Knowing when to fold em...

Actually being able to fold a hand is a critically under appreciated skill. Changing your mind is a cardinal sin in America. Every business guy I've met, the failures and the outrageous successes, have all acted the same: flat out confident whether they knew what they were doing or not. I believe an exec who was introspective and open about his ignorance would be kicked to the curb. I consider this blind reliance on people who appear to know what they're doing a sad evolutionary weakness.

I respect guys like George Soros, who can change their mind at an instant and admit just how fragile their knowledge is. The opposite would be Geoffrey Chew, struggling to make his S-Matrix theory work for years and years in the face of ideas that didn't require extensive modifications to fit empirical data. My theory: do what the crowd won't do: in this case, admit when I'm wrong then change direction.

What happens when too much money chases a fixed number of stocks? Is the result an inevitable crash? Everyone can't do well at the same time can they?

Completely Useless Speculation

It would've been interesting if the European Union would've mandated the adoption of a common language as a prerequisite to adopting the Euro. (English is an obvious candidate, but there would've been an uproar among people fearful of losing their culture.) Something similar to how Indonesia declared market Malay as their national language to unite thousands of islands with their own languages.

Damned interesting books

The Black Swan and Fooled by Randomness by Nicholas Nassim Taleb are the most interesting nonfiction I think I've ever read.

Random thought of the day

I think Mexican ninjas would've been sweeter than Japanese ones.

Launching a startup is one of the most mentally unhealthy things you can do. (Especially alone.) All your fear and inadequacies sit there and stare back at you and say, "How you gonna pull this off, fuckface?" I've wanted to quit, but I have to finish now. I don't even care if I lose money now, I've got to finish.

Years of experience in the industry is a poor indicator for how much somebody can actually accomplish. What matters is how many of those moments were focused, and is the stuff you're learning useful for the future.

And if you're 3 or 4 times more productive and useful than another employee in your field, no company will ever pay you 3 or 4x what that other employee makes. The only way out of a company not valuing you accurately is starting your own company.