The beginning of this year was full of frustration and pain related to sharing and tracking the books I’d read (see here). My Google Sheet wasn’t cutting it anymore, and I couldn’t share it publicly (it’s pretty crude). That led to my adding a Library section to this site in February, which I’m happy with. The look and feel will get tweaked more, but the functionality is just what I was aiming for.

I mainly read biographies about entrepreneurs, and I want a way to track and share my research about these people. The process has been slow, with starts and stops, but I now have a better idea of how I want it to work. So that’s the current side project I’m working on for this site. Hopefully, I’ll have something to share in a few weeks that you’ll find useful and that will help you learn more about entrepreneurs too.

One of my friends, whom I’ve known for decades, told me I do a great job of researching and of learning about topics at a deeper level than most. He said that’s the reason he comes to me when he has an idea or wants to talk through something—I can often share a piece of information I’ve learned along the way and point him toward an article or other resource he finds useful.

He suggested that I link to more things I find interesting on my blog instead of primarily sharing when people ask. He thinks people would find the curation helpful.

I like this idea, but I’m not sure what it would look like in practice. I do share some links or resources today, but I don’t share most of what I consume. I’ll think more about this, because I like the idea of being more intentional about regularly sharing the resources I’ve found valuable via this blog.

Let me know what you think.

In 2024, I began reading a biography (usually) every week. I wanted to share what I’m reading and keep track for myself, which was hard to do (see here). So, I created a Library section in this website. Every Sunday, I add my latest read to the Library. And I’ve added all the books I’ve read since I started my book-a-week habit in early 2024.

However, I also read books before 2024, and I’d like to share those as well. My goal is to add them to the Library page on this site over time. During Memorial Day weekend I added five. See here.

Last week, I decided to test adding books weekly until my backlog is depleted (see here). So, I set a goal to add two books by Monday. I’m happy to say I checked that box. Here are those two books:

• Central Banking 101 by Joseph Wang
• You Can Be a Stock Market Genius by Joel Greenblatt

Adding two older books to the library wasn’t too bad. Felt like a more manageable pace than adding five, as I’d done the previous week. I reviewed my highlights in each book to refresh my understanding of the main concepts, which was useful.

Hopefully, sharing these books via my Library will add value to others.

As a first-generation entrepreneur, I’m committed to learning as much as I can about entrepreneurship. The best way I’ve found to do it is to study other entrepreneurs and their mental models, so I read a book every week, usually a biography. I share it in my Library on this site, and every Sunday, I post the latest book I read.

Earlier this year, I read the updated version of Poor Charlie’s Almanack, a collection of Charlie Munger’s speeches on mental models and psychology. Periodically, I listen to a condensed version of Munger’s “Psychology of Misjudgment” speech (see here). These resources piqued my interest in learning how people make decisions and are persuaded to make decisions or take action.  

Munger and others have recommended Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion by Robert B. Cialdini, so I gave it a read. The book is considered a classic, and I can see why. Cialdini updates it periodically. I read the 2006 edition because I already owned it, but now I plan to read the 2021 edition, too.

This book delves into the intricacies of the psychology of compliance (doing what people are asking you to do). It also dedicates a chapter to the big-six psychological triggers, including examples of how they’re used:

• Reciprocation
• Commitment and consistency
• Social proof
• Liking
• Authority
• Scarcity

This book was informative and equipped me to be better at recognizing when these triggers are being used against me. The case study–style examples effectively drove home the points and made them less theoretical.

An interesting observation was that Charlie Munger borrowed heavily from the concepts in this book for his “Misjudgment” speech, and the principles are prominent in Poor Charlie’s Almanack, too. Charlie was smart enough not to reinvent the wheel. Instead, he built on Cialdini’s principles and applied them to investing to create his billion-dollar fortune.

Current Project: Reading books about entrepreneurs and sharing what I learned from them

Mission: Create a library of wisdom from notable entrepreneurs that current entrepreneurs can leverage to increase their chances of success

Cumulative metrics (since 4/1/24):

• Total books read: 65
• Total blog posts published: 420

This week’s metrics:

• Books read: 1
• Blog posts published: 7

What I completed this week (link to last week’s commitments):

• Read Influence, by Robert B. Cialdini, which explains the psychology behind people saying yes and doing what others ask of them as well as how psychology can be used to influence and persuade people
• Added five books I read in 2023 to the library on this site—see more here

What I’ll do next week:

• Read a biography, autobiography, or framework book
• Add two more books I read in 2023 to the library on this site—see more here
• Create a digest of one biography, autobiography, or framework book

Asks:

• If you know any senior full-stack developers interested in working on the software for my current project, please introduce us!

Week two hundred seventy was another week of learning. Looking forward to next week!

Current Project: Reading books about entrepreneurs and sharing what I learned from them

Mission: Create a library of wisdom from notable entrepreneurs that current entrepreneurs can leverage to increase their chances of success

What I struggled with:

·      No material struggles last week

What I learned:

• Ben Thompson founded Stratechery, a “subscription-based blog, newsletter and podcast that provides analysis of the strategy and business side of technology and media.” Stratechery’s subscription model is what inspired the creation of Substack (according to Ben, Substack said in its seed deck that it’s Stratechery in a box). His platform is wildly successful, with tens of thousands of paying subscribers. Many tech CEOs subscribe to his blog, and he has interviewed CEOs such as Mark Zuckerberg (see here). The core of his business is written blog posts. These posts, or their content, are distributed in various ways (email, RSS, SMS, etc.) so subscribers can consume in the way that’s easiest for them. Ben teamed up with Automattic to create custom software that powers all this. The software is called Passport. It’s not available for purchase just yet, but they’re registering interest via their waitlist.
• According to Dan Martell, a personal brand can be thought of as a combination of reach and reputation. If lots of people know who you are and think positively of you, everything you want to do becomes easier. It can be a force multiplier of growth, especially with the distribution of entrepreneurs’ products and services. See here for Dan’s explanation of this concept in a segment of an interview he recently gave.

That’s what I learned and struggled with last week.

Last weekend was a holiday weekend, and I challenged myself to add five of my old reads to the library on this site (see here). It took longer than I’d planned (see here), but it forced me to review the notes and highlights in books I read in 2023, which was helpful and much needed. I want to regularly add more old reads to the library and review their highlights.

I know myself. If it’s not a regular habit, the chances of it happening are much lower. So, I’m going to experiment with a new challenge this weekend. If it works, I’ll keep doing it every weekend, hopefully. The challenge: add two old reads to my library by Monday.

It’s a simple goal, but it involves a lot of work behind the scenes. I’m hoping I can knock it all out this weekend, learn from it, and repeat it next weekend.

Wish me luck!

I enjoy learning about venture capital firms, and First Round Capital is one I kept tabs on. Its investments in Roblox and Uber were what originally sparked my interest in the firm a few years ago (see here and here). Josh Kopelman, founding partner, gave an interview recently in which he shared facts I didn’t know about First Round and explained some important concepts in VC.

Here are a few of my key takeaways from the interview:

• VC firms have grown from fewer than roughly 850 employing 1k–2k investors writing checks in 2004 to, today, over 10k funds employing over 20k investors writing checks.
• Venture firms, to attract larger pools of money into the VC asset class, are beginning to adopt the Blackstone asset management firm model. Blackstone is playing a scale game that focuses on cash-on-cash returns. Traditional venture capital has focused on alpha, which provides a superior internal rate of return (IRR, a measurement of compounding rate of return). Blackstone’s model is to provide higher cash dollar returns, as its dollars under management are massive, but lower-percentage returns that are steadier.
• The Venture Arrogance Score is a calculation Josh runs that looks at two things: how big the fund is and what percentage of a company the fund owns when the company exits. He said a hypothetical $7 billion venture fund that aims to own 10% of a company when it exits would need to capture roughly 50% of the dollars that venture capital realizes at exit during the three-year period when the fund is making investments. No firm has ever captured more than 10% of the total venture capital dollars realized from companies exiting.  He details the math in this section of the interview. He doesn’t say this, but assuming that a single firm can get 50% of the total exit value created by all founders in the U.S. when history says the very best get less than 10% is arrogant. The math doesn’t math on generating superior returns for massive venture funds.
• First Round aims to make 70 to 80 investments from each fund and own 12%–15% of a company initially. It targets 8%–9% ownership after dilution when a company exits. The firm takes Series A pro rata.
• First Round has been in business 20 years and made 90% of its profits in a 36-month period. VC makes its money by holding investments until the market is at the irrational disequilibrium or “extreme f*ing greed” part of the cycle. Bill Gurley agrees with this view (see here).
• A VC investor who started in 1980 and retired in 2000 made 17% of his profits in the first 17 years (1% per year). He made 83% of his profits in the last, 1997–2000 period.
• Multiple expansion in irrational disequilibrium and “extreme f*ing greed” is how VC returns are maximized.
• First Round is run like a company, not an investment firm. The firm has a CEO-type partner who doesn’t invest. He focuses on strategic planning, running experiments, iterating and learning, and offering products and services that add value to founders.
• First Round’s partners make their money from carry (profit sharing), not management fees.
• For the first seven years, First Round spent more on staff and products and services for founders than it took in from management fees. It invested ahead of planned growth. The partners had to contribute almost $8 million from their own pockets to fund the management company during this period.
• First Round still spends most of its management fees and has a staff of approximately 50 people.
• Value in venture capital firms is created by how they make decisions. Yet, many firms don’t capture their decision-making process so decisions can be analyzed and learned from later.
• Many venture capital firms are run poorly because founding investors don’t think of the firms as companies creating products or offering services to customers.
• First Round created a 36-question rubric that each investor answers before the partners discuss a potential investment. They want to capture each partner’s independent thinking before groupthink has a chance to creep in. This creates the fabric for debates about investments and game tapes to be reviewed later. Their goal is to capture the root of their investment decisions.

Those are my big takeaways from Josh’s interview, but he discusses a lot more. If you’re interested, check out the entire interview here.

In 2024, I began reading a biography (usually) every week, and I’ve added all those books to the Library page of this website. But I read books before 2024 too, and I want to share those as well. I aim to add them to the Library page on this site over time. A few days ago, I said I’d set myself a Memorial Day Challenge to add five of them.

I’m happy to report that I checked that box. Here are the books I added:

• Limitless by Jim Kwik
• Unknown Market Wizards by Jack Schwager
• Broken Money by Lyn Alden
• The Dhandho Investor by Mohnish Pabrai
• The Little Book That Still Beats the Market by Joel Greenblatt

This was a fun challenge. It took longer than I expected, but it was worth it. I spent a decent chunk of time reading the highlights and notes in each book. It was a nice refresher and reminded me of concepts I hadn’t revisited in almost two years.

Hopefully, sharing these books via my Library will add value to someone else.

As a first-generation entrepreneur, I’m committed to learning as much as I can about entrepreneurship. The best way I’ve found to do it is to study other entrepreneurs. To do that, I read a book every week, usually a biography. I share it in my Library on this site, and every Sunday, I post the latest book I read.

I recently listened to an interview of Josh Kopelman, founding partner of First Round Capital, a well-known, seed-stage, venture capital firm. One of Kopelman’s points is that most of the profits in venture capital are made in parts of the financial market cycle driven by “extreme f*ing greed” and “irrational disequilibrium” (see the clip here). This interview reminded me that financial market cycles have a profound impact on entrepreneurs and the investors who back them.

Last year, I read Bull!, which chronicles the financial booms and busts between 1982 and 2004. I wanted to go back further. I found exactly what I was looking for in a book that goes back hundreds of years, A Short History of Financial Euphoria. It’s short, a quick read, but does a great job of recounting history’s most famous financial bubbles—from the 1600s’ Tulip Mania to the 1980s’ junk bond frenzy and savings and loan crisis.

This book was straightforward and read like a mini biographical anthology. It details each bubble, including its origins, how it was created, and who the major players were. It describes the patterns each major speculative financial bubble follows and how to spot the signs of a bubble.

Anyone interested in the financial cycles and how to spot speculative euphoria may enjoy this book.