Juan Orbea

Bill and I have been frequently paired in a variety of venues as pessimist and optimist respectively. Recently a Noble Prize winning panelist dismissed Bill’s concerns, exclaiming that, “we’re not going to see self-replicating nanoengineered entities for a hundred years.” I pointed out that 100 years was indeed a reasonable estimate of the amount... See more

Where does the college rank in US News & World Report college prestige list that dates back to 1981Are the classes amazing?Is there a sports team I’m keen to play on?Is there a particular professor I want to work with or a particular major I want to pursue? Only 27% of college grads end up with a job closely related to their major.

But the lure of the current hill is strong. He ends up falling for a common trap highlighted by behavioral economists: people tend to systematically overvalue near term over long term rewards . This effect seems to be even stronger in more ambitious people.

You have about 80,000 hours in your career: 40 hours per week, 50 weeks per year, for 40 years.

The last 12 years were "up and to the right". It’s easy to make IRRs work really well in a 12-year bull market but VCs have to make money in good markets and bad.

The final category of work that matters is the sort that you’re uniquely capable of accomplishing. This work is an intersection of what you’re exceptionally good at and what you genuinely care about.

Until artificial rubber was invented by the colony-impaired Germans, no modern economy could exist without the natural stuff. All of the important powers had tropical colonies where rubber was produced. For the Netherlands, it was Indonesia; for France, it was Indochina; for the British, it was what they then called Malaya, as well as many other... See more