Marvin’s Best Weekly Reads March 2nd, 2025
“Wisdom Comes with Winters”--Oscar Wilde
Understanding the government debt cycle and the global macro and micro implications. This is an important discussion.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1_rvVTuGRNE
"And now, at the tender age of 21, Xs has already secured $17.5 million in committed capital for his first solo fund from backers like Marc Andreessen, Chris Dixon, Kevin Hartz, Josh Wolfe, and Lux Capital, and anchored by fund of funds Nomads.
In the immediate term, Xs is taking an aggressive approach with his fund, aiming to write checks to 15 companies that would make up 80% of the fund’s capital. Through those positions, he’s aiming to secure 1% of a $10 billion company. He’s looking for founders that he says are “out of distribution,” which he defines as people that have endured extreme hardship, who are very neurodivergent, or people who take an “activist approach” to existential problems.
In the longer term, Xs has considerably more ambitious plans than just venture investing. He wants to grow out a number of business lines, including venture index funds, providing venture credit, and rolling up companies with a buy-and-build model."
https://techcrunch.com/2024/12/13/how-21-year-old-koko-xs-became-the-new-rising-star-solo-vc/
I so love Japan. Been to Kobe, Kanazawa, Fukuoka & Beppu. Will put other places on the list.
https://www.afar.com/magazine/beautiful-places-to-visit-in-japan-besides-tokyo
"The lessons learned are numerous, but can be summarized in two statements:
For many investors who want to have great returns over the long run, the U.S. is the only market you should invest in.
For experienced investors who understand market cycles and want outsized returns, international investing must be part of your strategy."
https://codyshirk.com/least-expensive-markets-in-the-world-2025/
"I doubt we go back to the heady pre-WWII days when gold made up 80-90% of reserves - money was not fiat then - but you can see the trend is very much up. It has been for 10 years now. The percentage has doubled in that time. I see no reason why it can't double again in the next ten years. 40 % of reserves held in gold seems like a reasonable number, a conservative number.
Nations are, says Nieuwenhuijs, "obviously preparing for a multipolar world in which the dollar's role as a reserve asset will be gently reduced."
You can look at all this and describe the process as natural and sensible asset allocation: diversification away from other government currencies, especially the US dollar.
Or you can proclaim that other nations are preparing to abandon the dollar and for a new gold standard. It's probably about 80% former and 20% latter. That may well change - but we are not there yet.
While nations might not be so much abandoning the dollar as they are simply increasing their gold holdings, they, are, however, reducing their holdings of US Treasuries. De-dollarisation and diversification."
https://www.theflyingfrisby.com/p/preparing-for-a-new-economic-era
"As we navigate this perilous moment, we should cultivate knowledge about influences of the past, while also being open to the electrifying and often terrifying realities of the present. For as the old cliché goes, history often rhymes but seldom repeats."
https://america2.news/americas-future-in-four-maps/
"“Global natives” isn’t yet a mainstream term, but it describes something millions of people are already living. Rather than being defined by where they come from, global natives are shaped by how they view the world and how they move through it. We're a diaspora born not of displacement, but of connection; an emerging group of people untethered from geography, finding home in the overlapping threads of cultures, ideas, and technology.
We belong everywhere and nowhere at once, weaving connections across the world while living on the internet and working across borders. We gather offline in coworking spaces, coliving hubs, and pop-up villages, shaping a world not constrained by the systems of the past, but alive with the possibilities of the present."
https://globalnatives.substack.com/p/what-is-a-global-native-anyway
"Indeed, we seem to be veering in the same direction as some conflict and post-conflict societies, where the economy almost always transitions away from long-term to short-term profits. The teacher of English becomes a taxi-driver or a fixer for foreign journalists, the legitimate businessman a smuggler. Notoriously, in Afghanistan farmers moved from cultivating wheat to cultivating poppy, because it was quick to grow and promised big profits, when you could not be sure whether your village would be there, or even if you would be alive, in a year’s time.
It’s not too great a stretch of the imagination to suggest that we are seeing a minor key version of that in the West today. Why, after all, invest in training and education for a job that soon may not exist, in an industry that may simply fold up? Why choose expensive medical training when everything may soon be done by machines? For that matter, why bother to become an expert musician when music will soon be produced completely by machines, and there won’t even be a need for conductors?
As I’ve suggested, the West is increasingly consuming itself, its past and its culture, as much as it is recycling everything that can be sold for a quick profit. But why is this, when it was not so even a few generations ago? If we can answer that question we will also, perhaps, begin to appreciate why it is so hard for modern western culture to understand the mentality of those who think beyond the next five minutes.
Closing factories and reducing R and D spending makes short-term economic sense to those who take the decisions, and among those who don’t take the decisions there is no coherent economic theory to explain why it’s a bad idea, since that requires understanding of the long term, and of the principle of the collective interest. But looting the assets of a company for which you won’t be working in five years’ time is in fact entirely rational behaviour if you accept certain prior assumptions.
As a consequence, western decision-makers and pundits find themselves completely unable to understand what has been going on in, say China, for the last generation, and, where they deign to notice it, they imagine that the negative consequences for the West can be avoided by short-term gimmicks such as sanctions and tariffs. Even when they talk about “rebuilding” this or that capability, usually through tricks such as tax reliefs, it is clear they have no real idea what they are talking about."
https://aurelien2022.substack.com/p/the-long-run
Geopolitics from the view of a commodities tycoon. It's gonna be a rough next decade.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yOB899-_y8c&t=1s
"Ultimately, it benefits the entrepreneur to zoom in and focus on the use case that both fits their vision and has the potential to build the foundation of a business that matches their ambition. Entrepreneurs would do well to start unbelievably narrow, nail it, and then expand. Starting small is the way to go big."
https://davidcummings.org/2025/02/01/incredibly-narrow-to-start/
"Living and working abroad gave me another crucial insight: how difficult it is to build a great business in France. Through my travels and international work, I saw how different regulatory environments, market structures, and competitive dynamics influenced business success. In the U.S. and Asia, scaling up and securing capital often seemed easier. In contrast, successful French companies had to operate in a more challenging environment—making the ones that thrived even more impressive.
This reinforced my belief that great French companies often have something extra: stronger fundamentals, a more disciplined approach, and leadership that knows how to navigate complexity."
https://buildingthingsthatlast.substack.com/p/how-my-journey-shaped-my-investment
"What happens when a boomer small business owner wants to retire, but their kids don’t want to take it over? This is as much of a pain point for the aforementioned wealth managers, as it is to my mother, who runs her own medical practice.
For many Plan A is to shut down. So is Plan B.
We believe that over the next ten years, millions of businesses across the world will grapple with generational transfer and the silver tsunami in the coming decade."
https://99tech.alexlazarow.com/p/how-technology-will-power-generational
"Mountains were poor, infertile. They would constantly generate a large population surplus they could not really feed. And that population surplus had to find a way to live off the lowlanders somehow. Highlanders would travel down to sell their labor as the agricultural workers, as the builders of Gothic cathedrals, or as the mercenaries of the lowland kings. Highland countries were the mercenary countries."
https://kamilkazani.substack.com/p/on-the-origins-of-napoleon-bonaparte
"Just like any act of allocation; you're allocating a finite resource. And your time is a finite resource. So, as a venture investor, you have a finite amount of time and attention that you have to allocate to finding, picking, winning, or supporting. And you can say "I'm just going to be a good Finder," but if that's your approach you better (1) be at a firm with good pickers, winners, and supporters, and (2) be at a firm that is willing to let you just be a good Finder.
You likely can't be the best in the world at Finding, Picking, Winning, AND Supporting. But you won't survive if you're not at least passable at some of them, and you won't succeed in the long-run if you're not exceptional in at least 2-3 of them. That's the Funder's Dilemma."
https://investing101.substack.com/p/the-four-pillars-of-venture-investing
One of the best and most detailed teardown of the Deepseek saga. And implications for all the big players and AI in general.
https://www.readtrung.com/p/deepseek-links-and-memes-so-many
"It’s also a big part of how we interact with AI systems. The way we think, talk, and use AI today is modeled on our understanding of humans. That’s natural, and even useful, in the initial stages of adopting a new technology—but you could say we’re living in the “horseless carriage” era of AI. What comes next, the enduring applications of AI, will look different. Let’s call them “AI-native.” These capabilities can only emerge when we stop trying to replicate human intelligence, and start exploring what makes AI unique."
https://every.to/learning-curve/the-problem-with-human-like-ai
"If you’re serious about giving this whole freedom-of-choice lifestyle a crack, here are the 6 steps I recommend.
1. Leverage the experts. If you can’t be bothered diving deeply into investment theses yourself, subscribe to those who do it for you and learn from their insights. For me, that’s Trader Ferg. I’m also pretty content with junior mining (South America focus) and Ferg’s style of investments, even though it’s a tough market at the moment (for both of those).
2. Learn to sell options. It’s a solid plan and a skill every investor should have in their toolkit.
3. Post on social media. Take it for what it is—it’s not everything, but it does open doors.
4. Choose your base wisely. Pick a low-cost, high-quality-of-life country with attractive women (if you’re a single bloke).
5. Be selective with your network. Don’t waste time with the wrong people or those obsessed with radical ideologies.
6. Start the residency process early. It takes time, so the sooner you get the ball rolling, the better.
Here’s one thing I can’t shake: once you’ve got everything set up, the taxes you’d fork out back home could actually cover your entire cost of living in South America. That’s the real way to get ahead financially!"
https://geologotrader.substack.com/p/a-guide-to-freedom-of-choice-in-south
"Historically, I’ve been negative on foundation models as a business because I think when you spend $1B to train a model that is only defensible for a couple of months, that’s not a good use of capital. But I am changing my tune because of Deepseek and other innovations like test time compute. When you can train high performing models in niche areas for much lower prices, it opens up a whole new world of business opportunities.
As the cost gets down to under $1M, expect to see an explosion in foundation models for various niches.
As an investor, you should be prepared to both invest in those foundation models, and the applications that can be built on top of them. The first areas to look are areas with lots of data but lagging in compute skills and infrastructure, but where humans can benefit a lot from access to an expert model. I’m diving into law, tax, healthcare, and insurance initially."
https://investinginai.substack.com/p/why-deepseek-will-drive-innovation
"So you might say Japan lost the first AI arms race because it wasn’t making arms at all. Japanese researchers were far more interested in “AI for social good” than they were in building weapons. Japan’s lack of a military-industrial complex (or at least one on any scale comparable to that of America or China) isn’t the only reason Japan failed to make a mark on post-ChatGPT AI (yet), but it’s a big factor.
None of this is to say Japan is out of the race for good. But hurdles remain. The country possesses a decided lack of “compute” compared to America and China. Supercomputers are needed to compile generative AI large language models. America and China have more than 150 each, many in the hands of private companies like Meta, Microsoft, and OpenAI. Japan has far fewer, and they’re mainly in the hands of governmental or academic institutions."
https://blog.pureinventionbook.com/p/why-didnt-japan-invent-generative
Timely global macro view.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hqA77hn1Gx8
"Today, I am the personification of imperfections…and I’m ok with that. I was speaking with one of my founders who was largely unaware of some of the things from my past and we opened up with each other about some of our imperfections. Reflecting upon that conversation, it’s clear that it’s our imperfections that make us who we are today. The mistakes we made and the subsequent challenges that each of us had to overcome from those, enabled us to arrive at the point we are at today. We got knocked down, but we got back up…and we keep getting up.
As I think about those that I interact with, that’s all that matters. It doesn’t matter if you are perfect (no one really is)…all that matters is that you keep getting up. The best founders always get back up."
https://newsletter.equal.vc/p/unperfect
"I keep on reminding myself, like Ethan Mollick says, AI is the worst it will ever be today."
https://www.sarahtavel.com/p/james-raybould-on-being-ai-forward
"So, by pressing relentlessly for tariffs and using the breathing room for companies created by them, McKinley rebuilt the American social contract and much for the better.
Before him, increasingly violent disagreements between labor and capital were spiraling out of control, even leading to gunfights between strikers and enforcers. His sane approach to rapprochement, however, meant that both when he was governor and when he was president, America entered a new period of prosperity in which unimaginably large fortunes were created as the country generally prospered. Meanwhile, the sort of out-of-control labor-capital battles that characterized the pre-McKinley period died down."
https://www.theamericantribune.news/p/mckinleys-tariffs-saved-america-trumps
"But for Canada the hard part will not be just the economic mess and uncertainty that it is now faced with. Yes, it will have to craft a strong economic response but it will also have to learn to not complain and finger point, but get to work and develop a long-term plan. It will mean a major overhaul of its economy. This will consist of first and foremost to unleash its natural resources for oil to gas to minerals. With the world’s third largest oil reserves, Canada for instance has the potential to be one of the wealthiest petro-states in the world.
At the same time it will have to finally take a stab at its archaic inner-provincial trade barriers, regulation and cut taxes across the board. Here in British Columbia mining has become next to impossible because of endless consultation processes. Canada has the natural resources, infrastructure and above all the brainpower to become an economic leader, but only if the political will is there. Yes there are environmental aspects and there will be a transition to greener economies over time, but it may take just a bit longer and in parallel Canadas has a very smart tech sector that can and will facilitate this uneasy journey. It will take time and effort though, but if Canada can unleash its real potential Americans will over time be begging to be part of it, again.
How it will all play out right now is hard to say and even smart economic minds have a hard time figuring out exactly the cost on both sides of the Canadian-US border as the relationship is so intricate. It may be part of the Trump mode to sow chaos in order to negotiate a few favourable items and then proclaim a win."
https://pieterdorsman.substack.com/p/trumps-tariffs
"There’s truth to the narrative that AI is the new platform & companies that embrace it are rewarded with lower costs of capital."
https://tomtunguz.com/private_valuations_2025/
"Tariffs are a powerful tool. They can incentivize desired behaviors and punish undesired behaviors. The mainstream narrative is full of misinformation and fear-mongering. It is always important to read source material, so you can think for yourself.
It was reported this morning that almost half of Canadian companies surveyed“plan to shift more investments and operations to the U.S. to mitigate potential tariffs and maintain market access.” As I have tried to point out in this letter, America’s tariffs will create a black hole that will suck investment dollars and business operations into the United States. If a business does not want to pay the tariffs, they can come build their products in America. If a consumer does not want to pay higher prices for tariffed goods, they can buy American made products.
Tariffs work and the United States is about to go on a big winning streak."
https://pomp.substack.com/p/welcome-to-the-tariff-era-the-truth
"Strategic interdiction focuses on targeting an adversary state’s war-industrial infrastructure, key domestic defense industries, supply chains, strategic transportation nodes, and related assets. Its primary objective is to disrupt the adversary’s military capabilities during deployment and pre-deployment stages, thereby reducing the aggregate war materials available to their forces.
The core logic behind such a campaign is simple: every piece of equipment and war-relevant material that never reaches the frontline is something that does not need to be destroyed there, saving critical manpower and equipment on the Ukrainian side.
To be clear, Ukraine has been pursuing a strategic interdiction campaign for approximately two years now, already achieving important results, such as reducing Russia’s oil refining capacity by an estimated 17 percent by July 2024. However, until now, Ukraine has lacked the ammunition necessary to conduct this type of strategic campaign at a larger scale. Given Ukraine’s drastic ramp-up in domestic missile and drone production and its ambitious goals, the attacks witnessed this week are an encouraging sign that Ukraine’s strategic interdiction campaign may spell more and more trouble for Russia in the months ahead."
https://missilematters.substack.com/p/ukraines-stratedic-interdiction-campaign
"This does not mean that missile defense is unnecessary or always a poor investment. The United States absolutely needs stronger missile defense capabilities for both theater deployment and homeland defense. However, pouring resources into strategic missile defense to counter large-scale nuclear attacks is a losing game that diverts funding from other, more pressing priorities.
For instance, in an Asia-Pacific contingency, the U.S. needs a robust missile defense system to counter Chinese cruise and ballistic missiles targeting forward-deployed bases and allies, including short-, medium-, and intermediate-range ballistic missiles. Effectively fulfilling this role requires greater investment in missile defense systems specifically optimized for this mission, including NASAMS, Patriot, Aegis, and THAAD."
https://missilematters.substack.com/p/trumps-missile-defense-plans-not
A masterclass on building a business for anyone and everyone. Seriously very helpful. So many insights here.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sFkR34AMPw8
A highly entertaining and insightful conversation on startups and the VC industry at the moment.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_Qq4p-Ce5bs&t=3419s
Anyone who has been paying attention should not be surprised. The CCP is ramping up their military and we need to treat them seriously.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GDcWLm_ltIk&t=1s
Harsh wake up call to the realities of Geopolitics for Europe. Important discussion here.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3pwGRoUbUPg
There are so many great insights on work and life from one of the smartest guys on the internet. Seth Godin.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yhc1sM2NnQY
"Global military advantage will depend on the ability to produce military products on a large scale at a competitive price—specifically, drones. The U.S. is not currently capable of this.
Ukraine is the only country in the Western world with a defense-industrial base that can rival China in both capacity and cost structure. Historically, Ukraine has always been a center for military development and component production, MITS Capital notes."
Always a good wrap up and discussion on the latest business news. These guys are smart.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s6CqyWeFHwM
The altruistic Pax Americana is over. Don't like it but here we are. A new world order and way of doing things.
"President Trump is leveraging the might of the American economy to obtain maximum leverage in trade negotiations, and it’s breaking all kinds of ideological paradigms. The president is utilizing raw geopolitical power and taking his patented approach of using publicity as a weapon. As commander in chief, he has preferred to negotiate deals in public (a move interpreted as having high integrity, which has helped shore up his base of support) or strategically deploy details to the media to create pressure or to make the deal look more favorable or urgent.
The president has continued to deploy his “The Art of the Deal” framework in negotiations over Greenland, Panama, Ukraine, and now, even Gaza, aiming to maximize his position for what he believes is the best possible outcome for the United States. He is throwing the corporate media and his political opponents in a constant state of madness, as they are seemingly unable or unwilling to explain and understand his negotiating style and strategy."
https://www.dossier.today/p/the-art-of-the-deal-trump-defies