at Johnson and Johnson which along with his other endeavors looked great on his resume.

It might seem like I’m bragging but Jeremy was such an extraordinary child and young person that many times I was amazed. I also want to emphasize that all my children worked part time as teenagers and I remain proud of them.

Jeremy graduated from NYU in May of 2011 on the dean’s list. Jeremy first job was AT&T in their Business Management Program in Atlanta, GA. This job came with a stipend for moving and I told Jeremy that “we” would have to look for an apartment. Jeremy informed me he had sublet an apartment. Again I said “this kid needs very little from me.” Jeremy likes dogs and I do not. Jeremy somehow convinced me to let him get a dog from the SPCA. I very reluctantly agreed. He said he would be completely responsible for the dog which he was. We then traveled to Atlanta on the worse car ride of my life 11 hours from home. That damn dog barked the ENTIRE time!

I am writing this article to show you can really go through a bad time and come out on the other side. To raise a child when you are a widow and all your other children are grown can be daunting but I survived and Jeremy survived big time. He has just always thrived. He met the love of his life at NYU and was married November 4, 2017. He turned 30 November 2018. He currently works at a start up that was just acquired and writes two blogs. God is Good!

… Yup, I know. She’s pretty awesome. I’ve done nothing to deserve a love like that. But I’ll take it 😍.

Thank you thank you thank you Gram!!

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[VIC – 142] Run His-Tor-E 😎

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Business & Money

The markets have been choppy and difficult now for a couple months. I wish I could tell you where we go from here, but I (and anyone else – despite what they might have you believe) have no idea.
That said, one of the things I look to do during choppy times is to put things into historical perspective. This article from Ben Carlson does an excellent job of that.
So roughly 60% of the time a 10% correction didn’t lead to a bear market while roughly 40% of the time it did.
I don’t love those odds, but it’s important to be aware of them nonetheless.
Plus, call me masochistic, but I rather like times like these. They test your confidence and your mental fortitude. No amount of reading about corrections and difficult times will teach you as much as the actual difficult times teach you. I find that you have to cut your teeth and develop some scar tissue if you really want to stand a chance in the markets.

Human Progress

You know how they say that history never repeats itself, but it rhymes?
Well someone drop a beat because Run His-Tor-E is about to spit that fire! (see what I did there? 😎)
Do you remember, about 15 or 20 years ago, when globalization was all the rage?
It was this unstoppable force taking the world by storm.
There would be winners and losers, but there would be more winners so the losers would just have to deal.
There would be ideological casualties along the way (nationalistic pride, cultural homogeneity, industries specific to a particular region), but there was no sense fretting the inevitable.
Finally, it would be very difficult and complex to enact and deploy, but the bankers and financiers of the world had everything under control.
And we all know where that story landed? The global financial crisis.
To be clear, it would be a vast oversimplification to try and draw a cause and effect relationship between globalization and the GFC, but I imagine there might be some connection. Global markets and interconnected credit systems means that local credit crunches become global ones.
If you put your ear close to the wall, DJ His-Tor-E seems to be revving up for a second verse.
Think about the narrative around the technological revolution that we currently find ourselves in.
Technology is an unstoppable force.
There will be winners and losers, but ultimately more winners so just deal.
Many jobs may disappear, privacy as a concept might cease to exist, truth itself may come under fire, but these are cultural artifacts that must be sacrificed on the way to a techno-utopia.
And it’s super complicated, but don’t worry because the jean wearing Patagonia vest wearing tech bros in Silicon Valley will all drop out of their ivy league schools to save us.
Those 2 stories sound eerily similar. And during times of polarization, nationalism, and populism, the last thing we need is for people to think that technology is coming for them. So it seems to me that we may need a different narrative around technology and we also need to think more seriously about what is it that we’re trying to accomplish through technological change.

Philosophy

Whenever I get sick, I usually only show symptoms for a few days at most before bouncing back. My immune system seems fairly resilient.
My wife, on the other hand, generally gets sick for at least a week or two. And often times, it seems, from the same bug that slowed me down for a matter of days.
It’s clear that our immune systems are vastly different. (it might have something to do with the fact that she regularly bathes in hand sanitizer throughout the day)
Similarly, people are very different from one another psychologically and emotionally. What pisses one person of or gives them extreme anxiety, doesn’t matter at all to the next person.
What’s fascinating to me is that the circumstances under which we live have changed drastically over the last few thousand years. Our brains meanwhile look basically the same. So the fear of imminent danger that may have arisen from severe hunger, threats from carnivorous animals, or drought, have now been displaced by fears of public speaking, feelings of inadequacy on social media, and insecurities around body image. In other words, while physical safety may not be a regular issue for many reading this blog, psychological safety is constantly under attack. And often it seem that the physiological responses to threats of the opposite type are basically the same. Those in the medical field describe this phenomena as psychosomatic.
I point all of this out because I’m reading a book where I happened across the following section:
While I agree that more profound suffering might lead to more profound thought, the element of subjectivity makes this more complicated than a simple statement of fact. The profundity measuring stick is a purely subjective one. Of course, experiencing something like the holocaust or the murder of your family in front of your eyes would rank as more severe than a fear of public speaking, but it’s impossible to really compare the experience of suffering between two different people.
Perhaps I might come to something closure to a conclusion on this topic as I read on. (the book is called How Proust Can Change Your Life btw)

My Latest Discovery

It turns out oysters are rather delicious. Over the last few weeks I’ve enjoyed a seafood paella that had oysters and also enjoyed a fried oyster appetizer.
I’m still no fan of slurping them from the shells though. But I think that has more to do with the slimy texture and appearance than the actual taste. I’m not sure why, but I have some deep seeded psychological aversion to slimy things.
Behavior modification, Mentorship, Simplicity, Uncategorized

[VIC – 138] That’s $#@*& disgusting!!

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Business & Money

I was recently speaking to someone that made a distinction between a coach and a mentor. I thought it was an apt distinction.

They defined a mentor as someone that only has one data point to work with: whatever you tell them. So you meet with this person every so often, you tell them what’s going on in your life and ask for their advice, and based on what you tell them and their own experience, they try to help you navigate the situation.

A coach, on the other hand, has the ability to gather multiple data points. Take a football coach as an example. In addition to whatever you say, they have statisticians pouring over all of the facts and figures of a player’s performance, they have other coaches specializing in specific areas (a quarterback coach for example), they watch and re-watch game tapes, and likely many more data points that I’m not aware of.

In other words, a coach has an external barometer of your reality.

So it seems, that in business and in life, people might be better served to seek out coaches as opposed to mentors.

Human Progress

If you think about it, you as an individual are solely dedicated and interested in the things that are important to you. That part is obvious, but the thing that is possibly less apparent is that everyone else feels exactly the same way. So it seems that, if you really want to influence other people, it would serve you to take a keen interest in what the other side deems important.

I try my best to keep this newsletter apolitical. And I will continue to do so. But if there’s one thing that makes me uncomfortable about the current political conversation, it’s the me me me focus. America first. I too want America to be great, but it seems to me that framing the conversation that way is unlikely to engender a desire in other nations to want to cooperate with us.

So I wonder how much time we are thinking about what other people and other nations want. And I wonder if there might be a way to help them achieve whatever those desires might be, while also furthering our own desires at the same time.

The proverbial “win-win” if you will.

I’ll leave you with a quote. The great Lao Tzu said something like,

All streams flow to the sea because it is lower than they are. Humility gives it its power. if you want to govern the people, you must place yourself below them. if you want to lead the people, you must learn how to follow them.

Philosophy

I went to a massive technology conference a few weeks ago. At one point I needed to use the restroom, so navigated my way to the closest one. Unfortunately, there was a line. As I got near to the front, I was in view of the sinks. For about 45 seconds I had a clear view of how many men washed their hands vs how many didn’t. Of 7 people I saw, 2 washed their hands. (No high horse here – I’m certain that I’ve been guilty at random points throughout life)

The conference had something like 170,000 attendees. Given it’s the technology industry, let’s assume 65% are men, or 110,500 people.

If we use the same ratio from my 45-second experience, that means 78,928 people didn’t wash their hands.

That’s $#@*& disgusting!!

And everyone knows that washing your hands is the right thing and the sanitary thing to do. Yet here we are.

It’s fascinating to me how many of the most mundane and obvious concepts aren’t strong enough to alter behavior for the majority of people.

My Latest Discovery

Morgan Housel is one of the clearest and most succinct communicators I’ve come across. He has a way of simplifying things down to their core essence.

He recently wrote this post about interest rates. And while many of the ideas here might be oversimplified, I think he does a great job of communicating a few fundamental ideas that any person can grasp.

Uncategorized

[VIC – 135] Newton’s first law

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Business & Money

Last week I bought a few shirts from an e-commerce company called Twillory. I’m writing about this for a couple reasons.
First, I wouldn’t have known that this brand existed if it weren’t for Instagram. I initially saw an ad in my feed about 8 or 9 months ago. Then a few months after that, Instagram launched their e-commerce “shop now” feature where you can click through and make a purchase without leaving Instagram. So perhaps 3 or 4 months ago, I clicked through and browsed the site, but didn’t buy anything. Then last week, because I was traveling and didn’t have time to do dry cleaning, I figure it was a good time to buy a few new dress shirts. I immediately thought of Twillory, visited the mobile site, and made the purchase. Assuming that they know what they’re doing from a tracking and measurement standpoint, my path to purchase (IG ad impression > IG mobile site > IG ad retargeting > visit to mobile site > purchase) should be pretty clear to them.
E-commerce feels to me like the next big monetization opportunity for Instagram and I think they’re just getting started. I imagine that, in addition to collecting the ad revenue, they’re probably taking a portion of the sale if you purchase from within the app. So the idea that Facebook will struggle to find new and massive revenue opportunities feels asinine to me (which is why I’ve been buying more shares).
Secondly, the end-to-end experience I described above all happened on my iPhone. Which may seem like an obvious thing to say, but I’m not sure investors really appreciate the mobile commerce opportunity (at least in the US, this is pretty obvious in a market like China).
I have a few dedicated commerce apps on my phone. In order of purchase volume starting at the highest dollar amount, those are Amazon, Chewy, and Seamless (not including transportation, music streaming, or investing).
I expect that the dollars flowing through these apps will increase at a steady clip and that, as a result, mobile advertising will increase proportionally. And Google, Facebook, and Amazon will be beneficiaries. I’m long all 3.

Human Progress

I read something once that contrasted an industrial view of education to an agrarian one. Bare with me.
In the industrial model, students all traverse the assembly line that is the modern education system. They all take the same path through the factory and are stamped and molded into consistent, reliable, predictable human beings.
In the agrarian view, you might think of future educators as gardeners that don’t so much try to control the students, but instead focus on cultivating the conditions under which students have the best chance to flourish.
Of course, it’s an abstraction without any concrete prescription on what might be wrong or how to go about making changes, but I find it to be an interesting way to think about things.

Philosophy

Remember Newton’s first law? An object at rest wants to remain at rest and an object in motion will remain in motion, unless acted on by an outside force.
While the law pertains to objects in the physical world, you might also apply it in a more psychological sense.
Take an example. It seems to me that cultivating an ability to maintain focus and attention for prolonged periods of time might the be the most important skill there is. And it seems that the unfocused and inattentive person reveals that tendency in a multitude of ways. Whereas, if you cultivate focus and attention in one area, it becomes far easier to apply those abilities in other domains.
So I try to think about Sir Isaac when making decisions about how to invest my time and attention.

My Latest Discovery

Travel is exhausting. I’m ready to go home!
Uncategorized

[VIC – 133] Rocks, sand, and… jet skis?

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Business & Money

I’m not sure where it’s from, but there’ this metaphor in business and in life that involves rocks and sand.
Let’s say you have a pile of rocks, some big and some small, a pile of sand, and a jar. If you first add the big rocks, then the small ones, and finally the sand, everything will fit into the jar.
Conversely, if you first add the sand, then the small rocks, and finally the large ones, you won’t have enough space to fit everything into the jar.
When you start with the rocks, the sand fills all of the gaps and crevasses perfectly, but in the reverse order, you end up with air pockets between the rocks.
The metaphor is simple but profound. The big rocks are the things that really matter in business and in life. They are the complex things that you cannot complete in an hour or a day. They require deep thinking and a long-term perspective.
You might refer to the sand as “small wins.” It’s when you spend all morning responding to emails and hit inbox 0 by lunch and get that feeling of accomplishment. Meanwhile, you haven’t made any progress towards your important goals.
In life, the sand is the short term dopamine hits that you get from instant gratification. It’s when you wash the dishes as procrastination instead of studying for the LSAT or working on your book.
Don’t start with the sand.

Human Progress

You often hear people blame Facebook for the outcome of the 2016 election. And I agree that It’s Facebook’s (and Google’s) fault. But not for the reasons you hear about.
The reasons you most hear about have to do with “fake news” and Russian ads. Both are important topics, but I believe it to be intellectually lazy to stop there.
Before Facebook and Google, political power was implicitly reliant on the media. If you wanted to win the primary for either party you needed money for advertising or you needed earned media. That is to say that you needed major media companies to talk and write about you on TV, print, and radio.
And in order to get enough money or attention, you need to be in a position of power that was enabled by the party. You needed relationships with leading political donors and close connections in media.
Plus, you have to remember that media coverage wasn’t predicated on writing/saying what people wanted to read/hear. Instead, it was predicated on owning the means of delivery. It was predicated on being a big media conglomerate with printing presses, delivery trucks, and/or television networks.
The internet made all of that obsolete. It destroyed the gatekeeper function of media companies. Now, attention is predicated on how much engagement you can drive, that is how many clicks, likes, and video views you can drive. So feeding into confirmation bias and sensationalism is the name of the game.
Now the media companies are subservient suppliers to the big platforms and have to create content based on their dictates. They have to compete based on those engagement metrics I just mentioned a moment ago. So they are incentivized to give someone like Donald Trump more coverage and airtime. Not based on the merits of his viewpoints, but because he drives more attention, which drives more ad dollars.
So I’m not so much blaming Facebook and Google specifically, but rather blaming the internet more broadly and the business model that has come with. It just so happens that Google and Facebook have won the internet and so you can use either company as a stand-in for the larger issue.
The problem, though, is that giving people what they want is not always a good thing. If you let a child control their diet, they’d likely eat junk food and drink soda exclusively. So adults have to temper those desires and communicate the importance of eating well.
So I guess the question becomes, what does adult supervision look like on the internet?

Philosophy

Riding jet skis is one of my favorite things to do.
One interesting thing about jet skis is that you have more control over the machine the faster you go. It’s counter intuitive. Your inclination is to slow down when you get scared, but doing so too quickly is how people get thrown violently from the machine.
This is especially the case when you’re trying to turn. You have to keep the throttle engaged throughout the turn for maximum control.
It’s very similar to riding a motorcycle or even a bicycle in that way. When you first learn, you feel like going slow is the prudent thing. But it’s not. Balance and control again come with higher speed.
And it’s interesting because, if we circle back to where we started, you sometimes have to slow down and take a step back to really make progress on the big rocks.
But jet skis, motorcycles, and bicycles seem to say the opposite. Perhaps what we’re talking about here has to do with avoiding “analysis paralysis.” At some point you just have to make the decision and go for it.

My Latest Discovery

I’ve written hear before about my love of many different podcasts. And given that I’ve worked in and around the media and advertising industry for a while now, I’m just as interested in the business side as I am in listening to podcasts themselves.
The industry went from about $170 million in 2016, to $317 million in 2017, and is expected to hit roughly $650 million by 2020.
If you find this space interesting, I’d recommend checking out the Hot Pod email newsletter. There’s a free weekly edition, and also a paid version if you want to dive deeper.