Johanna

Smart people respect simple language not because simple words are easy, but because expressing interesting ideas in small words takes a lot of work.

I can’t remember the last time I went into (or ordered from) a restaurant without looking up its Google or Yelp reviews first. We have become totally reliant on external factors to tell us how to lead our lives. Where should I go? Check Google maps. What should I wear? Check Instagram shopping. What political opinions should I adopt? Check... See more

Say you’re a car manufacturer. Every year, you must decide between investing in future innovations, such as self-driving software, and finding ways to squeeze new revenue out of existing technologies and materials. Too much fanciful R&D spending, and this year’s profit plummets. Too much emphasis on tweaking existing product lines, and you get... See more

Why not? Suppose that half of past geniuses were tutored this way, and half weren’t. Even if every single genius who was tutored owed his genius entirely to the tutoring, the tutoring could only explain half of geniuses. That means that after the tutoring stopped, we would expect half as many geniuses. But Hoel is making a stronger claim: that... See more

We shall never have more time. We have, and have always had, all the time there is.

But here’s the problem: If global energy prices don’t come down and global supply chains remain tangled by Omicron variants and other natural disasters, we might end up with the worst of both worlds: destroyed domestic demand and constricted global supply. Slow growth and high energy prices could mean the return of the dreaded stagflation.

Capitalism rewards things that are both rare and valuable. You make yourself rare by combining two or more “pretty goods” until no one else has your mix.