~ Welcome to the #thebalance 33 ~
May the 4th be with y’all.
It is with a warm heart (see ‘other things’ below as to why) that I wish you a happy Star Wars day (and now Disney-owned hashtag day..?)!!
And, of course, keeping with the social distancing theme memes - servin’ up a political cartoon for you from The New Yorker:
♎ this week’s topic summary ♎
🤔🤔 #thinkingthings
Topics to explore this week:
📲🧑🏽🤝🧑🏻 #followerthings
Smart people saying smart things with different perspectives, this week:
—> @BenedictEvans (Partner at venture investment firm, Andreessen Horowitz)
—> @AnaLorenaFabrega (EDUpreneur with a vision for the future of Education)
—> @DinoBecirovic (investor at venture investment firm, Index Ventures)
📚⏯️🎤 #otherthings
#BlocksBootcamp for good photo highlights :)
Thanks to all 60+ of you who tuned in!!! I could not have done it without your support!
We raised a collective ~$600 for PPE shortages across America 👏👏
⬇️ more below ⬇️
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🤔🤔 #thinkingthings
🟥 >>>> #theforceiswithJackDorsey
A longer read on Jack Dorsey (whose profile pic below is very timely and also quite epic), Twitter/Square, and Elliot Management… a taste below):
In the Coronavirus era, the force is still with Jack Dorsey.
Twitter’s CEO, last of the Steve Jobs-like tech-founder demigods, was on the verge of being pushed out by private-equity investors. But his will, and wiles—and COVID-19—gave him new purpose. For now.
For the past four and a half years, Jack Dorsey has been living his best life. While the 43-year-old multibillionaire is one of the only CEOs on the S&P 500 who oversees two public companies, Twitter and Square, with more than 8,000 employees, and is an angel investor or adviser to start-ups, until coronavirus recently obliterated the global economy, he might have been one of the least stressed-out people in America.
As he talked about last year when he went on a podcasting spree, each day Dorsey wakes up in his multimillion-dollar glass mansion with postcard views of the Golden Gate Bridge, checks to see what the sleep-tracking ring on his finger says, then lowers himself into an ice bath before meditating in a warm tent sauna. This is followed by a seven-minute workout and then drinking his breakfast, which he calls “salt juice,” a concoction of water, salt, and lemon, which is the only thing he will “eat” until the evening, when he enjoys his single real meal of the day. His day wraps up in a slightly more extreme version of the way it began, with a ritual of 15 minutes in his barrel sauna, followed by three minutes in his ice bath, which he does back and forth three times for an hour. He then meditates again.
Dorsey, who is around six feet tall, has a long, scraggly beard that some liken to one of the lead singers from ZZ Top and the build of a man who only eats once a day. He enjoys working from home at least two days a week, often in his kitchen, or at his desk under the glow of a near-infrared light. When he does go into the office, he always walks the five miles there.
Dorsey also spends a large amount of time on the road, but not in a way that most CEOs of public companies do. He goes on 10-day silent retreats to places like Myanmar, and last year went on a round-the-world trip over several months to visit satellite offices of Twitter, where he was treated like an A-list celebrity and posed for selfies with low-level employees, which he then shared on Twitter. Again, a man living his best life.
…But eras sometimes come to an end. This became apparent in late February when Elliott Management, a hedge fund known for activist investing that controls almost $40 billion in assets, reached out to Twitter to say that, after purchasing $1 billion of Twitter stock, it was going to demand changes at the social network. Dorsey and his board of directors shrugged off the threat as nothing more than a little flexing by some private-equity bankers trying to make a buck off of Dorsey’s notoriety. Dorsey and many around him believe that—much like Jobs in the 1980s—without Dorsey there to oversee both Twitter and Square, they will inevitably fail.
Twitter is no longer just a technology company. It is used by world leaders to wage war and local governments to warn of shutdowns. It’s used by politicians to announce they are running for office, to declare they are suspending their campaigns, and to endorse other candidates. It’s where news breaks and journalists find sources. Where Trump pulls the levers of chaos and controls what will consume the nightly news or the morning headlines. During the spread of the coronavirus, it has been an invaluable place to share minute-by-minute mortality and epidemiology statistics from around the globe. Over time, Twitter has become less of a social network and more of a public utility. And yet Dorsey insists it does not need a full-time CEO.
🟥 >>>> #theempirestrikesback
Ray Dalio has put together an ambitious macroeconomic report filled with a tremendous amount of info on market cycles, world history, and his data-driven opinions & decisions… highlighting a couple charts from it this week:
China was dominant for centuries (consistently outcompeting Europe in goods trade), though it entered a steep decline starting in the 1800s.
The Netherlands, a relatively small country, became one of the world’s great empires in the 1600s.
The UK followed a very similar path, peaking in the 1800s.
Finally, the US rose to become the world’s superpower over the last 150 years, though particularly during and after WWII, and is now in relative decline while China is catching up once again.
What makes empires according to Ray Dalio? And what breaks them? Funny you ask…
As you can see in the graphic above, which suggests that empires last about 200 years, it all starts with education, which leads to innovation and productive competitiveness. Growing military power, funded by growing wealth, protects trade and financial flows that attach to a dominant power. After a rise and time lag of almost 100 years, the incumbent is crowned with the gift of a reserve currency -- that financial superpower that allows it to print money. Yet when that superpower is over-exercised, and investments in education and innovation erode away, debt cycles accumulate and collapse the whole endeavor. The biome is effectively destroyed.
To summarize, around the upward trend of productivity gains that produce rising wealth and better living standards, there are cycles that produce
1) prosperous periods of building, in which the country is fundamentally strong because there are a) relatively low levels of indebtedness, b) relatively small wealth, values, and political gaps, c) people working effectively together to produce prosperity, d) good education and infrastructure, e) strong and capable leadership, and f) a peaceful world order that is guided by one or more dominant world powers. These are the prosperous and enjoyable periods. When they are taken to excess, which they always are, the excesses lead to
2) depressing periods of destruction and restructuring, in which the country’s fundamental weaknesses of a) high levels of indebtedness, b) large wealth, values, and political gaps, c) different factions of people unable to work well together, d) poor education and poor infrastructure, and e) the struggle to maintain an overextended empire under the challenge of emerging powerful rivals lead to a painful period of fighting, destruction, and then a restructuring that establishes a new order, setting the stage for a new period of building.
🟥 >>>> #theNewRepublicCurrency
Thought-provoking post by one of my favorite venture investors, Albert Wenger, on the importance of distributed decision making and control.
One key lesson from COVID19 is that we need a lot more decentralization.
This is especially true when the center is as inept at managing the crisis as the US federal government has proven to be. For example, the power of agencies such as the CDC and the FDA has turned out to be problematic, e.g. in giving guidance on mask wearing or trying to increase the availability of testing (both central to the road back). This is not just a critique of current leadership but rather of the accretion of excessive federal power more generally.
The size of the economy of New York State is roughly $1.7 trillion as measured by the equivalent of GDP (an admittedly bad measure). If New York were a country, it would rank 11th in the world, ahead of over 150 other countries. California is even bigger coming in 4th in the world. It is completely unclear why outside a few crucial topics — that can only be regulated at the federal level — states of this size should not be making independent policy decisions. For example, why shouldn’t New York and California approve their own at home tests?
COVID19 may, however, turn out to be a catalyst for the ultimate decentralization, that of money. The dollar’s role as a global reserve currency has for many years put the US in a position of strength. But dollar dominance has proven to be a massive problem in this crisis — everyone who has dollar denominated debt, which includes not just US corporations and states, but also foreign sovereigns and corporates was relying on economic activity, including international trade, to produce the dollar necessary for debt service.
With the COVID19 lockdowns that source of dollars has suddenly dried up which has forced the Federal Reserve to step in, producing an extraordinary 2.35 trillion dollars in the space of 6 weeks.
One of the most interesting ways the decentralization of money could really pick up steam is with community currencies. US States cannot print money but will find themselves with massive budget holes from a combination of increased crisis response spending with a massive loss in tax revenues (footnote: there may be a way for states around this, but it is likely complicated and might result in an ugly fight).
There is a long history of community currencies in the US. And of course there is the famous “Miracle of Wörgl” in which a town helped lift itself out of economic depression by creating its own currency.
📲🧑🏽🤝🧑🏻 #followerthings
+1 funny
📚⏯️🎤 #otherthings
—————
🙏🙏Big thanks to all who joined me live at the first ever #blocksbootcamp this past Saturday!!
✔️ 60+ people tuned in
✔️~$600 raised for PPE shortages across America
➕ After last weekend’s success, I have been asked to lead another #blocksbootcamp (via Instagram Live) this weekend. This will just be a workout (no cause / donation support requested this time around).
—> Message me if you’re interested in joining!
(In addition to family members attending, I had both Zoom and Instagram Live going in my home workout production studio, ha)
Note: in person attendees are family members, we take social distancing seriously at our house!
(aerial shot of warm ups, Lake Minnetonka in the background)
(My friend Jesse sharing more about his Go Fund Me campaign after the workout)
Stay safe, keep your distance, and WASH YOUR HANDS.
Curiously,
-Block
A little bit about me:
My friends call me Block. Minnesota born & raised, I now live and work in New York City.
I am endlessly curious and eternally optimistic. I have a passion for new ideas, obsessed with all things technology, and am always seeking to broaden my perspective while striving for balance.
I am an open finance enthusiast, futurist, investor, entrepreneur, builder, advisor, life long learner, hockey player, traveler, podcast addict, hip-hop head, e-newsletter junkie, event planner, and comedic-short producer. Follow me on Twitter here and Instagram here.
“Find a question that makes the world interesting.” - Paul Graham
A little bit about #thebalance:
***The core thesis of this newsletter is to pique your curiosity by aggregating interesting topics in a thematic, bite sized, and relevant manner (w/ original posts occasionally) - ranging from blog posts, books, music, events, podcasts, and ideas on how to stay active, travel or otherwise... Please keep sending feedback my way… the goal is to make this thing worth it for you!***
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