The Curious Mind: Why Are You Anxious?, John Arnold on Energy & Edge, Tudor Jones On FED and AI, US Industrial Policy, How We Beat AI, Your Money vs Your Life, What You Are Missing About Semis....
June 12, 2025
You are a smart curious person but short on time and surrounded by noise. The Curious Mind tries to offer the best signal to noise ratio across markets, technology and the good life. We hope to even surprise and inspire you with new beautiful ideas.
If you missed last week’s discussion: American Exceptionalism Was A Facade, Hidden Technological Laws, Are We Last Generation, China Will Be Dominant, History of American Capitalism, The AI Race, Your Money Or Your Life
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Quotes I Am Thinking About:
“If you always put limits on everything you do, physical or anything else, it will spread into your work and into your life. There are no limits. There are only plateaus, and you must not stay there, you must go beyond them.”
- Bruce Lee
“Beware the bareness of a busy life”
- Socrates
“No man can consider himself truly married until he understands every word his wife is not saying.”
- Lord Mancroft
“Do not spoil what you have by desiring what you have not; remember that what you now have was once among the things you only hoped for.”
- Epicurus
“Time is the coin of your life. It is the only coin you have, and only you can determine how it will be spent. Be careful lest you let other people spend it for you.”
- Carl Sandburg
A. A Few Things Worth Checking Out
1. Why Is Everyone Anxious?
It feels like nearly everyone is struggling with it in some form, but where does it come from, and what are the most effective ways to manage it or overcome it completely?
Martha Beck is a sociologist, life coach, and an author. She’s done great work on anxiety, including Beyond Anxiety, The Way of Integrity and Finding Your Own Northstar.
She spoke to Chris Williamson at Modern Wisdom.
The 5 BIG IDEAS:
Your Anxiety is a Time Traveler - And It's Always Lying. Think of anxiety as a ghost that's never actually in the room with you. While healthy fear responds to real danger right now (like a lion chasing you), anxiety is your brain spinning horror stories about imaginary futures or rehashing past events. As Mark Twain perfectly put it: "I'm an old man and have lived through many troubles, but most of them never happened." When you're anxious, you're literally being haunted by events that don't exist in this moment.
You're Living with Stone Age Software in a Digital World. Our brains evolved with a "negativity bias" that made our ancestors notice the saber-tooth tiger instead of the beautiful sunset - because the sunset wouldn't kill them. But now this same wiring makes us scroll past 15 positive posts to fixate on one upsetting news story. Social media algorithms exploit this perfectly, feeding us more fear because that's what holds our attention longest. We're running ancient software that's completely overwhelmed by modern life.
Stop Fighting Your Inner Scared Puppy. Here's Beck's game-changing insight: anxiety isn't a broken machine to fix - it's a frightened animal to comfort. Imagine finding a terrified, shivering puppy on your doorstep. You wouldn't yell at it to stop being scared, right? You'd speak softly, move slowly, and show kindness. Beck's "KIST" technique (Kind Internal Self-Talk) means talking to your anxious parts like that scared puppy: "I've got you. You're safe. I'm here." It's not about silencing anxiety - it's about befriending it.
Your Right Brain is Your Secret Escape Hatch. When anxiety takes over, you're trapped in your left brain - the part that loves to analyze, measure, and catastrophize. Beck discovered that activities engaging your right brain are like magic keys to freedom: drawing with your non-dominant hand, walking in nature, surfing, rock climbing, even writing your name backwards. These activities literally can't be done while anxious - they demand presence. It's why people become "addicted" to skiing or surfing; they're accessing a fundamentally different way of being.
Permission to Be "Unproductive" Might Save Your Life Our culture treats rest like laziness, but Beck argues it's revolutionary medicine. She prescribes four days of pure "uselessness" - lying on the couch, eating ice cream, watching trashy TV - until creativity naturally bubbles up again. Even more radical: only do things you genuinely enjoy. When you force yourself through activities you hate, your body responds as if you're lying to yourself, creating the same stress response that feeds anxiety and chronic illness. Sometimes the most productive thing you can do is absolutely nothing.
Wishing you freedom.
2. John Arnold On Trading, Energy and Edge
John Arnold is an American billionaire. In 2007, Arnold became the youngest billionaire in the U.S. His firm, Centaurus Advisors, LLC, was a Houston-based hedge fund specializing in trading energy products that closed in 2012. Centaurus had an average annualized return in excess of 100% across this 10 year run!
He spoke to Tyler Cowen in a great and deep conversation about Trading, Energy and Edge.
The 5 BIG IDEAS:
The "Inch Wide, Mile Deep" Paradox: Why Extreme Specialization Beats Diversification: Arnold made billions by doing the opposite of what finance textbooks teach. While everyone preaches diversification, he deliberately narrowed his focus to just North American gas and power, turning down "numerous opportunities" to expand into oil, metals, or agriculture. This created a paradox: the deeper he went into his niche, the more he understood that others didn't understand, giving him an almost unfair advantage. But specialization has a dark side - after 17 years, his intellectual curiosity "started to sag" because he'd mastered his domain. The lesson: extreme focus can create extraordinary returns, but you must recognize when your edge is eroding and have the courage to walk away at your peak.
The Evidence Trap: Why More Data Makes You Know Less When Arnold first entered philanthropy, he assumed his analytical trading skills would transfer easily. Instead, he discovered a disturbing truth: "the more I read, the less I knew about what worked in the world." The problem wasn't lack of studies but an epidemic of fake certainty. Everyone - funders, researchers, universities, journals, media - gets rewarded for finding positive results, creating a massive bias toward publishing anything that seems to work. This insight extends far beyond philanthropy. In our data-saturated world, the ability to distinguish signal from noise matters more than access to information. True expertise means understanding not just what the data says, but why it might be lying to you.
The Infrastructure Blindness: How Historical Accidents Shape Modern Possibilities. America's energy system reveals a profound truth about how the past constrains the future in invisible ways. We have three separate electrical grids not because of geography or engineering, but because of decisions made in 1882 and 1935. New York got electricity first, Texas chose independence to avoid federal regulation, and nobody lived in the plains to connect them. Now, a century later, these arbitrary historical choices limit our ability to efficiently distribute renewable energy. This "path dependence" operates everywhere - in cities where street layouts from horse-and-buggy days determine traffic patterns, in software where early coding decisions constrain future features. Understanding these hidden constraints is often more valuable than optimizing within them.
The Reversion Paradox: Why Almost Nothing Permanently Changes Human Behavior. Perhaps Arnold's most sobering discovery is that "it's very hard to get people off of their baseline for the long term." Job training programs work for six months, then people drift back. Education interventions show promise, then fade. Addiction treatments create temporary improvement, then relapse occurs. This isn't just about social programs - it's a fundamental insight about human nature that applies to everything from corporate culture change to personal habits. The implications are profound: sustainable change requires either addressing root causes or creating systems that continuously reinforce new behaviors. One-time interventions, no matter how well-designed, rarely create lasting transformation.
The Emotional Edge: Why Detachment Beats Intelligence in High-Stakes Games Arnold's trading success came not from being the smartest person in the room, but from achieving what he calls "detachment from emotion." While others let fear and greed distort their judgment, he developed systematic processes that worked regardless of how he felt. This emotional discipline extended to walking away from billions in potential earnings when he sensed his passion fading - a decision that would be impossible for someone psychologically attached to the game. This principle reveals something counterintuitive about peak performance: in fields with immediate feedback and high stakes, systematic thinking and emotional control matter more than raw intelligence or effort. The best performers don't feel less; they just don't let feelings drive their decisions.
3. Tudor Jones on AI and Markets
Paul Tudor Jones, founder of Tudor Investment Corp spoke to "Bloomberg Open Interest” in a conversation covering AI, The Next Fed Chair, The Economy and Government Policy.
The 5 BIG IDEAS:
A Steepening Yield Curve Is the Next Big Trade: The U.S. is heading toward sharply lower short-term interest rates — driven by political pressure and the likely appointment of a highly dovish Fed Chair under a second Trump administration. This makes a steepening yield curve one of the most asymmetric macro bets available. Investors positioned long the short end (expecting cuts) and short the long end (expecting deficits to pressure yields) could benefit from a slow but powerful shift in rates dynamics.
The U.S. Is in a Debt Trap — And Inflation Is the Exit Strategy: With debt-to-GDP above 100% and annual deficits locked above 6%, the U.S. government has few options but to pursue financial repression: suppress real interest rates while allowing inflation to run modestly hot. This mirrors post-WWII tactics and is already visible in fiscal policy. The implications for investors are clear: expect structurally lower real yields and a weaker U.S. dollar. Gold, Bitcoin (volatility-adjusted), and hard assets become essential hedges in this regime.
Equities Have a Tactical Tailwind — But the Ceiling Is Lower: Despite long-term structural risks, equities may continue to rise in the short term, buoyed by falling rates, policy inertia, and investor complacency around deficits. The current environment is described as “kayfabe” — a collective suspension of disbelief where everyone knows the fiscal picture is unsustainable, but no one acts. As long as rates fall and inflation stays contained, equity markets may climb. But a future reckoning — led by bond or FX markets — would force a repricing.
AI Is the Most Disruptive Force Since the Internet — and It's Just Getting Started: AI is radically transforming financial modeling, collapsing the moat around quantitative investing and creating major efficiency gains across sectors. He sees AI democratizing alpha generation and creating productivity leaps — especially in education and white-collar workflows. But the upside comes with fragility: potential 20% unemployment, mass job displacement, and no regulatory guardrails. Investors must weigh explosive growth against social and systemic risk.
Capitalism Without Redistribution Will Break — Especially in an AI Economy: Without a plan to equitably distribute the coming productivity boom from AI, social unrest and political instability will grow. The investment takeaway: long-term policy shifts are inevitable. Markets that rely on stable political frameworks will eventually reprice if inequality and instability go unaddressed.
4. The Case for U.S. Industrial Policy
Demetri Kofinas at Hidden Forces spoke with Ian Fletcher, one of America’s foremost experts on industrial policy, about the problems with free trade and how to revitalize the U.S. economy.
Ian Fletcher is one of America’s foremost experts on the problems of free trade and the promise of industrial policy, predicting the demise of the former as early as 2007.
He was Senior Economist for the Coalition for a Prosperous America (CPA) from 2010 to 2012 and is currently a member of its Advisory Board. (CPA is a nationwide grass-roots organization dedicated to fixing America’s trade and industrial policies and comprising representatives from business, agriculture, and labor. It is the only organization that represents exclusively American manufacturers, not the multinationals, and family farmers rather than Big Ag.)
Prior to his time at CPA, he was a Research Fellow at the U.S. Business and Industry Council, an economist in private practice, and an IT consultant. His latest book, written with Marc Fasteau and titled “Industrial Policy for the United States: Winning the Competition for Good Jobs and High-Value Industries”, was published by Cambridge University Press in January 2025.
The 5 BIG IDEAS:
Critique of Free Trade Economics: Ian Fletcher critiques the long-standing economic orthodoxy that promotes free trade as universally beneficial. He argues that this ideology, rooted in outdated theories like those of David Ricardo, ignores how trade affects national development over time. Fletcher emphasizes that free trade can weaken a country’s industrial base, reduce long-term prosperity, and accumulate debt—all while appearing to maximize short-term consumption.
Advocacy for Industrial Policy: He proposes a robust industrial policy as an alternative to laissez-faire economics. This means government interventions to identify, nurture, and protect strategic industries that provide good jobs, national security benefits, and technological leadership. According to Fletcher, not all industries are equal—making computer chips yields more long-term value than potato chips, and policy should reflect that.
Currency and Capital Flows: A critical factor in the failure of U.S. trade policy, Fletcher argues, is an overvalued dollar. While it makes imports cheaper, it also undermines exports, hollows out domestic manufacturing, and increases foreign ownership of U.S. assets. Fletcher advocates for managing the currency value, not by full devaluation, but by introducing tools like a market access tax to gradually bring trade into balance.
Innovation Requires State Involvement: Innovation, he says, doesn’t happen in a vacuum. Many of the world’s most transformative technologies—from the internet to jet engines—were originally funded by governments, particularly for military or health purposes. These innovations often take decades to become commercially viable and are too risky or unprofitable for private investors alone. Fletcher believes the state must play a long-term, risk-tolerant role in this innovation pipeline.
Historical and Global Evidence: Finally, Fletcher supports his arguments with historical and international case studies. He shows how nations like South Korea and China rose through deliberate, long-term industrial planning, while the U.S. itself used protectionist policies during its rise. In contrast, Argentina—once among the richest countries—failed to transition from agriculture to manufacturing, highlighting that prosperity depends not just on trade openness, but on strategic economic direction.
5. AI Is Smarter Than Us, What Do We Do About?
Economist and polymath Tyler Cowen spoke with Azeem Azhar challenging Silicon Valley's optimistic projections about AI-driven economic growth. They explore what might slow down AI's economic impact, despite its remarkable capabilities – and where humans find the new normal amidst major shifts.
The 5 BIG IDEAS:
Intelligence is no longer the frontier—adaptation is: AI is already outthinking most of us. It composes music with nuance, debates economics with fluency, and serves as a better research assistant than most tenured faculty. And yet—remarkably little has changed. Why? Because the limit isn’t intelligence; it’s the sluggish pace of human systems. Bureaucracies creak, institutions stall, and the real challenge of the AI era is not invention but integration. We’ve built gods—but still worship workflows.
The AI revolution will be slow-burn, not big bang: Forget the fantasy of AI delivering 20% annual growth overnight. The real story is subtler: a long, grinding addition of 0.5% to GDP year after year—enough to remake the world over two decades, but too gradual to feel like a revolution. What’s holding us back? A tangle of aging populations, timid employers, regulatory sclerosis, and global deglobalization. Progress isn’t cancelled. It’s just on hold, waiting for the old world to step aside.
The real disruption is existential, not economic: AI won’t just replace jobs—it will rewrite meaning. Already, younger generations turn to chatbots for emotional guidance, identity navigation, even spiritual reassurance. The technology isn’t just a tool. It’s becoming a mirror, a confidant, a companion. This is not an economic shift—it’s a civilizational one. If schools and universities don’t evolve, they won’t just become obsolete—they’ll become alienating, producing graduates out of sync with their own futures.
The next AI superpowers may not be who you expect: The geopolitical map is being redrawn in real time. While the West dithers in regulation and nostalgia, the Gulf states are building AI infrastructure with oil-funded ambition and state-driven velocity. Africa, armed with mobile devices and curiosity, may leapfrog a century of institutional failure. The new industrial revolution won’t be coal-fired—it’ll be cloud-hosted. Geography, latency, and vision now matter more than legacy.
The battle ahead is not for code, but for conscience: AI doesn’t ask permission—it just embeds itself. It reshapes culture, accelerates time, and turns social defaults into obsolete rituals. In a world where intelligence is cheap and ubiquitous, what matters most is what we choose to protect: free expression, pluralism, democratic restraint, human dignity. We must defend these not as nostalgic values, but as the core architecture of a world still worth inhabiting. The machines may out-think us. But they cannot out-care us—unless we forget how.
B. Your Money Or Your Life
How often do you think about money? Is it a source of stress in your life?
One of the experts that has helped me and came highly recommended is Nadjeschda Taranczewski.
She is a psychologist and executive coach, with expertise in guiding, exploring and dismantling your unconscious narrative around money that keeps you locked in unhealthy patterns of saving, spending and investing.
I’ve asked her to present to a few of us in a 90-min workshop on June 23rd 1130am ET / 430pm UK, covering:
The three types of money addictions and their consequences,
Processes to reflect about your personal relationship to money,
Deeply connect with others around the taboo topic of money.
During the workshop, we will explore questions such as:
What would happen if you stopped being afraid of having too little or too much money?
Why does money show up as a source of conflict?
How can you invest money with love and what difference does it make?
To know more about this approach, here are a few resources to consider before the workshop:
Read: Tom Morgan on the Real Value of Money.
Watch: Short introduction to money work by Nadja.
For confidentiality reasons, we will not allow AI note takers.
Numbers limited to 30 people, we are at 25 now. 1st priority goes to The Brain Trust.
I recommend joining.
C. The Science and Technology Section:
1. What Investors Are Overlooking in AI & Semis
Val Zlatev, Portfolio Manager and Senior Partner at hard tech specialist hedge fund Analog Century Capital Management discusses what he thinks investors still fail to appreciate about the secular growth of AI and semiconductors.
He also discusses why DeepSeek was so misunderstood, other aspects of the AI supply chain, the state of the analog chip cycle, running long/short and market neutral strategies and garnering interest from the large multi-manager platforms.
The 5 BIG IDEAS:
AI’s trajectory is not another dot-com story: While many investors draw parallels between today’s AI surge and the 2000 tech crash, this wave resembles the cloud computing buildout post-2010: methodical, capital-heavy, and driven by hyperscalers with real cash flows and enterprise demand. Capex is growing year after year, not peaking.
Hard tech is underappreciated and mispriced: Semiconductors have quietly outperformed since 2015, yet most investors remain underweight due to the sector’s perceived cyclicality and steep learning curve. Unlike SaaS, hard tech requires deep domain knowledge across fragmented supply chains—a barrier that keeps alpha accessible.
Moore’s Law is slowing—and that’s bullish: With transistor scaling hitting physical limits, capacity growth is now expensive and time-consuming. That curbs the historical boom-bust supply cycles. $50 billion fabs don’t spring up overnight, making semis structurally tighter, less volatile, and more investable than in prior decades.
We are still early in the AI capex cycle: The buildout is in year two of what’s likely a multi-decade investment trend. Major cloud and enterprise buyers are not speculating—they’re responding to demand. Inference costs are collapsing 5–10× annually, unlocking more use cases and driving a self-reinforcing cycle of infrastructure demand.
Not every “AI” stock is the real deal: Many public companies tout AI to chase capital flows, but few have true exposure. The beneficiaries are infrastructure names with pricing power and demand visibility—Nvidia, networking providers, and advanced semiconductor suppliers. The rest—especially PC, smartphone, and storage players—are more noise than signal.
Believe it or not, that “♡ Like” button is a big deal – it serves as a proxy to new visitors of this publication’s value. If you got value out of reading, please let others know!
Regarding Martha Beck 4th Bullet: I'm "addicted" to playing ice hockey a few times a week and this effect works very well because you can't do anything besides focus on playing. Keeps you in a good mood all week.
An essential read every time. Thank you