A Few Things: Where Did The Geniuses Go?, Next Phase Of The War, China Explained, Misogyny Myth?, Secrets of Renaissance Capital, Walter Isaacson, DeepMind and Chris Miller...
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A Few Things: Where Did The Geniuses Go?, Next Phase Of The War, China Explained, Misogyny Myth?, Secrets of Renaissance Capital, Walter Isaacson, DeepMind and Chris Miller...
September 16, 2023
Hi, from Dubai today.
I’m Ahmed Husain, feel free to connect here on LinkedIn or here on Twitter. Every week, I share my view on developments across markets, technology and being a better human. I advise and work with global family offices and investors looking to understand the world and find investment opportunities.
You can check out last week’s edition here: Focus, How To Read A Book, Incels, Why The West Won, News You Might Have Missed, The Coming Wave of AI, The Future of Venture Capital...
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Quotes I Am Thinking About:
“I can fix the $32 trillion US debt problem in 5 minutes. You pass a law that when there’s a deficit of more than 3% of GDP, all sitting members congress are ineligible for re-election”
- Warren Buffett
“Life is thick sown with thorns, and I know no other remedy than to pass quickly through them. The longer we dwell on our misfortunes, the greater is their power to harm us.”
- Voltaire
“By the time a man realizes that his father was right, he has a son who thinks he’s wrong."
- Charles Wadsworth (Classical pianist)
“I'm also a total nut on the subject that the best way to get what you want in life is to deserve what you want. Of course, if you apply that to business, that means you really take care of the customers.”
- Charlie Munger
"Make your choice, adventurous Stranger; Strike the bell and bide the danger, Or wonder, till it drives you mad, What would have followed if you had."
- C.S. Lewis
“Doing what you do well is death. Your duty is to keep trying to do things that you don't do well, in the hope of learning.”
- John Banville
A. A Few Things Worth Checking Out:
1. Where did all the geniuses go? Well, perhaps, they were killed by the concept of intelligence. Genius requires vision. It requires a mind that links together ideas in strange and unpredictable ways, often leading to unprecedented, outsized outcomes.
“Talent hits a target no one else can hit; Genius hits a target no one else can see."
- Arthur Schopenhauer
Think Ramanujan with math equations, Jobs with personal computing, Austen with the novel. Genius, then, is distinct from raw, intellectual horsepower and I think there is a genius inside all of us.
2. Marko Papic, chief strategist at Clocktower and Chen Zhao, chief global strategist at Alpine Macro discussed China both economically and geopolitically. Both are in agreement China faces a tough economic path ahead.
Zhao’s view that Xi Jinping is deeply ideological and does not want to stimulate the consumer like the western nations have done and that China’s influence in commodities is waning. Papic has many excellent geopolitical views but one of them is he doesn’t believe China has near-term ambitions on Taiwan.
A good listen.
3. Gavekal had a thoughtful piece titled: The Next Phase Of The Ukraine War?
The gist of the piece is that: China could be building up oil inventories as a protective measure against Russia fully weaponizing energy markets. Russia would do such a thing to apply political pressure to Western leaders.
The US government could react to energy being weaponized in different ways. It could a) do nothing, which would likely end with the Democratic Party losing the election or b) Looking at a steep hill to climb, Biden could pull a Lyndon Johnson and bow out of the presidential race or c) The Biden administration could accept that maintaining a foreign policy of only being friends with democracies (thus annoying Saudi and other Gulf states) while discouraging hydrocarbon production in North America to be untenable and switch to sharply raising US output, or d) In the run-up to next year’s election, the Biden administration could forbid the export of American energy products like diesel and gasoline in a bid to keep their prices low at home, even if at the cost of much greater problems for US allies in Europe and Asia. What do the allies do then?
4. I may get hate mail for this….The Misogyny Myth: Women aren’t discriminated against in twenty-first-century America—but men increasingly are by John Tierney.
The article summarises a lot of the issues men face today and why. It ties into the Incel article from last week and the discussion of Richard Reeves book: Of Boys and Men which we discussed in April.
5. Peter Brown, CEO of hedge fund Renaissance Technologies, recently gave a rare interview.
Even Gregory Zuckerman, author of the Jim Simons biography The Man Who Solved the Market was shocked (his interpretation Renaissance was looking for some positive PR).
Neckar wrote a great piece summarising: Five lessons from Peter Brown, CEO of Renaissance Technologies.
6. David Senra, the creator and host of Founders Podcast spoke with Patrick on Invest Like The Best.
With an incredible appetite for biographies, David has delved into the lives of over three hundred entrepreneurs, extracting invaluable wisdom that he shares with his audience each week.
Throughout the conversation, they discuss David’s love of podcasts, and what can be gained from studying the lives of not just entrepreneurs, but of athletes and film directors alike.
7. I’ve been in Dubai last few days for my friend Jai’s Aikya Connect - Indian Family Office Conference. It’s been interesting to see how the place has changed (I was last here Feb 2020).
This Economist article titled: The Gulf countries want to reshape the Middle East in their image is a good overview of what’s happening politically.
It argues that the Middle East is witnessing profound shifts in its energy markets, political dynamics, and economic investments. As the region attempts to strengthen its position in the oil and gas sectors, profits are being reinvested in various industries, including tech and mining. Changing attitudes in the region prioritize economic stability over political ideologies. This change is evident in decreased regional tensions, exemplified by Saudi Arabia and Iran's surprising diplomatic deal and the growth of capital markets, with the Gulf states attracting a larger share of global investment.
However, while there are pockets of prosperity, many Middle Eastern countries face economic challenges. Egypt, the Arab world's most populous country, is battling economic stagnation, and its struggles might impact regional prospects. While prosperous states like Saudi Arabia have made strides, they face structural issues such as over-reliance on the public sector for employment and high dependence on oil revenues. Geopolitically, Gulf states' associations with China and Russia have caused tensions with the U.S.
8. The new Walter Isaacson book on Elon Musk is meant to be his best ever. He spoke to Lex Fridman about Musk, Jennifer Doudna, Steve Jobs, Einstein, Benjamin Franklin, Leonardo da Vinci and more.
He also did the Lunch with the FT.
9. My daughters said I’d love this movie, so I checked it out. OMG, this is my new favourite movie!
B. The Technology Section:
1. DeepMind's CEO, Demis Hassabis, has announced the development of a new AI system named Gemini.
This system aims to merge the capabilities of AlphaGo with those of large language models like GPT-4, the technology behind OpenAI’s ChatGPT. Gemini seeks to harness the strengths of both systems, including innovations that offer capabilities like problem-solving and planning.
This development is a part of Google's effort to compete with advancements like ChatGPT. DeepMind's expertise in reinforcement learning, which played a pivotal role in AlphaGo's success, might give Gemini an edge.
2. The folks at Acquired did a 3-hour deep dive podcast on AI and GPUs through the lens of NVIDIA. Luckily Eugene summarised it into 43 tweets.
3. Chris Miller of Chip Wars was on the HC Insider podcast early September discussing how semiconductors became the new oil. If you haven’t read his book, this is great, and if you read it then this is a good refresher.
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