weekend notes

Human imagination is the most powerful force in the universe. It is the greatest single thing separating us from other creatures. There is no higher power. Our ability to conceive of a tomorrow that is better than today is a precondition for discovery, invention. And these two things quite naturally stack, compound. Their summation has lifted us from the Stone Age to the space station. The journey

Hope all goes well… Merry Christmas, Happy Hanukkah. To you and your families. Resurrected one of my favorite little family memories, an opening note from Christmas past… Christmas Day 2013: Santa slipped down the chimney. Left boot prints in the ash that spilled across our hearth. And the jolly fella stuffed stockings. Built a train set too. Sprinkled magic everywhere. Moments before the kiddies

Hope all goes well… Dusted off an Jan 2011 anecdote I was thinking about when Bloomberg broke the story this week about our launch of One River Digital Asset Management (see below). I’ll be spending December writing a longer piece on something disruptive, emerging, important. Something digital. All the best, E Week-in-Review (expressed in YoY terms): Mon: US begins administering Pfizer’s vaccine,

Hope all goes well… “Dad, Dad, Dad, come now!!!!” screamed Charlie, racing into my office Saturday night. I closed my laptop, took off the headphones, music cranking, thinking, working. All sorts of commotion filled the house, we ran downstairs. Jackson had surprised us, returning unannounced, managing to come home directly from the Army/Navy football game. His first-time back since July 1st. Mara

Hope all goes well… Dusted off a Jan 2018 anecdote about the reflexivity in volatility markets (see below). It’s something I think about when tracking cycle phases. Of course, the cycle that started in early 2020 is unique relative to anything seen for decades. The unprecedented policy response to the pandemic has forced investors to now build portfolios of risk assets without being able to rely o

Hope all goes well… Dusted off a Jan 2018 anecdote about crowds and counterintuition (see below). It’s something I think about during booms, to maintain balance, mental preparedness. Time to start thinking in ways we haven’t. 2020 changed the world. The coming ten years will be profoundly different from the past decade. It’s hard to imagine a more exciting environment for the game we all play R

“A night sky, dancing with stars,” said Charlie in the kitchen, reciting his latest poetic creation. He’s produced a few at this point, online learning assignments. Mara flagged the first one, surprised by what he’d written, and ever since, I tuned in. She and I love words, their endless combinations. If well engineered, the most wonderful ideas and images form, blend, bend, magic. “A river, full

Hope all goes well… “Tens of thousands of sailors and Marines are deployed forward at the tip of the spear and will be celebrating Thanksgiving to the best of their abilities with their shipmates, their fellow Marines,” said Vice Admiral Sean Buck via video feed, announcing a complete US Naval Academy lockdown, no home leave for his young men and women. Mara and I sighed, Jackson’s siblings too. “

It was a decade of great change. Some blamed its start on the pandemic, which of course was a catalyst. But more than that, the virus was a mirror. In another time and place, perhaps we would’ve seen the same image; a common people under siege, setting aside differences, rising to a noble calling. But in 2020, we each saw what we wanted to see, heard what we wanted to hear, believed what we wanted