Josh Wolfe Profile picture
Sep 22, 2020 10 tweets 2 min read Read on X
1/ It is generational arbitrage.

Human nature is this: the masses are mostly credulous steerable sheep—🐑 many lost, needing to be led.

The WISE and the CLEVER break—first from the herd (with differing confidence)—and then from each other (with differing ethics)😇👿...
2/ This is true first in religion & politics—where indoctrination happens very young (emulating parents) and the chains of belief are too WEAK to be felt until too STRONG to be broken—pain of being social ostracized is horrible.

And a "biological trap" for many—how?...
3/ A "biological trap" is like the moth in the fridge. 🦋

A moth is trapped in a fridge.
Open the door to free it—
But it cannot leave.
Because— the 💡

Show most the light and the binds of the tribe triumph tightly over truth that can free..
4/ Religion + politics are tribally biological traps—BUT so are markets.

The dopamine hit of reward from making money combined with comraderie of winning—makes it (like religion + politics) perfect for sheep 🐑 where what other people believe other people believe matters...
5/ Notably—different in sports. Fans can foment frenzy tribally over a TEAM but are overtly critical of their own team individual players if they objectively—play poorly. Players can cheat but otherwise hard to fake skill + evidence/TRUTH of scoring (unlike preachers, pols, CEOs)
6/ Back to the WISE and CLEVER.

Both break from the masses of sheep
But they break from each other on ethics and intentions

The wise mostly explore (and help)
—the more detected the better for them

The clever mostly exploit (and hurt)
—the more undetected the better for them
7/ wise: motivated to reveal and catch the clever
clever: motivated to not get caught

Think Tom Hanks "I'm on to you" of Leonardo Dicaprio's Frank Abagnale in "Catch Me if You Can"

Fraudsters, hucksters, cons, promoters
vs
Scientists, sleuths, journalists, short-sellers
8/ Every generation has to learn its own lesson. But it only gets taught when the wise catch the clever. Or the clever get too greedy and confident and make messy mistakes.

The wise today got wise by getting burned by the clever in the past...
9/ "Fool me once".

Today's young traders will in 20 years be warning the next generation how they are getting duped

Just as those that were in their 20s— 20 yrs ago during .com/Enron/WorldCom/Tyco era went from
"this time is different"
to
"wtf just happened"

very quickly..
10/ As Charles Mackay said in "Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds" in 1841(!)

Men, it has been well said, think in herds; it will be seen that they go mad in herds—while they only recover their senses slowly,

one by one.

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More from @wolfejosh

Apr 22
1/ My take on Trump in exchange with one of my smartest market friends.

Bizarrely I’m more sanguine.

Either it’s the greatest policy mistake and blunder of a rollout ever. OR it ends up with some grand bargain for those that want to ensure certainty and stability by doing long term deals or otherwise face massive undulating volatility in his flip-flopping, fickle whims.

I think overall across all domains (tech cos, universities, law firms, countries) they got very confident and then cocky ... I think it started with the Silicon Valley and Elon flip over… And then Zuck shifting his board and taking a knee… And he saw powerful person after powerful person pledging fealty out of fear. I think that further emboldened them the "we’re fucking here We are in total control. We have all the leverage. You do what we say or you're fucked" from big tech to Zelensky to law firms to Columbia + Harvard and then the rest of the world

And Whether it’s the market fighting back or law firms, fighting back or universities fighting back… He’s gotta double down and not show weakness or concede. He was wrong… It’s very tough game theory.

The other view… Is they try a few experiments mindful that it could create chaos… And going into midterms they stabilized with more predictability market so and they have total political control
2/ post election when all Trump bros were “golden age of America” with 80s topgun hulk hogan f-yeah amurica hype videos…

We bought deep out of the money puts

Because the consensus and stability were the consensus view and the scarce contrarian view was: insane volatility ahead
3/ those puts paid off (pa) and now nearly 100% consensus is lower growth or recession AND inflation….SO…. Image
Image
Read 6 tweets
Feb 13
1/ New Q4 Lux letter to LPs… Image
2/ Image
3/ AI will bring the death of APIs Image
Read 5 tweets
Jan 29
1/ an urgent wake-up call ⏰

A new bombshell report just dropped.

China’s playbook isn’t war in the open—it’s war in the seams.

They target the gaps between state & federal, public & private, markets & security.

America must 'armor up' 🧵...
2/ The CCP’s strategy?

Hollow out U.S. strength from within.

Critical infrastructure? Infiltrated.
Universities? Compromised.
State pension funds? Financing China’s military tech.
3/ While America focused on the War on Terror, China waged a war on us—a silent siege of intellectual property theft, capital capture, and digital espionage.

Now, the bill comes due.
Read 19 tweets
Dec 25, 2024
1/ QATAR -

If you were fly on wall in Qatar's strategy meetings you’d hear their not so secret strategy

i) keep up economic relations w/Iran (esp w shared gas reserves)

ii) support Islamist groups (esp Muslim Brotherhood) + use the masses as pawns for political leverage..
2/

iii) assert distinct identity in MidEast geopolitics as a ‘mediator’

iv) religious mafia style––foment fervent believers (funding Al Jazeera propoganda + mosques/ Imams to rule over other country populations) grow geopolitical power depsite tiny size (and no real military)
3/ The ties to Iran + Turkey in particular who leverage terrorism, religious extremism are the greatest threat to Mideast regional peace

especially with moderate + modernizing + peace + prosperity seeking UAE + Saudi (on cusp on Israel normalzied relations) and Sunni…
Read 10 tweets
Dec 8, 2024
1/Memory players will be ascendant.

At recent closed-door private investor gathering I pitched 1 LONG and a basket of 3 SHORTS.
2/ this technical paper from Apple published year ago not widely discussed was the breadcrumb clue and the inspiration I have shared with many friends since.... Image
3/ The paper introduces 2 methods called “windowing” + “row-column bundling” which allow devices to run models up to 2x DRAM size by storing model parameters in flash + loading them into DRAM as needed.

this company...
Read 14 tweets
Nov 23, 2024
1/ New Lux quarterly letter to LPs...

Our theme? Tech, venture, global markets told in...

...Four parables of Four brothers
1 Prometheus
2 Menoetius
3 Epimetheus
4 AtlasImage
2/ The The Prometheus Promise––is Extending Human Limits what we call extensionalism

technology is not just augmenting our natural senses, but fundamentally extending and transforming them inImage
Image
3/ From sight, sound, touch, hearing and now…smell.

Technology extends our senses (“extensionalism”) with many Lux family co’ leading the way from

@physical_int + CTRL-Labs + Auris Surgical Robotics (touch)
@EikonTX + @Matterport (sight)
Chromatic (hearing)
@Osmo_Labs (smell)Image
Read 17 tweets

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