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This past weekend, Elon Musk called me cruel, mean and deceitful. Two and half years ago I called him a welfare queen. You decide. –Published August 19, 2022 What’s the most successful venture capital firm in history? Kleiner Perkins and Sequoia Capital backed many internet-era success stories. Andr...

The Last Swing Voters The catastrophizing, from both sides, re “The end of America” if s/he wins is obnoxious and recognizes neither history nor the resilience of the U.S. We’ve survived much worse than her/him. However, it’s clear that, as in any election, some groups will fare better/worse with th...

Throughout human history, if we had access to more than we needed, we kept the excess to survive in leaner times. Having surplus items also signaled wealth and desirability as a mate, and key rituals often depended on precious items being stored safely. Our ability to store crops was key to developi...

Note: This newsletter is not investment advice. Five years ago, Nvidia was a second-tier semiconductor company known for giving Call of Duty better resolution. Today it’s the third-most-valuable company on Earth, with a dominant 80% share in AI chips, the processers underpinning the largest, fastest...

Last week’s quarterly flogging of tech executives made for good theater. It’s a show meant to make us feel something before we return to our lives. American media soon pivoted to something more important and more American, money. Meta announced earnings on Feb. 1, posting one of the most impressive ...

Last week, Twitter became MySpace: a social network void of innovation being slowly euthanized by Meta. In less than a week, Meta’s Threads registered 110 million users — equivalent to the combined population of Germany and Australia, and the most violent corporate disruption in platform history. Wh...

The U.S. healthcare industry is a wounded 7-ton seal, drifting aimlessly, bleeding into the sea. Predators are circling. The blood in the water is unearned margin: price increases, relative to inflation, without a concomitant improvement in quality. Amazon is the lurking megalodon, its 11-foot jaws ...

Malcolm Gladwell writes about a fascinating episode in history. Neville Chamberlain’s first plane ride was a trip to meet Adolf Hitler. The British Prime Minister was taken by Hitler’s charisma. He believed the German leader when he promised not to invade Czechoslovakia. After his triumphant return ...

Thanks to a consolidation of stimulus checks, increased food stamps, enhanced unemployment benefits, and child tax credits, the number of Americans living in poverty will be nearly halved this year. This is the largest short-term poverty reduction in our nation’s history, a 45% decline from 2018. Ch...

I often write about platforms (iOS, Amazon Marketplace, etc.) as they are a source of value creation and power. The platform of unprecedented wealth creation is the free market of capitalism. The global adoption of markets has corresponded with the greatest expansion of prosperity in human history. ...

Malcolm Gladwell writes about a fascinating episode in history. Neville Chamberlain's first plane ri...