The Psychology of Good Investing and Managing Up

Hello, and happy Sunday! Anthropic kicked off last week by releasing a new version of Claude that can use a computer. That was closely followed by news that OpenAI is reportedly preparing to release its next big foundational model by the end of this year. Not to be outdone, as this flurry of an AI news week came to an end, Google was rumored to be developing a model that can take over your browser. And, yes, that one is also expected to be released before we're done with 2024.

It's going to be a whirlwind end to the year, and we'll be here to guide you through it. In the meantime, read on for everything we published this week and our take on other important tech news.—Kate Lee

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Knowledge base

"To Beat the Market, You Have to Outsmart Yourself" by Chris Paik: If you want to generate superior returns, you should stop studying the market and start studying yourself. Venture capitalist Chris Paik argues that self-awareness and introspection are the keys to better decision-making and higher returns. He shares his personal hacks for understanding his own biases and convictions, like writing investment memos in the wee hours of the morning. Read this if you want to learn how to hack your own psychology to generate better returns—in investing and in life.

🔏 "How to Know It's Time to Pivot Your Startup" by Stella Garber: Knowing what to do when things aren’t working is the role of the founder. Entrepreneur Stella Garber shares how her team pivoted from a stagnant decision-making app to an AI-powered task manager that users now can't live without. Read this for a step-by-step framework on when and how to pivot your startup, complete with practical templates and exercises to guide you through the process.

"How to Win Arguments and Manipulate Managers" by Evan Armstrong/Napkin Math: Ever felt like your brilliant analysis falls on deaf ears? Evan Armstrong reveals how to get executives to pay attention to your spreadsheets. It's less about the numbers and more about weaving compelling narratives, understanding the psychology of decision-makers, and preparing "gotcha slides" for inevitable objections. Read this if you want to turn your data-driven insights into company-changing decisions.

“Inside Silicon Valley’s Most Important Conversations” by Rhea Purohit: Reid Hoffman, former Salesforce CEO Bret Taylor, and Microsoft AI CEO Mustafa Suleyman gathered to tackle the hard questions about artificial intelligence at the Masters of Scale Summit. Topics included business opportunities that mirror the cloud computing boom and philosophical debates about human uniqueness. Read this if you want an insider's view of how the people building our future are thinking about AI.

🎧 "Building AI That Builds Itself" by Dan Shipper/AI & I: Yohei Nakajima, the mind behind BabyAGI, is pushing the boundaries of autonomous AI agents. In this episode of AI & I, he demonstrates his latest creation, BabyAGI-2o, which can generate its own functions on the fly. He also explains why he thinks the next big opportunity in AI is building modular tools that solve specific problems but can be dynamically combined. Read this for a glimpse into the future of AI that can improve itself. Everyone has access to the full episode transcript. 

Fine tuning

Farewell, Vision Pro, we hardly knew ye. The Information reported that Apple would cease manufacturing the Vision Pro by the end of 2024 in preparation for a new and cheaper model. Apple products typically start slow—a fact that most people forget—so it is interesting to see that even with all its financial firepower, the company is giving up on it. Maybe the next one will hit. 

Tesla stock roars back. Elon Musk forecast vehicle sales rising “20 to 30 percent” on the back of a cheaper model and upgraded self-driving features. That—and the fact that the company had more free cash flow this quarter than in the previous seven—made the stock shoot off like a SpaceX rocket. Never bet against the combination of abundant cash flow and wildly optimistic forecasts.

Stripe bets a billi on crypto. The payment processor acquired crypto startup Bridge for $1.1 billion, or roughly a 90 times revenue multiple. Bridge facilitates the use of stablecoins—crypto currency tokens held steady to the value of a dollar. The technology makes it easy for anyone to transact with dollars, a value proposition hugely important to anyone located outside the U.S. Two of the last three waves of cryptomania were around regulatory arbitrage: The token offerings of the late 20-teens were funding arbitrages, and the 2020s NFT craze was securitization arbitrage. Stablecoins are built on the back of the mighty greenback. This is not to say that they are as scammy as the products of previous eras, but that this technology is so reliant on regulation is unique relative to other big tech paradigm shifts.—Evan Armstrong 

Keyword extraction

Stella Garber, who wrote a framework for pivoting, shared one good read: 

📕 Scarcity Brain by Michael Easter: “It’s an entertaining and interesting read exploring what Easter describes as ‘the scarcity loop,’" or a way of thinking that explains gamification, addiction, and other sticky behaviors. Once you see the scarcity loop and recognize its use, you can rewire your brain to overcome previously difficult situations.”

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Alignment 

Slack off. "I solved it while dozing by the fireplace" is basically what Friedrich August Kekulé told the German Chemical Society in 1890 during a speech about how he discovered the structure of benzene, a billion-dollar breakthrough in chemistry that is used in the making of plastics and other synthetic materials. Away from his lab bench, Kekulé made the connection everyone else had missed. Today, founders push to optimize every minute of 80-hour weeks for maximum output. But the highest-leverage moments in building and discovery don't come from your 80th hour of work. They occur when your pattern-recognition system has space to breathe. The highest ROI might just be a nap by the fireplace.—Ashwin Sharma

Sentiment analysis

“Absolute garbage. Where's your stats on this 'opinion'?!

(Had a large lunch, bad news from my accountant.)

Otherwise brilliant, funny, and a great read all the way down.”

—A response to Evan’s piece about how to win over your boss to your way of thinking

Want to chat? DM Dan or Evan on X.

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Hallucination

What if nature were more integrated into our technology?

Source: X/Lucas Crespo.

That’s all for this week! Be sure to follow Every on X at @every and on LinkedIn. 

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