The most complicated things are rooted in deeply simple foundations.

Just like 95% of biological matter is made of 4 elements, successful businesses are built the same way.

Thread: Complexity is nothing more than a few nodes interacting with one another.

Leave them alone for a long period of time and the craziest things can happen.

Why is the Mona Lisa worth an estimated $850 million?

You aren't buying a portrait, you're buying an embodied piece of Da Vinci.

In this thread:
- Why he is a Renaissance icon.
- Pigment and Optical science used in the Mona Lisa.
- The Billionaire Art Market for Leonardo.
Leonardo’s breadth of expertise is what makes him a true “Renaissance Man”

The Mona Lisa reflects the work of an artist and an assiduous scientist.
Perspective, optics, anatomy, light, geology, botany.

Masterpieces are more about what went into them than what's plainly visible.

While growing Amazon from $1M to $1.6 trillion, Jeff Bezos wrote 23 letters to shareholders spelling out his plan each year.

I printed and read them.

In them, he wrote 'Amazon' only 430 times but 'Customer' 506 times.

Nothing has changed my view of entrepreneurship more... Jeff Bezos's entire CEO personality is 'customer obsession'

1. New hires are given a "customer-obsessed" sticker to put on their notebooks
2. Created an empty board seat in his meetings for the 'customer'
3. When customers faced video streaming pauses or buffering on Prime, they built a system to automatically refund them part of their subscription to say 'sorry'
4. Visited a bookstore to literally cross-check prices across 1000 book titles. found 72 books priced lower than on Amazon. He 'fixed it'.
5. Invented 'reviews' even though they initially hurt sales and sellers didn't like bad reviews. But he believed his job was not to sell books, it's to help customers make a good purchase decision.
6. Invested literal billions of dollars, buying fulfillment centers, jets and robots, enduring losses, and public market backlash for a decade, so you can get your tissue paper in 12 hours.

In 1996 Intel was worth >$100B and practically owned the semiconductor industry. Nvidia was unknown.

Now Nvidia is worth $3 Trillion, 30X the market cap of Intel.

How did Jensen Huang take on Intel and win?

It's the 21st Century David vs Goliath story.

Thread Intel didn't lose because they sucked.

They made state-of-the-art CPUs, had incredible fabrication technology, and economies of scale. Intel put the Silicon in Silicon Valley.

It was impossible to compete with them.

So Jensen picked a game he knew he could win.

These 3 companies manage as much wealth as ~20% of the world GDP.

With ~$22 Tn in assets, the biggest shareholders in 85% of S&P 500 firms.

They own shares in biggest US banks & influence Central Banks too.

How Blackrock, Vanguard & State Street rule the Finance Ecosystem (🧵) Known as "The Big 3" - they control as much wealth as the size of the entire US GDP.

With a whopping 84% presence in the S&P 500 Index - they have massive influence on markets

Elon Musk literally taught himself everything about reusable rockets, self-driving cars, digital payments, brain chips, and satellite internet.

He's the modern Da Vinci

Last night I found Elon's Reddit post from 9 years ago where he explained how to learn anything

Thread How to learn anything

Elon has pioneered self-landing rockets, electric cars, digital payments, internet satellites, manufacturing, and AI

He's the modern Da Vinci.

In a 2012 Reddit post, Elon revealed his framework for learning faster and better

What his method is and how you can start applying it Read what Elon Said

Atomic Habits is a life-changing book. I want to read it every 6 months.

So I wrote a MEGA THREAD on it.

Took 3 hours to write this so you can read it in 2 minutes. 🧵 THE SUPRISING POWER OF HABITS

Your habits determine the quality of your life.

Your net worth is a result of your financial habits.
Your weight is a result of your eating habits.
Your knowledge is a result of your reading habits.

You ARE what you consistently DO.

When I don't understand something, I just read a book on it.

Here are 21 books you should read to understand the world and yourself better.

A thread 🧵 To understand evolution and civilisation, read -
1. A brief history of everything - Bill Bryson
2. Origin of Species - Darwin
3. Sapiens - Harari
4. Guns, Germs and Steel - Jared Diamond
5. The wealth of Nations - Adam Smith

12 drawings that will give change how you think about progress, business and life.

1. 'He just got lucky' Communication in a nutshell