Some things and ideas: June 2024
Every month, I put out a “some things and ideas” post with random thoughts on articles or market stuff that caught my attention in the last month (as well as some fantasy book recommendations and some other monthly recurring reminders!).
My monthly overview (Monthly recurring piece)
I consider YAVB my “empire” with four core pieces: this blog / substack (the free side), the premium side of this blog, my podcast (also on Spotify, iTunes, or YouTube), and my twitter account. You can see my 2024 vision and goals for the empire here. If you like the blog / free site, I'd encourage you to check out the pod, follow me on twitter, and maybe even subscribe to the premium site!
A bonus note: I get asked from lots of people about how to break into the finance industry. I detailed it more here, but my top advice would be to go out and start a substack (substack recently gave me a referral code if you start one; if you use that, awesome! But I’ve been recommending starting a substack long before they offered referrals!). If you do launch a substack, please let me know so I can try to be helpful.
State of the markets (Monthly recurring piece)
I like to use the CNN “Fear & Greed” Index just to quantify where the markets are; last month, we had just tipped into neutral. We remain there this month:
I am far from the first to point this out, but it just feels weird to say we’re in a “neutral” market. If you touch AI or are a quality GARP-y (growth at a reasonable price) company, then your stock is probably at all time highs and going up every day. If you do anything else, there’s a decent chance your stock is getting blasted every day. Just look at some of the stats underlying that fear and greed index: Market momentum and put / call are at extreme greed (put/call in extreme greed means call buying is far outpacing put buying), while stock price strength and stock price breadth are in extreme fear.
What to do? I feel like there’s plenty of value lurking in things that have some cyclicality / hair on them…. but I’m feeling very much in the “i’m so smart look how contrarian i am” consensus when I say that, and I feel like I’ve been saying some version of that for ~a year, so who eff’ing knows?
Clearspace and unplugging
I find it very hard to unplug from work. It’s really easy to get caught in a trap of needing to respond to every email, or constantly check twitter, etc. That’s really negative in two ways
During the work day, constantly checking email / twitter is a great way to kill your flow state and never get any really focused work done
At home, constantly checking email / twitter is a great way to never really engage with your family.
Anyway, I knew my phone / screen time was becoming a problem. Last month, my friend Artem Fokin recommended Clearspace to me, and I have to say I am just an absolutely enormous fan (of both Artem and Clearspace, but I mean Clearspace for the purposes of this post). It’s been enormously helpful in breaking my urge to just mindlessly open social media / twitter / email, and honestly once you break that habit it’s pretty easy to start weaning yourself off. Maybe not for everyone, but I’ve been a huge fan and I suspect if you have trouble with mindlessly using you phone or constantly reloading email / twitter it will be really useful for you (referral link here; I think it gets both of us a month free or something).
Related: solving the productivity paradox (new yorker)
Here’s my current streak for reference:
Nerd Corner (Monthly recurring piece)
There’s no hiding it; I’m a massive nerd. I read 3-4 fantasy books a month, my favorite pastime is playing board games with my wife and friends, and I was an eager supporter of the Brandon Sanderson Kickstarter (yes, I splurged and went for the hardcover books).
Anyway, I figured a few of you are nerds like me, so I started this segment to give recs of what I’m nerding out over currently, with the hope that you’ll either try it and enjoy it or recommend me similarly nerdy things that I’ll enjoy. This month’s recs:
I instantly read the newest book from Will Wight, The Knight. Will wrote the Cradle series, which is on my perma-recommend list below and I know a ton of readers got hooked on. I’ve really enjoyed his new series and the new book is no exception to that.
I also inched closer to finishing The War of the Givens; I’ve got about 50 pages left.
PS- outside of my monthly recs, I constantly get asked what my favorite fantasy books are. So I’m just going to throw this list out monthly:
Anything Brandon Sanderson writes; he’s by far the best fantasy author out there. I’d probably start with Mistborn, though Tess and the Emerald Sea is basically a standalone book and might be my favorite book he’s written. The Frugal Wizard’s Handbook for Surviving Medieval England is also a standalone book and a very fun and fast read.
Kingkiller is probably the best series I’ve ever read; waiting for the third is agony.
Gentleman Bastards is right up there with Kingkiller; the mix of fun and world building is outstanding.
Red Rising series is more sci-fi, but my god is it good. I would literally stay up all night to read every book the day they came out (note: I’ve only read the first trilogy; I’m going to read the second when the last book comes out later this year).
If you’re looking for something a little more under the radar (most of the books above are widely regarded as some of the best fantasy books / series ever), the Licanius Trilogy was fantastic.
First Law trilogy is excellent. It can get a little brutal / graphic though; there are a bunch of sequels and spins, but I’ve never been able to finish them because one of them got so brutal I just put the book down and never picked it up again. But the first trilogy is really, really great.
The Cradle series probably isn’t as “good” as the books above, but I binged them and every fantasy fan I’ve recommended them to has said something along the line of “I read all ten books in two months after I opened the first one.”
I’ve also really enjoyed that author’s newest series, Last Horizon!
The Wandering Inn series isn’t for everyone, and the first ~150 pages of the first book need to get powered through…. but, if you can power through them, the world building here is incredible, and I’ve had so many friends get hooked by this series. If you like hard fantasy, I can near guarantee you’ll like it.
The Silvers Epic (Flight of the Silvers, Song of the Orphans, War of the Givens) is more sci-fi than fantasy, but it’s one of my favorite series I’ve ever read and I think is wildly creative in how they use time travel / multiverse as a plot point.
Other things that caught my eye (monthly recurring piece)
Wells Fargo bet on a flashy rent credit card; it is costing the bank dearly
My apartment recently switched over to Bilt, and I was pretty excited about it. Getting cash back on rent payments plus not needing to worry about checks / remembering to pay is pretty sweet. I figured Bilt had unlocked some strange network by grabbing landlords and tenants; i.e. if you require the landlords to bank with you (i.e. they need to put their deposit accounts with you), plus you use the credit card to grab consumers and require them to use the card to get points (you have to use the card ~5x/month on non-rent transactions to get the points), you can overcome the interchange fees issues on rent…. but nope, turns out they just pants’d Wells Fargo.
Here’s a CNBC interview the day after the WSJ article that uh….. did not really dispel the questions here
O PS- if you’re interested in using Bilt, might as well share my referral code! Sign up there and we both get a little bonus.
Delivery drivers got higher wages, now they’re getting fewer orders
They were used to five star service at first republic. Now they’re just regular customers
This judge made Houston the top bankruptcy court. Then he helped his girlfriend cash in
The future of streaming (according to the Moguls trying to figure it out)
Probably nothing wildly new, but NYT got Malone, Roberts, Diller, Ted Srandos (NFLX), and AMZN’s studio head on the record talking. Worth reading for that
I love reading about frauds and ponzis, and man is this a good one
Musk ordered Nvidia to ship thousands of AI chips reserved for Tesla to X and xAI
Dr Pepper ties Pepsi as #2 soda
I’m a huge Diet Dr. Pepper fan, so obviously this is a mini-personal win for me
Did a group of Irish Tweens write the song of the summer
Yes; it is very catchy