Unambiguous communication from Elon.
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I accidentally manifested my dream job.

Secretly, I started two weeks ago.

Here is what happened:

In 2020, I completed a manuscript for the Navalmanack, but I had no idea how publish a book, or any inkling of what do to next.

@TuckerMax gave me a pep talk (in his own way) and @scribemediaco helped me publish "The Almanack of Naval" which changed my life creatively, financially, and gave me some very nerdy street cred.

The team and service were incredible. I became a fan, referred friends, and hired Scribe again for The Anthology of Balaji (coming October 24!)

Suddenly in May, my author buddy @jimmyasoni whispered rumors of turbulence at Scribe.

People said they shut down.

I didn’t believe them.

So I called the CEO.

He said the company wasn’t shut down, but had financial troubles and was open to new ownership.

Luckily, I have friends who buy companies. (I recommend having these.)

Enter @SievaKozinsky and @XavierHelgesen of Enduring Ventures. We met on Twitter and hung out at Berkshire and Capital Camp.

When I brought them the idea of buying Scribe, they sprung into action – called lawyers, flew to Austin, and started digging in.

The team, services, and business model were strong.

But financial infrastructure was nonexistent and spending was out of control. Leadership had made some bad decisions.

Enduring Ventures took the risk to front salaries and expenses for the team to take care of authors, and (very fortunately for everyone involved) closed the deal.

Then I got a very surprising phone call.

All I wanted was for Scribe to survive so good people kept their jobs… and I could publish books.

My GRANDEST hope was to be a small investor.

But… they asked me to join the team as CEO.

After 3 years of writing, investing, and podcasting, this was a big change. My beautiful empty calendar!

I soul-searched, wife-talked (thanks @jeannineyeah ❤️), and emerged VERY excited to join this team and carry this flag.

Scribe is the pioneer of the entire category of Professional Publishing, which is what today’s authors truly need. (Scribe is also the biggest and best in the industry.)

To me, the future of publishing is clear – authors deserve the full financial benefit of their work, and the full creative freedom to create and use their books AS THEY SEE FIT.

Traditional publishing is resting on laurels that have wilted into a fragile wisp.

The next generation of authors see that they don’t need to be anointed by old-guard gatekeepers – they serve readers their own way and earn 4-5x more doing it.

I already started work @scribemediaco, and this team is crushing.

We’ve got over 150 authors’ work in progress, new books coming, new authors signing… and THRILLING opportunities ahead.

What began as doing right by good people turned into an incredible opportunity to lead a new chapter for Scribe.

I guess Karma is real.

As CEO of Scribe, my job is to help you publish your book, your way.

A book can build your reputation, spread your ideas, be your ticket to podcasts or stages… it might even make you a bit of money.

If you have ever considered writing a book, take a look at Scribe.

We ensure you publish a book of impeccable, world-class quality. We can also make it a minimal time investment.

We would love to brainstorm what a book could do for you, and show you the services we offer. Schedule a meeting with us now (link directly below)

Join us on the shelves... @TuckerMax scribemedia.com/consult/

Overjoyed to share I’m raising a $2m+ Rolling Fund for investing in startups.

I’ve got two partners, @drbillnye and @bowman, both great investors, friends, and sandwich eaters.

Rolling.fun @drbillnye @bowman This journey started 6 months ago with a conversation at @CapitalCamp (fitting!) with Al, who has also been investing most of his career too.

We shared a ton of values on founders we support and investors we want to be: long-term and founder-first!

A Deep Dive (pun extremely intended) to understand @SquidDAO was my mission this week.

It's like a crypto-native hedge fund, run by a group of anonymous volunteers (which could include you!) @SquidDAO "A friendly conspiracy for mutual enrichment."

Podcast Episode #022: @timhwang is the most interesting man on the internet.

In this hilarious 60-min episode:

- Trade Journals as industrial anthropology
- Bots to waging Information War on social media
- Going to Law School *Secretly*
- Legal Services for internet creators - Academic Journals studying Images of Mark Zuckerberg
- Tim’s book predicting a bubble in targeted digital advertising
- Authoring Conspiracy Theories

Very excited to see @TripleBlindAI raising another round and growing quickly.

This technology will truly change the world. Tripleblind enables private algorithms to run on private datasets (like medical records) and return valid results without ever moving or exposing the data or the algorithm.

Digital Scarcity in web3 🌐 3️⃣

Types of scarcity, applications, and how the world might change.

This keeps coming up in conversations trying to grok web3 and play out the scenarios, so I tried to flesh out digital scarcity here.

🧵 (with pictures!) Using Blockchains, computers can create scarcity in ways only humans have been able to do reliably before, but at the near-zero cost levels of other digital media.

@cdixon calls this "computers that can make commitments"

Cheap digital storage + GPT-3 means we may be the first generation to achieve a new level of immortality.

At least like a Hogwarts-portrait level of immortality. I relish the idea that making a podcast and blogging + AI tech will enable me to heckle my decedents from beyond the grave.

Episode 012: Mitchell Baldridge (@baldridgecpa) -- Defeating Taxes, Financial Planning, and Flipping A Bored Ape NFT for $250k

Anarchist, Libertarian, Crypto-Degen... Accountant and Financial Planner.

kite.link/jsoundbox12t Here's a sample of what we dig into in the episode:

- Crypto plays in the public markets
- Wealth-building and preservation strategies
- 101 resources to self-educate on financial planning and taxes
- How Mitchell built his business
- Differences of a partnership vs solo LLC

Podcast Episode 009: "TRACK ZACH #1" with @_zach_marshall, former Navy SEAL and founder of Conterra.

A new experiment -- quarterly check-ins with Zach as he builds his new startup, a marketplace for private security.

kite.link/jsoundbox9t First, we talk through Zach's unique background. Where he's from, why he joined the SEALs, and his training.

Then, his transition to civilian life, time in Silicon Valley, and how Zach built an incredible network and working experience in only 2-3 years.

Web1 = Costless Publication
Web2 = Costless Communication
Web3 = Costless Transactions (Drafting a full post on this idea)

Published a new post today, inspired by @CapitalCamp @AboveAvgOdds @mjmauboussin

"Accounting is Descriptivist"

ejorgenson.com/blog/accountin… "Descriptivists try to describe (“write down”). They believe people make the language to suit them, and linguists try to learn and understand how that language works."

Analogies are like sporks: useful, but imperfect.

They are a little clumsy, but way better than nothing.

Today, I use analogies to try to explain the possible future of Ethereum.

Clumsy... but hopefully better than nothing. Here's a link to the full post: ejorgenson.com/blog/future-of…

More jokes and nuance in the post, but here are key points:

Ethereum is used by developers to build and deploy apps. In this way, it is kind of like AWS.

In our post-show afterglow of the @sweatystartup episode of Jorgenson's Soundbox, @jmikolay and I break down Nick's Mountain of Levers, and how he grew from broke college kid to running a $100m Real Estate Portfolio. This uses frameworks, images, and ideas from our course, Building a Mountain of Leverage.

Learn more and subscribe at ejorgenson.com/leverage

[Art by @andrewcyu]

Ever thought about your Personal Value Capture?

I'm thinking about it as "Personal Proximity to Profits" and it's an interesting idea...

“Value Creation vs. Value Capture” at an individual level rather than a company level. This is more like Gross-Margin-compared-to-profit-personally-accrued.

For example, owning 100% of a small business is a much higher Proximity to Profits than owning shares of a public company.

Higher personal value capture.

Welcome to my new Podcast -- Jorgenson's Soundbox.

A mega-thread of threads that thread together every episode of my podcast, every guest, and insight.

If it pleases your ears... First, we (@scribemediaco + @consumersky) published a free version of the audiobook of the Almanack of Naval Ravikant.

https://twitter.com/EricJorgenson/status/1379462734169968647?s=20

Today, I can finally share a conversation I had months ago with @awilkinson about Leverage for the course.

kite.link/JSoundbox02t I've always loved Andrew's story -- an internet kid who started blogging and building at a young age...

As his agency became successful, he looked for more leverage by reinvesting cash, building new products, and hiring leaders, not just employees.

STOCK OPTIONS aren't what you think.

Some people have built wealth with stock options in startups, but it’s less than you think.

Stock options are limited in subtle ways. I didn’t understand early in my career, and many still overvalue options in their comp.

Here's why: [VESTING]

Options are earned over time, not immediately.

You get zero options until you work for a year, then get the first year all at once. If you quit/get fired < 12 months, no stock options for you. After the first year, you get a new chunk of options each month.

Recorded a very fun podcast yesterday with bootstrap hero and @ConvertKit founder @nathanbarry.

I've been following him for years as he grew from blogging to books, to courses, to building Convertkit into a $100m beast of a saas company. One thing I really admire is profit-sharing at his company, very much in the ethos of Nucor, Glenair, and more.

Ethereum 101 —

I’ve been exploring Ethereum (and buying, for full disclosure).

This is a plain-english recap of the very basics, to test my learning! (and maybe a frustrating oversimplification for the experts) Bitcoin was the first blockchain. Every blockchain has a cryptocurrency. Bitcoin’s cryptocurrency is named bitcoin. (Lowercase) or $BTC

L E V E R A G E — Thread #5: Product Leverage (been waiting for this one!)

#1 - Introducing Leverage
#2 - Tool Leverage
#3 - People Leverage
#4 - Capital Leverage

Levers are force multipliers people use to do 10x, 100x, or 1,000,000x what others can. Creating Products is leverage because it preserves your effort or judgment.

When your judgment is preserved, it can be used by people or machines to execute your judgment at scale, in parallel, well into the future.