“What was that word that you used that starts with a P? “Profit”?!…That's such a weird word. I haven't heard that in so long.
Contrary to the SCARCITY of the word today, profits are a great measure of the VALUE that you provide to people.
People are saying…
3/ Probably my favorite example—both in pursuit of space—is Bezos x Musk
Amazon compounded capital the way a great business should
Elon has parlayed an almost religious movement of true believers to fund losses.
4/ And if you raise cash from raised expectations––fundamentals don't matter
you can keep leading people—or misleading them—
so far, there has been really no great penalty for people whose relationship with the truth is less than ideal.
5/ in ‘99/00–succes led people to borrow—in some cases extravagantly on margin—to invest more
all 1 big party + then when the punchbowl got taken away people suddenly woke up as if in the Ishiguro novel “The Buried Giant” & said Wait a second these co’s are gonna run out of 💵
6/ The tragic thing: lower income people gambling or speculating lured deeper and deeper at the worst time
you’ve not seen mass layoffs, bankruptcies, suicides—all the things that come from tragic financial downturns
people clinging to hope that their portfolios will come back
7/ My full time job is investing in scientists + entrepreneurs who competitively bring cutting-edge crazy tech to market
YET we want them to have real businesses solving real problems with margins + economics + cash flow so that they dont have to constantly promise new investors
8/ Today, there is an excess of excesses
it's not a prediction. It's observable––in front of your face
focus on areas neglected and scarce
when the shit hits the fan, you want to be in the other room, and you want to be focused on stuff that other people haven't yet found
9/ you’ll see people running like ‘02 to re-learn wisdom of decades of Buffett letters + take accounting classes + understand IS/BS/CF + how they flow together
To The Moon is narrative-driven inducement to get in the pool—and you're starting to see stuff float in the pool🏊♂️💩
10/price is what you pay—value is what you get
price is only a measure of belief + expectations Fundamentals are measure of value
discrepancy between fundamentals + expectation is where great investments are made
—Religions only exist based on the strength of their believers
11/ Elon has, in the case of SpaceX, delivered real teams of people that have delivered technologically, competitively advantaged engineering marvels. Hard to criticize SpaceX.
In the case of Tesla, you have millions of customers that are very happy….
12/…You have a minority of customers that feel like they were misled. And you have an entire tribe of investors that are true believers and a minority of people that are saying the emperor has no clothes. I don't know what Elon truly believes….
13/ But I know that that number of true believers in Elon and the messages that he's been putting out are not going anywhere.
And I would say I massively underestimated the power of religious belief.
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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.
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…
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....
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.