On choices
If you don't tell your story, they will tell it for you. If you yourself don’t choose what thoughts and images you expose yourself to, someone else will.
On positive thinking
The thing about thinking positively is that the quality of your attention and the quality of your thoughts become who you are. You are what you pay attention to. You are also the narrative you tell yourself. And if your thoughts tell you that you are talented, lucky, that you deserve good things, that you can envision a great life and actually achieve what you envision, that you have great deep friendships and great deep family relationships, and that all the things you ever dreamt of you can achieve and that there's time, then you actually start to believe those things. Likewise every single negative thought that you have, you also start to believe, and these thoughts ripple. They ripple beyond your mind and your body into society because you take actions based on your thoughts. And those actions then become changes that occur in other people.
On wealth creation
For better or worse...
- Owning capital - a slice of a company, stocks, assets, real estate - that compounds over time is how to build wealth. You only build wealth by owning compounding assets. Your ability to invest - early and often - in compounding assets, is your ability to build wealth.
- Owning attention - compounding assets applies to the attention economy as well. Your media following is a lever you can pull to activate the attention of others. You want to show the circus something worth paying attention to.
- Labor - income, hourly pay, working for a wage - is not compounding and therefore prevents you from building wealth. It is typically a waste of time.
If you aim to build wealth, then acquire a piece of as many private or public companies as you can, and hold these assets forever, never selling them or letting go of them. This is how you build wealth.
On philosophers
I've been learning a lot about philosophers lately. I'm not interested in them because they have grand answers (they don't) or because I want to become one (I like computers too much). What's interesting is that they ask good questions. A philosopher is a normal person who can't accept the things they're being told, so they keep asking 'why?' and pulling at interesting threads until they find surprising insights. And I really vibe with that.
I think it helps to state what I mean by philosopher. It's someone who loves knowledge for its own sake. They want to know things, really bad, especially true things. But they also want to 'know' things we often deem 'unknowable.' Like, is there a soul? What is justice? What is love?
On how to make cool things happen
Algorithm
get smart, technical people together
On immigration to America
Being good (self-reliant, kind, knowledgable, hard-working) makes you American. Not whether you were born here (country of origin, ethnicity, etc.). This is what immigration policy should be screening for. Some of the best people I know are immigrants.
"You can go to live in France, but you can't become a Frenchman. You can go to live in Germany, Turkey, or Japan, but you can't become a German, a Turk, or a Japanese. But anyone, from any corner of the earth, come to America and be an American." - Reagan in '98
On starting a company
These are some of the things I've learned, and wish someone had told me when starting a company.
0. Don't
This is perhaps the most fundamental piece of advice I could offer. And it has two meanings.
On will
Note: This was written December 20, 2022 at 9:46 AM
I do not believe in free will.
On what we know
Humans are the highest level of consciousness evolved on planet Earth, in our solar system, and potentially in the universe. But we don't know the right questions to ask of the universe. The universe is the answer. What we see see a cosmic puzzle of epic proportions.
I do not think consciousness emerged by accident. What it feels like is a test, experiment, simulation, or opportunity to see what we will do. Can life understand the nature of reality.
On distraction
A common theme to me over the past decade is an increasing cultural addiction to technology and more closely addiction to distraction. The short-term, dopamine-driven feedback loops of today's technology are probably atrophying the minds of our youth and most people don't care. I seriously worry about the long-term impacts of technologies like TikTok, and wrote about them here.
Somehow we are all ok conducting a massive, population-wide experiment on our collective ability to think in exchange for comparatively minor benefit of fun distracting videos. Remember, these videos are fed to you entirely by AI out of China.
On creating vs. consuming
Note: This was written September 17, 2022 at 11:16 AM
"The object isn't to make art, it's to be in that wonderful state which makes art inevitable." -- Robert Henri
On writing
Writing is indistinguishable from clear thinking. To logically place on paper what is in the mind is painstaking, which is also why it has utility. A well written piece is basically your clearest thinking, shared with your friends, colleagues, and peers. Done well, it is a gift.