Herro, Perro! w.5
Dear Friend,
It's been a good week. A solid week. A week that hasn't been too hot in NYC. Dog days of summer sort of week. May we savor every last drop.
Bad on me for not getting this out Friday night. Sometimes when you are jamming in a session of flow you just have to keep it going and, that pushes everything back...
Arts & Culture
+Black Squid Jacket: So it's a ski shell / hiking parka for men. But OMG look at how those colors change in the light. Can it truly be as cool in person as it looks on the internet?!
+Nicholas II and Revolution: I enjoyed and recommend The Last Czar series on Netflix. It takes one through the story of the Czar Nicholas II rule and the downfall of the Romanov empire in Russia. I had forgotten most of the history and it's a fascinating account of how the elite can lose touch with reality and in an instant, upon 20 years of build up, sparks revolution and history is changed forever. Okay, I can see Andrey rolling his eyes. Yes, this is Netflix. So there are dramatic reenactments, yes there is a thread of false Anastasia suspense, and yes we didn't need so many Rasputin sex scenes...But, seriously, were you going to read a book on the topic? were you going to watch something of higher intellectual order on Netflix? No. So I still strong recommend it to you :)
+Dante: I love Cafe Dante. If you want a coffee place to work in the middle of the village this place is great. For cocktails, they have a whole menu of Negroni's and often a live band. They've been rated the 9th best cocktail bar in the world (for realz). The atmosphere is great. You can also sit outside on the street and feel like you are in a European capital. It's also 20 steps from my apt. Tell me when you stop by :).
Investing & Economics
We aren't going to talk about WeWork S-1. We aren't going to get into stock indices point drops. We aren't going to discuss trade wars. We aren't going to bore you with GE fraud speculation. Because ain't nobody got time for that (unless you do, in which case I'm sure you are well informed).
+Welcome to club!: A money managing friend recently declared that he self-diagnosed himself on the autism spectrum, and then we confirmed I was also likely on the spectrum, along with many of our friends. I feel I have a conversation at least monthly about someone or so and so probably being 'on the spectrum'. Amazing for Institutional Investor to a write-up on it this week! Happy to be with good company, friends.
Entrepreneurial Pursuits
+UpChoose: My first angel investment was in my friends company that makes recyclable baby clothes. I'm proud of him for sticking with it and remaining optimistic. He got a nice write up on the idea this week.
+Food/Bev: Been in touch with a coffee co-packer and a product dev shop for the seltzer and have real quotes. Ideas get real when money gets involved. It's a great commitment device to measure how much you care and think of the trade offs. It's why markets work.
+Other thought on Food/Bev: If you buy anything from a store that is not raw produce it's probably fairly highly processed. I already 'knew' that but it's a different level of realization when you actually go through the actions to think if you can produce something commercially sellable or to do any sort of food/bev product at any scale and immediately start making processed. All the little trade offs that you just have to do.
Reflections & Self-awareness
+Just wanted love: This is a super sad story of a silver medal Olympic cyclist from Minnesota who committed suicide at Stanford this spring. Feel like most friends here can relate to some sort of pathology related to commitment to excellence particularly in the early high school/college days. Although we've mostly all made it safely through our 20s.
+Choice: While home in Minneapolis I read The Point of it All by Charles Krauthammer, the 25 year+ conservative columnist in the Washington Post. You might have seen him as the reasonable voice on Fox. He's always been an interesting figure for me - a principled conservative, suffered from a spin injury at 22 that left him as a paraplegic. He continued to graduated from Harvard Medical School and was a practicing psychiatrist until 30 when he abruptly changed to become a columnist. Here are the two passages from his speeches that I particularly enjoyed:
"Don't be afraid to choose, and don't be afraid to start all over if you have to. TE Lawrence once said "nothing is written" And by that he meant: Life is open, everything is a choice, nothing is inevitable. So the message I have is don't be afraid to choose. Choose what you love. And if you don't love what you've chosen, choose again."
And then this about making the career change:
"But because I felt history happening outside the exam room. That history was being shaped by the war of ideas and I wanted to be in the arena. I enjoy intellectual combat, but I do not live for it. I wanted to be in the arena because somethings matter, somethings need to be said, somethings need defending."
Thanks for reading, friend. Please always be in touch.