By Ryan Dolan
Morgan Housel: “Frugal vs. Independent”
“The people I admire most have a way of escaping the bubble of culture. Sometimes via religion; sometimes via old books; sometimes via time in nature. Without such an escape, propaganda wins. You stop thinking for yourself. Modern delusions grow into an all-consuming mind virus.” David Perell
“Most people are wired to seek status and success, not necessarily happiness. It’s remarkable to watch someone fight back against that trend. From the outside they appear frugal. But in fact they’ve rejected what the world tells them they should want and looked deeper, finding their happiness elsewhere.”
New Yorker: “How Jensen Huang’s Nvidia is Powering the A.I. Revolution”
“Huang’s business position can be compared to that of Samuel Brannan, the celebrated vender of prospecting supplies in San Francisco in the late eighteen-forties. ‘There’s a war going on out there in A.I., and Nvidia is the only arms dealer,’ one Wall Street analyst said.”
“Huang is a patient monopolist.”
“...for years to come [Huang] opened staff presentations with the words ‘Our company is thirty days from going out of business.’ The phrase remains the unofficial corporate motto.”
‘Typically, in Silicon Valley, you can get away with fudging it,’ industry analyst Hans Mosesmann told me. ‘You can’t do that with Jensen. He will kind of lose his temper.’”
“Even when he’s calm, Huang’s intensity can be overwhelming. ‘Interacting with him is kind of like sticking your finger in the electric socket,’ one employee said.”
Acquired Podcast: Charlie Munger’s last interview
“If I were running the world, I would have a tax on short-term gains with no offset for losses. I would drive the whole [short-term trading] crowd out of business.”
Question: “If you started with Warren today and you were both 30 years old, do you think you guys would build anything close to what Berkshire is today.”
Charlie: “The answer to that is no, we wouldn’t. Everybody that [has] had unusually good results…has three things: they’re very intelligent, they worked very hard, and they were very lucky. It takes all three to [be] super successful. How can you arrange to have good luck? The answer is you start early and keep trying for a long time, and maybe you’ll get one or two.”
Question: “When you look back at you and Warren’s time together, when did you have the most fun?”
Charlie: “We had about the same amount of fun all the way through. We’re having fun now.”