Infinite Loops

Johnathan Bi started out getting trained in Mathematics, and then eventually went on to study Philosophy and Computer Science at Columbia. He hosts a lecture series on René Girard's Mimetic Theory and is also a founding member of Lonsdale Investment Technology. Important Links:

• Twitter: https://twitter.com/JohnathanBi
• Lecture series: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5Qu6vBebwwg
• Website: https://johnathanbi.com/
• Lonsdale Investment Technology: https://www.longterm.com/

Show Notes:

• Becoming pessimistic with age
• Humiliation always comes back to bite you
• How Jonathan got introduced to Buddhism and Girard
• Why Jonathan left academia
• The driving human emotion
• Has modernity ignored the "spirit"?
• Girard's apocalyptic predictions
• Wild, wild west of capitalism
• The mystery with the discovery of the skull
• What does eugenics say about science?
• Science becoming dictatorial
• Buddhism figuring out the inner telescope
• Physical vs. metaphysical desires
• Mimesis in asset valuation
• Price to magic ratio
• Nietzsche's will of power
• Is delusion bad?
• Can internet lead to greater violence?
• "The Buddhist Solution"
• Girard—A rescuer of spirit
• And MUCH more!

Books Mentioned:

• The Status Game; by Will Storr
• The Struggle for Recognition; by Axel Honneth
• Sapiens; by Yuval Noah Harari
• The Science of Storytelling; by Will Storr
• The Origin of Species; Charles Darwin
• Untimely Meditations; by Friedrich Nietzsche

Dan McMurtrie is the Portfolio Manager at Tyro Partners, an asset management firm for institutions and HNWIs; and the General Partner at Anchorless Bangladesh, an early stage venture fund focused on Bangladeshi startups. Links:

• Dan's Twitter: https://twitter.com/SuperMugatu
• Tyro Partners: https://www.tyropartners.com/
• Anchorless Bangladesh: https://www.anchorless.vc/
• Coolworks: Jobs in Great Places: https://www.coolworks.com/

Show Notes:

• Are we in the schadenfreude part of the market cycle?
• Going back to the fundamentals
• Solving the agency problem
• Taking concentrated beta risk
• Having clarity around your goals
• The behavioral risk in investing
• Do not get married to your investment thesis
• It's always you vs. you
• Investing is about understanding other people's mistakes
• Societal costs of stablecoins being unstable
• Compatibility of social media and representative democracy
• Issues with the current US Govt. administration
• Number one existential risk for US currently
• Risks of information overload
• Improving education about commerce
• Dopamine manipulators
• Leadership vs. Stakeholder management
• America vs China for policy changes
• US legal immigration system
• And MUCH more!

Description:George Mack is a creator who writes about the intersection of mental models, marketing, and technological tools and tactics. His marketing agency "Multiply" has helped grow some of the fasted growing businesses in the world backed by VCs like Stripe, YC, Sequoia, and LVMH.

• George's Twitter: https://twitter.com/george__mack
• George's newsletter: https://emailoctopus.com/lists/6d23df04-dff2-11ea-a3d0-06b4694bee2a/forms/subscribe
• Multiply Marketing: https://www.multiply.marketing/

Show Notes:

• Specific knowledge and technology
• Rise of TikTok
• Bringing people closer to tech
• Regulation slowing down tech innovation
• High agency filters
• A self-made teenage billionaire?
• New forms of education
• Word of mouth 2.0
• The best marketer doesn't look like a marketer
• Elon's 21 second pause
• Optimizing for luck
• The smart friend razor
• Superpower in being weird
• How to build a porn site
• Assess others to assess yourself
• The issue with personality tests
• Advice to the young

Books Mentioned:

• Zero to One; by Peter Thiel
• Tao Te Ching; by Lao Tzu
• The Bhagavad Gita

Ian Cassel is the founder of MicroCapClub, a community where hundreds of investors have discussions on US and Canadian microcap companies. They also help you become better investors with educational content covering investing strategies, intelligent fanatic CEOs, great investors, and more. Ian is also Founder and CIO at Intelligent Fanatics Capital Management, whose goal is to own the smallest, most illiquid, least institutionally owned, misunderstood businesses that are run by intelligent fanatics.

• Ian's Twitter: https://twitter.com/iancassel
• MicroCapClub: https://microcapclub.com/
• Intelligent Fanatics Capital Management: https://if.capital/

Show Notes:

• Microcaps are boons for quants
• How Ian fell in love with microcaps
• Managing other people's money
• Advantages and risks of microcap investing
• Profitability, scarcity, and great stories
• The top-down and bottom-up investment framework
• Not being limited by minimum market caps
• Being a hands-on investor
• Turnovers in microcap portfolios
• PE taking over microcap firms
• Increasing the flywheel of serendipity
• Preparing to be effortless
• Not getting into arguments with people with made up minds
• Being honest about your investment approach
• The "mute" button hack
• Identifying bad management
• Importance of base rates
• Educating about microcaps
• Optimism beats pessimism
• Do macroeconomic factors really matter?
• What is chasing you?

Books Mentioned:

• The Psychology of Money, by Morgan Housel
• The Tao Jones Averages, by Bennett Goodspeed

After working at McKinsey and getting an MBA from MIT, Paul Millerd was succeeding well on a path that "made sense". However, things started changing when he had a health crisis, which ended up with him embarking on a pathless path. Since 2017, he's been tinkering with multiple side-hustles, writing newsletters, creating podcasts, traveling, and helping others join the pathless path.

• Paul's Twitter: https://twitter.com/p_millerd
• Paul's newsletter: https://boundless.substack.com/
• 'The Pathless Path' book: https://think-boundless.com/the-pathless-path/

Show Notes:

• Having fun paying bills
• Jumping off your fitness landscape
• The first few years of being self-employed
• Connecting with the subconscious self
• Internet as an off-ramp
• How to stir up curiosity
• Lessons from DJing
• The social construct of retirement
• Internet economy requires showing up daily
• Design for liking your life
• Tinkering
• Embracing laziness
• Luxury of doing what you want
• The shift from cynicism to optimism
• Societal progress over the last decades
• What's next for Paul?

Books Mentioned:

• The Pathless Path; by Paul Millerd
• The Body Keeps The Score; by Bessel van der Kolk

Dave Chilton is a Canadian author, investor, and a venture capitalist who has appeared on television in the Canadian version of Dragons' Den. In 1989, he released his book "The Wealthy Barber" which went on to sell an astonishing two million copies in Canada. You can follow Dave on Twitter at https://twitter.com/wealthy_barber and buy his book at https://www.amazon.com/THE-WEALTHY-BARBER/dp/B000SAI072 Show Notes:

• How Dave met Jim
• Signs of curiosity
• "The Wealthy Barber" TV show
• Twitter as a global intelligence network
• Capital Camp and Rethinking Private Equity
• Getting good at taking criticism
• Dave's approach to writing "The Wealthy Barber"
• The decline in business travel
• Starting new businesses at 60
• Helping out authors with book publishing
• "The Chilton Method" web-series
• Power laws in podcasting
• Inviting Jim's kids to Infinite Loops
• How to react if your passport gets pickpocketed
• Living in the moment
• Building a healthy relationship with your kids
• The natural love for trivia
• Collecting art
• Anecdotal info in the world of big data
• Still using a Blackberry

Books Mentioned:

• The Wealthy Barber; by Dave Chilton
• What Works on Wall Street; by Jim O'Shaughnessy
• Invest Like the Best; by Jim O'Shaughnessy
• Psychology of Money; by Morgan Housel
• The Immortality Key; by Brian Muraresku

Meb Faber is co-founder and the Chief Investment Officer of Cambria Investment Management, author of multiple books, and host of "The Meb Faber Show" podcast. You can follow Meb on Twitter at https://twitter.com/MebFaber and know more about him and his work at https://mebfaber.com/ Show Notes:

• Replicating the Yale endowment
• Why investors won't follow advice
• Importance of writing down your investment plan
• The challenges of buy and hold
• Learning from your losses
• Out of favor strategies
• A dividend strategy without dividends
• The branding issue with buybacks
• Harsh book reviews
• Investing in international markets
• Are we in an expensive downtrend?
• Stated vs. Actual preference
• Not betting on merely sentiment
• Robinhood with an educational spin

Trung T. Phan is a creator in the tech, business, and media space. His Twitter threads are full of knowledge and humor, and he also co-hosts the "Not Investment Advice" podcast. Follow Trung on Twitter at https://twitter.com/TrungTPhan and subscribe to his newsletter at https://trungtphan.com/subscribe/ Show Notes:

• Trung's Vietnamese origins
• Humor in your talent stack
• Asymmetric returns of creating content online
• The power of memes
• Getting a CFA
• Going back to writing movie scripts
• Succeeding in the creator economy
• How to acquire people's attention
• Creating content on LinkedIn and Facebook
• The importance of traveling
• Donald Trump's popularity in SE Asia
• History is not black or white
• Steve Jobs with the Picasso
• How a Microsoft guy catalyzed the iPad
• Musk's space meeting with Bezos
• Not letting complacency set in
• Putting historical dates into perspective
• Structuring speech to persuade
• Jim not dissing Plato
• Making Ted Lasso likable in 157 seconds
• And MORE!

Books Mentioned:

• The Status Game; by Will Storr
• The Beginning of Infinity; by David Deutsch
• Virus of the Mind; by Richard Brodie
• The Republic; Plato

Jimmy Soni is an author whose work focuses on people who create and build interesting things—whether theories, carousels, or companies. His books include "The Founders: The Story of PayPal and the Entrepreneurs Who Shaped Silicon Valley", "A Mind at Play: How Claude Shannon Invented the Information Age", and more! You can follow Jimmy on Twitter at https://twitter.com/jimmyasoni and go through his work on https://jimmysoni.com/ Show Notes:

• The joy of curiosity
• How memes spread
• The Great Reshuffle
• How internet changed the publishing industry
• Parallels between early days of PayPal and Bitcoin
• Money as an information system
• Appreciating the micro-level decisions
• Three new things about Elon
• The Elon Effect
• How the PayPal founders brought the best out of people
• The unknown names who were critical to PayPal
• Claude Shannon's financial decisions
• Wealth is a byproduct of the devotion to the craft

Books Mentioned:

• The Founders; by Jimmy Soni
• A Mind at Play; by Jimmy Soni
• Virus of the Mind; by Richard Brodie
• The Sovereign Individual; by James Dale Davidson and Lord William Rees-Mogg
• What Works on Wall Street; Jim O'Shaughnessy

Peter Saddington is a man of many talents. He's a software developer, founder, author, VC, and writes "The Agile VC" newsletter which covers Inside Startups, Venture Capital, and Life! You can connect with Peter on Twitter at https://twitter.com/agilepeter and subscribe to his newsletter at https://theagilevc.substack.com/ Show Notes:

• Being exceptionally useful
• Holding nothing close to the vest
• Mastering the inner self
• Peter's childhood
• Financial future of our world
• Antifragility of Bitcoin
• Mining cryptocurrencies
• Infinite Loop's NFT journey
• The future of NFTs
• How Peter got censored on YouTube
• The rise of Substack
• Jim's business ideas for the new world
• The unfair advantage of a physical connection
• Fixing your house before fixing the world
• Most important skills to have for a young person
• Manifestation is about taking action