How to start a Podcast

A Thread 🧵

Someone asked me how to start a podcast:

what high-end equipment they need, how to get ads, great guests, etc. These are the wrong questions. Here's what you should do. (1/x) 1) START NOW!

Take out the recorder on your iphone. Interview someone.

Interview your spouse about all the things that are wrong with you.

Or interview a homeless guy on the street. You can do 3 interviews in one day.

Or call a wrong # and interview.

Just START! (2/x)

ARE YOU A 5-25er?

The Warren Buffett 5/25 rule has been very important in keeping me from failure:

Investing is the one thing Buffett mastered above all other interests.

But the 5/25 rule is his technique of achieving mastery of ANYTHING.

First, what is it?

(1/x) 1: The 5/25 rule,

- LIST the 25 things you are most passionate about.

- SPLIT THEM into two lists. The top 5 items and then the next 20.

Note, you are still insanely passionate about the next 20. They are just numbers 6-25 on your list.

(2/x)

What should Elon do with Twitter

A Thread 🧵 1) Use open source privacy communications technology (e.g. Signal) to create a private messaging network among verified twitter users.

Signal is a foundation started by the founders of WhatsApp after they left Facebook.Make Twitter THE platform for secure international

Three assets that can benefit from FTX's collapse: (1/x) 1. Coinbase
The most mainstream centralized crypto exchange.
People who are nervous (as many many are) will move crypto assets to Coinbase.

The 52 week high on Coinbase is 355. Right now it's 50 (the 52 week low was 44). (2/x)

FTX and Binance is a crypto soap opera.
This is a crazy story of love, hate, money, and we might not get to the bottom of it. What I say in this thread is speculative.
But here's what happened, what is happening, and the good and bad of what might happen to crypto. (1/x) 1. First off, CZ (CEO of Finance) and SBF (Sam Bankman-Fried) were friends in the past. They grew up in this industry together and CZ even invested in FTX (2/x)

Many people say, "there are no real world use cases of crypto!" These people are wrong. Crypto is currently being used all over the world.

Here's a random sample of some of the many use cases being used today: (thread): Many banks, even Visa, have used crypto and blockchain to make frictionless and fee-less transfers of money to other countries.
The biggest example: donations to Ukraine. Over 120,000 donations involving crypto have been made to Ukraine, totalling over $100,000,000. (2/x)

When you can't say "No" you end up just negotiating the terms of your misery. 12 Things You Should Say "No" to TODAY: (a thread): (1/x) (2/x)

Why We Need Crypto in the World (a thread) - so many people now saying, "BTC and ETH worth zero" or "nothing backs it". But this is not true. Digital currencies are a natural evolution of money. Here are SOME reasons why: (1/x) 1) "TRUST" is too expensive in today's economy: Example: The payments system. About 5-6 companies (Visa, American Express, Paypal, etc) pull in about $3 trillion annly in fees. And since most payments are cashless now this is the bulk of all transactions...BUT....

10 of my favorite examples of "music idea sex" that you probably haven't heard: (1/12) First, idea sex is when you take two totally different concepts and mash them together to create something amazing. Here are ten examples from music: (2/12):

What I think Elon should do to improve Twitter (we're all experts on Twitter and @elonmusk now). This is a thread. PLUS: the actual legal aspects of censorship that nobody seems to have considered: 1/x: 1) TikTok-style algorithm to help great content rise to the top even if the poster has few followers. TikTok has the best algorithm for discovery. Twitter, FB, etc are dominated by content from ppl with a lot of followers. TikTok lets good content rise to the top (2/x)

WHAT IS ACTUALLY HAPPENING TO THE MARKETS RIGHT NOW. A summary of the "behind the scenes" activity happening at the Fed since 2008, plus a prediction of what will come next (thread: 1/x). Feel free to ask questions: (1/x) In 2008 the Fed needed to save banks so it started buying US T-Bills. The buyers would put the money in banks, increasing reserves, the Fed would then PAY interest on excess reserves to the banks. This currently gives banks $100bb a year (roughly). (2/x)

Is this a merger arbitrage investment? The Twitter / @elonmusk example: (1/x) Merger arbitrage is an hedge fund strategy. A classic case is when someone offers to buy a company for $10 a share but the shares only go to $9. You can buy at $9 and sell at $10 for an 11% profit. But there are nuances that are important to understand. (2/x)

BIZ IDEA OF THE DAY: doing a rollup of Amazon affiliates. (a thread):

A "rollup" is buying businesses in the same industry (e.g. laundromats), saving on costs through synergies.

Sell at higher price (because of increased earnings AND higher multiple of earnings). (1/x) (2/x) WHY DO YOU GET HIGHER MULTIPLE ON EARNINGS WHEN YOU COMBINE BUSINESSES?

Buyers like bulk earnings.

They are often much bigger companies so they will pay higher to someone who has done the work of combining multiple smaller companies in the same space

ADULT IMPROVEMENT TIP #4: MICROSKILLS. EVERY skill can be broken into mutually exclusive microskills. Learn much more quickly by identifying the microskills and develop training to study each specific skill. EXAMPLES: (1/x) #adimp Investing is not a "skill" but a collection of Microskills. Value investing, growth, arbitrage, options, real estate, bonds, business fundamentals, money management and psychology, crypto, deal structure, market history, etc. (2/x) #adimp

ADULT IMPROVEMENT THREAD, DAY #1
Starting a 100 day thread on "adult improvement". We all want to stop doing what we HATE at the expense of doing less of what we love.
But we need to improve , as an adult, at what we love. Music, golf, writing, poker, investing, etc. (1/x..) We want to improve so we can enjoy more. Or make money, etc. And often people tell us its impossible to improve. ill use chess as the 'domain' but will touch on everything from writing to enterpreneurnship. sports, etc. Day 1: (2/x):

TWITTER MASTERCLASS on politcal -ISMS. My own attempts at trying to understand Biden-ism, Trump-ism, Marxism, Capitalism, Socialism, Fascism, and all the differences. One tweet per "-ISM". First, Marxism... (1/x) Marxism:  Differences between a boss (who accumulates capital generated by the work of others) and a worker (who is paid less than the value he or she creates) will result in class struggle and eventual revolution. Class differences can't survive in Marxism. Next..Socialism (2/x)

What is democracy?

A democracy should include mostly "reasonable" people and "rational" people. Let me describe: (1/x)

https://twitter.com/bruce_lambert/status/1299463063578574848

"Reasonable" people are people who all agree that there could be multiple differing ideas and that through agreed upon rules like voting, a decision is reached and everyone is ok with it til the next election. (2/x)

Solution to Vladmir Nabokov chess puzzle I posted yesterday:

ANSWER: 1. Qa5+ any 2. Mate

see rest of thread for why and the theory of this particular puzzle. (1/4) For example:
1. Qa5+ Bb5 2. Rf1++ (bishop is pinned so can't take rook)
1. Qa5+ b5 2. Rf1++
1. Qa5+ Nb5 Rf1++
1. Qa4 Qb5 Rf1++ (Q pinned)
1. Qa5+ Qc5 Ne7++ (Q pinned)

More examples... (2/x)

10 Lessons from Kanye.

President Kanye. Why not? Every step of his career people laughed "you can't be a rapper", "you can't be in fashion!", etc. Last week Kanye announced a deal with "The Gap" and their stock went up over $1 billion in seconds. (1/x) #Yeezy2020 Kanye produced one of the greatest rap albums of all time: The Blueprint, by Jay-Z and he wanted to break out as a rapper. Jay-Z felt he was just a producer and his middle-class background had people in the industry telling him "you can't" make it as a rapper. (2/x)

HOW TO BLEED IN THE FIRST LINE:

Because I grew up ugly, I have decent "first sentences" when I meet people. It's hard for me to make a good impression. "Ugly" has been my boot camp for living. 

Here are 12 first lines from my favorite books and WHY they "bleed"... ENJOY! (1/x): "Mother died today. Or maybe yesterday; I can't be sure". - Albert Camus in "The Stranger".  

There's death, confusion, apathy. The entire book is in that first line. Why so unemotional over his mother's death? Why is he unsure? The entire book is in this line. (2/x)

I'm dead center in Gen X. (b. 1968). The IGNORED generation. My kids say, "Ok, Boomer" to me, forgetting that WE fought the good fight against Boomers. We defined the culture of the individual. The Authenticity, the Apathy. So here it is: The HORRIBLE truths of Gen X: (1/x) The Cures of Generation X - The Greatest Generation had the Polio Vaccine. Mustine (the first Chemotherapy drug, used for Leukemia). Prior generations used pharma to cure the greatest diseases of humanity. By contrast...Gen X... (2/x)