The Curious Mind: The Way Of Integrity, How To Stop Wasting Your Time, Space Race and UAP, Digital Twins, What I Learnt Using AI, How To Pick Stocks Like A Pro....
September 4, 2024
I am sharing this weekly email with you because I count you in the group of people I learn from and enjoy being around.
If you missed last week’s discussion: AI & Semiconductors, Quit Your Job, The US Election, Building Startups, HRV & Longevity, My Operating Principles, Events Series....
Hope you had a great summer.
I’ll be in Singapore next week, is there anyone I should meet?
Quotes I Am Thinking About:
“The main thing is to keep the main thing the main thing”
- Steven Covey
“In all affairs it’s a healthy thing now and then to hang a question mark on the things you have long taken for granted.”
- Bertrand Russell
“People are always blaming their circumstances for what they are. I don’t believe in circumstances. The people who get on in this world are the people who get up and look for the circumstances they want, and, if they can’t find them, make them.”
- George Bernard Shaw
“Talent hits a target no one else can hit; genius hits a target no one else can see.”
- Arthur Schopenhauer
“The most satisfying form of freedom is not a life without responsibilities, but a life where you are free to choose your responsibilities.”
- James Clear
A. A Few Things Worth Checking Out:
1. This is worth listening to on a quiet weekend and was an impactful conversation for me.
Tim Ferriss spoke to Dr. Martha Beck. She has been called “the best-known life coach in America” by NPR and USA Today. She holds three Harvard degrees in social science and has published nine non-fiction books, one novel, and more than 200 magazine articles. The Guardian and other media have described her as “Oprah’s life coach.”
Her recent book, The Way of Integrity: Finding the Path to Your True Self, was an instant New York Times Best Seller and an Oprah’s Book Club selection.
The 3 BIG IDEAS:
The Power of Authenticity and Integrity: Distinguishing between social wants and deeper yearnings. Embracing your unique cognitive abilities and challenges.
The Interplay of Anxiety, Creativity, and Joy: Creativity as an antidote to anxiety. The relationship between suffering and growth. Joy as a guiding principle in life decisions.
Reframing Beliefs and Self-Perception: The power of questioning and reframing limiting beliefs. Shifting from self-criticism to self-compassion.
5 Tools and Techniques:
Integrity Cleanse (with three levels of practice)
I tried all of these tools over the last week and found them useful habits to add.
Thank you Hank B for the nudge.
Related to this conversation is a book that both Tim and Martha love, by the guy who introduced them: Boyd Vartey.
The book, The Lion Tracker’s Guide To Life is pretty awesome, short and deep.
It’s about finding your calling and wild self.
Some quotes that had me thinking:
Don’t try to be someone, rather find the thing that is so engaging that it makes you forget yourself.
The wild self knows what you were meant to do. The wild self is whispering.
Track what makes you feel good and bring more of it into your life. Norice what makes you feel lousy and do less of it.
2. I am always looking to improve my business and personal relationships and this conversation was packed with some serious nuggets.
Chris Williamson spoke with Dan Martell in a conversation titled: How To Stop Wasting Your Time & Money On Things That Don’t Matter
The 5 BIG IDEAS:
The "Buyback Principle" for time management and business growth: As Warren Buffett has said time is far more valuable than money.
Analyse your calendar to identify tasks that don't require your unique skills then see if you can delegate or hire someone to do these tasks.
Follow the "Audit, Transfer, Fill" process:
Audit: Review your time usage and identify low-value tasks.
Transfer: Delegate these tasks using the "camcorder method" - record yourself doing the task and create SOPs.
Fill: Use the freed-up time for high-impact activities that drive growth.
Focus on building systems that allow the business to run without constant involvement. Build SOPs - Standard Operating Procedures so you can delegate tasks and know that the appropriate processes will be followed without your involvement.
Overcoming the need to control everything: Embrace the idea that "80% done by somebody else is 100% freaking awesome." Recognise that perfection often hinders progress and growth. Shift from being a "firefighter" to a "fire preventer" by developing systems and training others. Cultivate trust in your team's abilities and focus on developing their skills.
Applying business principles to personal life: Implement regular "meetings" with your spouse to discuss goals, finances, and potential issues. Develop family core values to guide decision-making and resolve conflicts. Set goals and track progress in various life areas (e.g., spirituality, health, relationships).
Cultivating a growth mindset in relationships: "Nobody has to change for me to win." Focus on expressing preferences rather than criticizing others. Practice "clearing conversations" to address resentments and misunderstandings early. When faced with challenges, ask: "Do you want to be right, or do you want to be loved?"
Personal Growth Velocity: Recognise that people grow and change at different rates. Seek relationships (personal and professional) with those moving at a similar "velocity" of personal growth. Be aware of how your personal growth might affect existing relationships and learn to navigate these changes.
3. Super presentation from Pippa Malmgren exploring the uncharted nexus of economics, geopolitics and the search for extraterrestrial and ultraterrestrial intelligence.
This is an eye-opening dive into the terrestrial impact of humanity's cosmic curiosity and interstellar reach.
The 4 BIG IDEAS:
The New Space Race for Abundance: The current space race is not just about national pride or scientific curiosity, but a quest for unprecedented abundance. Nations and private entities are competing to harness:
Unlimited energy (e.g., space-based solar power, nuclear fusion using helium-3 from the Moon)
Vast resources (e.g., asteroid mining)
Revolutionary manufacturing capabilities (space-based production of pharmaceuticals, semiconductors, and organs)
Technological Convergence: AI, Quantum Computing, and Space Exploration: The synergy between advanced computing and space exploration is driving rapid progress. Exascale computers and quantum computing solving complex problems at unprecedented speeds.
The UAP Phenomenon and Its Implications: Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena (UAP) are gaining serious attention. Military encounters and congressional hearings bringing the topic into mainstream discourse. The increasing openness about UAPs is forcing a reevaluation of our place in the universe and the nature of consciousness.
Preparing for a Paradigm Shift, From Scarcity to Abundance: Moving from a scarcity-based mindset to one of abundance. Reconsidering our cosmic context and the possibility of extraterrestrial life.
4. The Economist had a good series of articles on Digital Twins.
The 4 BIG IDEAS:
Digital twins are catalyzing a paradigm shift in design, manufacturing, and maintenance. The technology enables a continuous feedback loop between physical and virtual worlds, allowing for unprecedented levels of optimization.
Digital twins are redefining the nature of business operations and strategy: They're evolving from static models to dynamic, AI-driven systems that can autonomously optimize operations. This evolution is blurring the lines between different business functions, creating more integrated and responsive organizations. There's potential for digital twins to transform entire industries into interconnected, data-driven ecosystems.
In science and healthcare, digital twins are enabling a systems-level understanding: The technology is moving beyond modeling individual organs to creating integrated representations of complex biological systems. This holistic approach is paving the way for truly personalized medicine, considering the interplay of multiple factors in health outcomes.
Digital twins present transformative opportunities and complex challenges: They have the potential to revolutionize decision-making processes, making them more data-driven and objective. However, this reliance on digital models raises questions about accountability and the role of human judgment in critical decisions. As digital twins become more comprehensive, they raise philosophical questions about the nature of reality and our ability to model complex systems.
5. Re-sharing in case you missed it last week.
The conversation focuses on the pervasive and transformative potential of AI across industries, highlighting both near-term investment opportunities and longer-term strategic considerations for investors navigating this rapidly evolving technological landscape.
7 BIG IDEAS:
The AI Compute Race and Its Implications: The race for AI supremacy is driving unprecedented investment in compute infrastructure. The focus on scaling laws suggests that companies able to efficiently scale their compute capabilities (like Nvidia, Google, and Meta) may have outsized advantages. Investors should look for companies innovating in these areas, as well as those developing technologies to improve AI training efficiency (e.g., better algorithms, novel architectures).
The Evolution of AI Infrastructure Efficiency: The conversation introduces a comprehensive framework for evaluating AI infrastructure efficiency, including MAMMF (maximum achievable matrix multiplication FLOPS), SFU (system FLOPS efficiency), checkpointing frequency, and PUE (power usage effectiveness).
This framework provides a roadmap for investors to evaluate companies in the AI infrastructure space.
Software companies optimizing CUDA or developing competing frameworks
Hardware companies improving GPU reliability and efficiency
Companies innovating in AI-specific memory and storage solutions
Startups developing novel approaches to AI model checkpointing and reliability
The Shift to Edge AI and Its Market Implications: The potential move towards more AI processing on edge devices, particularly smartphones, could reshape the mobile and chip industries:
Opportunities in advanced mobile processors and AI accelerators
Increased demand for high-bandwidth, low-latency memory solutions for mobile devices
Potential for new mobile OS features and APIs centered around on-device AI
Emergence of edge AI development platforms and tools
The Convergence of AI, Robotics, and Autonomous Systems: The discussion highlights the potential for AI to dramatically accelerate progress in robotics and autonomous systems, with far-reaching implications:
Autonomous vehicle technology (with Tesla positioned as a potential leader)
General-purpose humanoid robots for various industries
AI-powered automation in manufacturing, logistics, and service industries
Potential for new insurance and liability models for AI-driven systems
The Evolving Landscape of AI Applications: While cautioning against over-enthusiasm for every AI startup, the conversation suggests that successful AI application companies will likely have:
Unique, proprietary data assets
Efficient integration with existing workflows and systems
Strong go-to-market strategies and user experiences
The ability to continually improve with user feedback
AI's Impact on Labor Markets and Economic Structures: The potential for AI to automate or augment a wide range of jobs, from blue-collar to high-skill knowledge work, suggests several investment themes:
Companies developing AI-powered productivity tools for knowledge workers
Platforms for AI-human collaboration and augmented decision-making
Educational technology focused on reskilling and adapting to an AI-driven economy
Potential opportunities in labor market analytics and AI-driven HR technologies
The Transformation of Investment Strategies in the AI Era: The conversation suggests that AI will fundamentally alter investment strategies across public and private markets:
For public equity investors, there may be a window of opportunity to combine human judgment with AI-powered analysis before quantitative strategies fully catch up
In venture capital, the emphasis may shift towards operational expertise and team assessment, as AI democratizes access to market and technical information
The nature of due diligence and valuation models may evolve to place greater emphasis on a company's AI capabilities, data assets, and ability to adapt to rapid technological change
If all of this inspires you to get involved, this is a good LEARNING AI (FOR THE LUDDITE) twitter post.
B. The Science and Technology Section:
1. This weekend I started taking some classes on DeepLearning.AI, its filled with free and great courses at all levels and all facets of AI.
I chose to focus on Diffusion Models, but after watching two videos, I realised that my learning style is more hands on and I prefer to interact with the information than just watch or listen to it.
This took me to Claude where I then had 45 mins of back & forth questions & answers where Claude explained the many facets of Diffusion Models, how they work and how to build them, and also the broader context around how they fit into the category of AI models.
I quickly got into a flow state as Claude as my personal tutor taught me at my own pace filling in the gaps in my knowledge. It was beautiful and made me think deeply about how education will change as these models evolve.
The discussion also made me appreciate just how complex these models are and how many parts they have and when someone says AI models the many things it could mean.
For example, a three dimensional matrix of AI models could be:
Function (generative vs. discriminative):
Generative models can create new data similar to what they've seen.
Discriminative models focus on telling existing data apart into categories.
Architecture (transformers, CNNs, RNNs)
Transformers process all input at once, great for language tasks.
CNNs excel at analyzing images.
RNNs handle sequential data like text or time series.
Learning paradigm (supervised, unsupervised, reinforcement)
Supervised learning uses labeled data to teach models.
Unsupervised learning finds patterns in unlabeled data.
Reinforcement learning trains models through trial and error with rewards and punishments.
I highly encourage you to take any subject and then interact with Claude or ChatGPT with a mix of Socratic Questions and Feynman Technique to increase your understanding of that subject.
By the way, if you learn better by watching / listening then this a good educational video on Diffusion Models. They are really cool and work like a sculptor chipping away at marble to reveal the beauty underneath!
If you are new to the world of Generative AI - this Coursera course is a great place to start.
2. I’m not going to tell you about NVIDIA’s earnings last week, but will tell you what Jensen said about AI on the conference call (emphasis mine):
AI is a bit of a universal function approximator and it learns the function. And so you could learn the function of almost anything, and anything that you have that's predictable, anything that has structure, anything that you have previous examples of.
On scaling:
the frontier models are growing in quite substantial scale. And we're still all seeing the benefits of scaling. And whenever you double the size of a model, you also have to more than double the size of the data set to go train it. And so the amount of flops necessary in order to create that model goes up quadratically.
And so it's not unexpected to see that the next-generation models could take 10x, 20x, 40x more compute than last generation. So we have to continue to drive the generational performance up quite significantly so we can drive down the energy consumed and drive down the cost necessary to do it.
The second reason for Hopper demand right now is because of the race to the next plateau. The first person to the next plateau gets to introduce some revolutionary level of AI. The second person who gets there is incrementally better or about the same. And so the ability to systematically and consistently race to the next plateau and be the first one there is how you establish leadership.
C. The Curious Mind Events Series
What Are The Secrets of Picking Stocks Like A Pro?
Please join me in an exclusive discussion with Stephen Clapham on Sept 23rd 12pm EST.
Following a 25-year career as an investment analyst, investor and partner and head of research at two multi-billion hedge funds, Stephen decided to put that experience to good use and offer training to professional investment analysts and portfolio managers. More recently, his awesome online school offers training to private investors as well.
He also wrote this great book:
and he runs the Behind The Balance Sheet podcast, and is the founder of Behind The Balance Sheet substack.
We will be covering BIG QUESTIONS that will make you a better investor.
We will limit the group to 30 people in a webinar format.
Would you like to join?
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