Mental Models

Diseconomies of Scale (Acquired episode on RenTech):

The larger your AUM, the less likely your quant strategy will work, because of “slippage”. If you have a niche business with a differentiated moat, it is worth questioning if the quality of the moat is maintained while scaling. If the moat does not scale, on the one hand, it means your scaled co

Thinking in Years vs. Decades (e-Boys):

May Whitman (eBay): She thought in years and chose the capital-lite high-margin, internet-pure-play route

Jeff Bezos (Amazon): He thought in decades and chose the model that would best position him to win in the long-term by investing in the present in warehouses & fulfillment centers that would give his

Josh Waitzkin’s (Chess Grandmaster) concept of the "Simmering Six" (i.e. constantly operating at a level of medium burn, vs. alternating at high burn & complete rest):

“Most people in high-stress, decision-making industries are always operating at this kind of simmering 6, as opposed to the undulation between just deep relaxation and being at a

Seinfeld on finding passion for something where you have soul in the game:

Seinfeld: “I'm never not working on material. Every second of my existence, I'm thinking, could I do something with that?”
Howard Stern: “That, to me, sounds torturous.”
Seinfeld: “Your blessing in life is when you find the torture you're comfortable with."

Adam Grant on how to navigate bureaucracy: 1) find out the history of why the bureaucracy exists / what it was initially intended to solve, 2) understand why your stakeholders are following the bureaucracy, what their risks & incentives are, 3) find allies & potential workarounds by talking to ppl outside your usual bubble.

https://www.ted.c

The power of having a small edge (Roger Federer): Won 54% of all points = 80% of all matches = ranked in the top 99.99% of all time players

Visakam Viraswamy (“Are You Serious?”) on playing the near-sighted game at the expense of the long-game:

"One of the stupidest things I’ve repeatedly seen smart people do – I call this Advanced Stupid – is that they get so fixated on trying to optimize something complicated, that they forget to optimize for survival, and then they get knocked out of

Things I wish I had known earlier in my career:

1) Viewing the world with a strategic lens (aka knowing why I am doing what I am doing in the bigger picture) - some questions to ask yourself to get that understanding: a) What does my business sell? b) Why do people buy this product/service category? c) Why do they specifically buy my business’ pr

Steve Jobs on happy accidents: "Process makes you more efficient. But innovation comes from people meeting up in the hallways or calling each other at 10:30 at night with a new idea, or because they realized something that shoots holes in how we’ve been thinking about a problem. It’s ad hoc meetings of six people called by someone who thinks he has