weekend notes

Anecdote: I love survival stories. Nothing good ever happens to dead people, so it seems worthwhile to study the art of enduring. That’s naturally a metaphor for trading, investing, business building too. So, I think about it a lot, and remind my team of its importance, particularly in periods of volatility, shifting sands, great change. Laurence Gonzales wrote a book called ‘Deep Survival, Who Li

Hope all goes well… “Diversity is our strength,” said Pete Hegseth in a recent town hall at the Pentagon. “That is the single dumbest phrase in military history,” continued the US Secretary of Defense, presiding over 2.8mm active-duty, reserve, National Guard, and civilian personnel. The US pendulum is swinging hard. It is far too early to know where it will take the country, and with it, the worl

Anecdote: Headed straight up. Skis on, skinning, the snow hard, air cold, a blue sky. Ascending at altitude is always difficult with sea level lungs, but there’s no better way to acclimatize. Heart pounding, lungs burning, thoughts swirling, movement allows us to think clearly, see vividly. At 1000 feet up I turned to look out, Tetons in the distance, the valley floor vast, for the most part untou

Hope all goes well… “Hardest thing I’ve ever done,” said Teddy, recovering from the Norwegian Ruck March. The tradition started within Norway’s military in 1915. Cadets march/run an 18.6-mile course with 1,400 feet of elevation, carrying a 25lb pack, body armor, water. Timed. All for bragging rights and a little pin. They did it late Friday night in the rain. “Wouldn’t be able to graduate without

Anecdote: “The Strategic Asset Allocation approach to institutional investing has dominated for decades,” said Lone Star, passing another couple Ivy’s in the annual performance league tables. “In the coming 5-10 years it’s going to be replaced almost entirely by the Total Portfolio approach,” he said, talking my book, and anchoring the launch of our new Total Portfolio fund. “Optimizing across you

Hope all goes well… “Builders make the most money,” I said at the luncheon, high in some tower, looking out over Dallas. “That’s why I’m sitting here today,” said the entrepreneur to my left, confident, smiling. “If you’re not building a company, the next best thing is to own equity,” I said to the oil, gas, tech execs, family offices. We discussed the new administration, geopolitics, markets, ris

Hope all goes well… Dusted off an anecdote from 2021 about youth, technology, and what real revolutions look like (see below). Back next Sunday with full weekend notes. All the very best, E Week-in-Review: Mon: ECB chief economist warns “inflation could materially fall below target”. Incoming Energy Secretary in Trump administration expresses support for all forms of energy, including wind and sol

Anecdote: “I’ve been here all my life, never left, and I’m not leaving now,” she said. It was 2008, Santa Barbara, California. She was our neighbor, an old widow, kind, stubborn, proud. “I’ll be fine, but you all get going. I’ll be here when you get back,” she said, waving me off. Mara had packed our four kids in the car, flames in the hills, the sky blood red, our car covered in white ash. “Ask h

Hope all goes well… “I was really worried from the beginning about becoming this sort of decider of what is true in the world,” said Mark Zuckerberg. “That’s kind of a crazy position to be in for billions of people using your service,” continued Meta’s CEO, racing to adopt Musk’s approach to crowdsourced fact-checking on X. Zuckerberg is moving content moderation people to Texas to address user’s