weekend notes

Hope all goes well… “Imagine what government agencies could look like in 4yrs,” wrote an X employee as a caption for two images, presented side-by-side [here]. On the left was a SpaceX Raptor engine from 2020, the mechanics of it a jumbled mess, wildly intricate, but still impressive, functional. On the right was the 2024 version of that same Raptor engine, its mechanics simple, sleek, as elegant

Anecdote: “No longer than a year,” said the young programmer, a proud Persian. His colleagues nodded in agreement. I had asked how much longer Ayatollah Khamenei and his regime would remain in power. Reformists had won a parliamentary majority only to have the conservative-controlled Guardian Council, judiciary, and Supreme Leader limit their ability to enact meaningful reforms. Student protests w

Hope all goes well… “When anyone studies a little or pays a little attention to the rules of Islamic government, Islamic politics, Islamic society and Islamic economy he will realize that Islam is a very political religion,” said Ayatollah Khomeini, Iran’s first Supreme Leader, sometime back before his death in 1989. “Anyone who will say that religion is separate from politics is a fool; he does n

Anecdote: “Peace through strength,” said Hadrian, generally viewed as one of the Five Good Emperors, during his rule from 117-138 AD. Rather than expand the Roman Empire, Hadrian sought to consolidate it, strengthen its borders. He built the now unnecessary wall separating England and Scotland. And unlike his predecessors who relied on field reports, Hadrian spent half of his rule traveling the em

Hope all goes well… “Our packs, vests, guns, and ammo were over 100lbs, and that was before the water crossings,” said Jackson, back from the field, tired, wired. “At 3am our position came under fire, simulated mortars, machine guns, insanely loud, chaotic, and we had minutes to move.” The Basic School, Marines. Quantico, Virginia. “We learned about the five V’s. The crotch V, armpits, and the V s

Anecdote: “It’s not the mindset of an emerging market. It’s the mindset of an emerging superpower,” said one of the greatest macro investors of all time to me, his eager protege. This time, it was China’s FX revaluation making the headlines – not the investor’s famous predictions of devaluations in the past. “The world mistakes China as ideological. 1979 marked the shift to pragmatism,” he c

Hope all goes well… Spent the past few days at The Nantucket Project, a unique gathering with a worthy mission, started by a buddy from my Brown days, a fellow entrepreneur who came to appreciate the importance of storytelling. Its power to propel us forward. But markets didn’t take a time out. Nor did Xi Jinping, who hit a breaking point and announced an abrupt policy U-turn, not unlike his late-

Anecdote: I could feel the altitude today. Felt good. Just a little more alive, alert, grinding my way up from the valley floor to some minor peak, the Tetons in the distance. Fifteen of us climbed the Grand Teton this past July, family, friends, guides. One of the great pleasures of climbing mountains is to return to the valley and forever remember the moment you stood at that summit; arms stretc

Hope all goes well… Whirlwind tour of Australia, California too. There’s increasing talk about a growing strategy amongst the world’s largest allocators. A total portfolio approach to investing. We presented two illuminating whitepapers related to the topic that Patrick Kazley on my team published: Convexity, Correlation, and Compounding [here], and The Convexity (Re)Balancing Act [here]. Talked c