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Anecdote: “If the fresh skin of an animal, cleaned and divested of all hair, fat, and other extraneous matter, be immersed in a dilute solution of tannic acid, a chemical combination ensues,” said Liv, the two of us walking, her first year done. Cadets are required to commit all sorts of passages to memory. They must be able to recite them at any moment and are inevitably called to do so when standing at attention, h

Hope all goes well… “Always knew he was special,” said the father. “But when he was 8 and raced around the track, I’d hear others say there was something special about him,” he said. “Guess they saw what I saw.” I was at Silverstone in the UK, watching the Formula One race, and had the privilege to spend the weekend with the parents of a driver, a young man, confident, humble, superstar. “I’d help work on his engine

Anecdote: “We rarely understand the true source of our success,” said the investor, a serial entrepreneur, a remarkable success. “And having made that first error, we then often extrapolate the misunderstanding forward,” he continued, the two of us catching up, exploring business, life, the struggle. “This leaves us disconnected from what made us great. And we then attempt to live up to an image of what we think othe

Hope all goes well… “What I come back to is almost embarrassingly simple,” said the London banker, high atop one of the global behemoths. “I think we’ve lived through the golden age of private equity and all types of long duration strategies,” he said. “Holding rates at zero, or negative for that matter, was always going to result in massive capital misallocation.” We see the consequences popping up here and there. “

Hope all goes well… “Okay Teddy, here’s the thing,” I said. “If you were still under my roof and this happened, I’d have you run 100 miles.” A few years ago, when he’d been chronically absentminded, I had him run 3.25miles every morning in January to clear his mind. We’d wake up at 5:30am and do it together. “The only difference is that someone else will be making you run, and I won’t have to do it with you.” We were

Anecdote: “Important developments are rapidly unfolding in digital asset markets,” I said at Coinbase’s State of Crypto Summit in NYC, The Times Center packed, buzzing. “Following the SEC lawsuit that led sentiment to hit another a moment of extreme pessimism, good things are happening.” That’s how markets work. Digital asset prices bottomed out in November when FTX collapsed, then jumped 100%. Prices fell 20% into t

`Hope all goes well… “The history of mankind hasn’t yet seen the largest arsenal of nuclear weapons under control by bandits,” said Dmitry Medvedev, deputy head of Russia’s Security Council, broadcast across the nation, but clearly intended for foreign audiences. “Such a crisis will not be limited by just one country’s borders, the world will be put on the brink of destruction,” said the Putin puppet. US Secretary of

Anecdote: “We put on airtight bio warfare suits and entered this one room building with our squad,” she said, the two of us out for a long walk. “The room was filled with tear gas. It was hot. There were two girls in camo, tank tops, bare skin. They weren’t wearing gas masks. They were huge, totally jacked, screaming orders,” said my girl. “A few percent of people are pretty much immune to tear gas, they discover the

Hope all goes well… “Chair Powell, what’s the value in pausing and signaling future hikes versus just hiking now?” asked Nick Timiraos from the WSJ. “I mean, not to be flippant, but I don’t lose weight just by buying a gym membership; I have to actually go to the gym,” continued the reporter, as his colleagues in the press corps looked on in awe, praying to someday engineer such a perfect question, delivered so casua

Anecdote: “The internet now carries the flag of being subversive, possibly rebellious, chaotic, nihilistic,” said David Bowie in a 1999 BBC interview [here]. “I embrace the idea that there is a new demystification process going on between artist and audience,” continued the visionary, peering over the horizon, glimpsing a world of peer-to-peer connection, synergy, exchange. “Up until the mid-1970s, we were still livi