mj

he has also rejected quantum computing. “The story of thermodynamic computing is kind of an exodus from quantum,” Verdon says. “And I kind of started that.”

Similarly, most venture funds perform better in a market of steep ups and downs rather than steady growth. If you own something worth nothing, the dispersion of the potential outcome increases the likelihood that this will be worth something.

The biggest risk as an allocator is not taking risks . While one’s downside is capped by diversification across funds, vintages, and domains—the biggest risk is not to swing big enough and to cap one’s upside as well, and to stack a bunch of 3x funds, charge fees on top, and sell 2.5x back to one’s investors.

A respected hedge fund describes part of their investment philosophy like this: “Enterprises work best when they have access to capital priced to reflect the value they can create. Index funds, by the way, do not price capital; they only mimic the actions of those who do.”

a life soaked in too much safety and comfort slowly erodes us. Comfort, in excess, dulls the spirit—and the longer we cling to it, the more we drift into a quiet, unnoticed decline.

"Man has achieved his present position by being the most aggressive and enterprising creature on earth. And now he has created a comfortable civilization, he faces an unexpected problem... The comfortable life lowers man's resistance, so that he sinks into an unheroic sloth... The comfortable life causes spiritual decay."

~ Colin Wilson

Not unlike its quantum cousin, thermodynamic computing promises to move beyond the binary constraints of 1s and 0s. But while quantum computing sets out—through extreme cryogenic cooling—to minimize the random thermodynamic fluctuations that occur in electronic components, this new paradigm aims to harness those very fluctuations.