I’ve been looking into the current marketing landscape for selling physical products. From what I learned through my own research, things have changed considerably since I was selling physical products online. How companies reach customers has evolved materially.

After I felt like I had a high-level understanding of what’s changed, I reached out to an old friend who runs a marketing agency. He’s on the front lines every day buying ads on behalf of his clients. The conversation was great. He was able to give me a front-line perspective about what’s working and not working and share what he’s hearing from his peers who run agencies. It was also cool to hear his thoughtful approach to building his agency and structuring his team in a way that differentiates his services and better aligns his agency with his clients.

What I learned in a single call would have taken me tons of time to learn on my own (if I ever could have). Today was a reminder that when I’m trying to get up to speed on something fast, nothing beats talking with an entrepreneur who operates in the space. I just need to come to the meeting prepared so they don’t think I’m wasting their time.

Continuing with my new protocol, here I’m going to share content I consumed and learned from. This week, I spent time doing general learning about a variety of topics.

What I consumed this week and what I learned from it:

• How AppLovin CEO values his company: free cash flow minus stock-based compensation – YouTube interview with AppLovin CEO Adam Foroughi. I’ve been listening to different perspectives on how to account for stock-based compensation (see here). Foroughi shares an interesting perspective on why he thinks cash flow minus stock-based compensation is the best way to value a company. He also discusses his historic $6 billion stock buyback, which created $50 billion in value, and why his stock fell by 92% in 2022.
• How a billionaire runs his life with AI agents – YouTube interview with Andrew Wilkinson on how he uses AI agents to run his personal and professional life, including his health and his family office. Interesting details on the vertical SaaS app for psychological screening that he vibe-coded.
• Run toward ugly and misunderstood stuff – YouTube interview with Matt Schrager of TD Quant. Schrager explains his views on the best opportunities lying in messy or misunderstood opportunities. Those opportunities tend to have more upside potential because there’s more inefficiency. This reminds me of how Warren Buffett and Ed Thorp generated outsize returns, early in their investing career, in inefficient and misunderstood markets.

That’s what I learned from what I consumed last week.

A few weeks ago, I shared that I’d listened to a podcast presenter talk about how sound neural entrainment can reduce distractibility and help you get into your flow state. He mentioned Brain.fm, and I signed up for a free trial.

It’s been two weeks, and I really like the product. It’s hard to explain, but when I turn on the service, I definitely feel more in the zone and more productive. I focus faster than usual and knock out my to-do list like a champ.

I’ve noticed a few things, though. The first is that I need to remember to turn on the service! I don’t consistently remember, but when I do, I’m glad. I need to work toward making turning it on part of my normal work habits. The other thing I’ve noticed is that I get the most impact when I use earphones. When I let it play over the speakers on my computer, it doesn’t have the same effect. I think the earphones block out all other background noise so the rhythm of the music is all I hear.

Overall, I’m a fan so far. I’ll keep testing it for the rest of the month.

Continuing with my new protocol, here I’m going to share content I consumed and learned from. This week, I spent time trying to understand the brokerage and 3D gaming worlds. I listened to the perspectives of two seasoned public equity market investors.

What I consumed this week and what I learned from it:

• Building the YouTube of 3D worlds and video games – YouTube interview with Roblox cofounder and CEO David Baszucki. Interesting interview to understand the early days and what led Baszucki to found an ahead-of-its-time company after he sold another company for $20 million. He looked for a CEO job for two years before following his passion.
• Building an AI brokerage – YouTube interview with Public co-CEO and founder Leif Abraham. I’ve read biographies about the founders of Schwab, TD Ameritrade, and Vanguard (see here, here, and here). The brokerage business fascinates me. Public is building an AI-first brokerage platform. Learning more about the company and where the industry is going, as seen through Abraham’s eyes, was thought-provoking.
• The more risk you feel you’re taking, the less risk you’re taking – YouTube interview with Chris Davis of Davis Advisors. I read the biography of the Davis family (see here) and have followed Chris ever since. Lots of great nuggets in this interview about how he approaches investing in durable companies using a margin of safety. He shares wisdom about regretting selling great companies too early.
• Paul Tudor Jones on stock market cap-to-GDP – YouTube interview with Paul Tudor Jones, legendary trader and founder of Tudor Investment Corporation. Great insights from someone who’s seen multiple market cycles. His views on the total stock market cap–to-GDP ratio stuck with me. His daily routine is insane. His reflections on how long-term investing and Buffett’s approach are better were entertaining, especially coming from a multibillionaire who said the opposite years ago. Interesting story about how one small act of kindness to him in the 1950s sparked decades of philanthropic activities.

That’s what I consumed and learned from last week.

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I’ve been listening to a lot of friends discuss the amount of money that’s being spent to build data centers and related infrastructure for AI. Some of them are investors and others are entrepreneurs, so I hear varying perspectives on whether the current and proposed levels of spending make sense. And after listening to Kevin Koharki explain how stock-based compensation hits shareholders twice and reduces cash flow per share significantly (see here), I began thinking about it from that perspective as well.

I’m not sure what to make of this boom in spending on AI, but I want to understand it better because I think its impact on the economy and society will be massive. Luckily, this isn’t the first time we’ve had a massive spending boom driven by new technology. That being the case, I think the best thing for me to do is study history to understand what happened so I can better understand today’s reality. I have some historical books on this topic that I’m going to crack open.

I watched a few interviews where founders mentioned that physical AI and robotics are the next frontier in AI. I’m not very familiar with either, so I started digging. It’s early, but the more I learn, the more I can see why they believe that incorporating AI into robots and other devices that execute complex actions in the real world is a big deal. Especially when you consider repetitive, dangerous, or labor-intensive tasks being handled by machines or robots. That’s an enormous market.

I’m still learning, but so far I’m intrigued. I don’t have a deep enough understanding to share insights at this point, but anyone interested in finding out what physical AI is or why it’s important should check out a great article from Nvidia about generative physical AI here.

Yesterday I finished my second AI workshop at Georgia Tech. This session was focused on learning how to use the AI agent and workflow tool n8n. The person leading the session has built a sophisticated e-commerce company that’s automated on the n8n platform, so he was very knowledgeable.

n8n reminds me of workflow and conditional logic tools I’ve used in the past, but it’s way more powerful. The ability to connect it to foundational models like those from OpenAI (ChatGPT’s parent company) is huge. Last night, we linked our n8n workflow to OpenAI models via API, connected our n8n workflow to Telegram so we can give it written instructions, and built an OpenClaw-type setup in n8n.

Working with these tools hands-on with other people who are motivated to learn them makes for a wonderful environment. I met several great people last night, and I’m looking forward to the next session.

Last week, I shared that I wanted to start attending hands-on AI sessions to accelerate my learning and be around others trying to do the same. This week, I attended my first evening session at Georgia Tech. It was free and open to the public. This session was focused on using AI tools to create high-caliber images and videos.

My takeaway is that the session was exactly what I needed. It was hands-on, with everyone helping each other figure out how to use the tools and sharing what they created. I learned a ton and met some good people. I definitely want to do more of this.

I listened to a podcast about focus and productivity on YouTube today. One thing it talked about was a method of bringing distractibility down while helping to bring you into flow, or a state of increased focus. The presenter went on to talk about something called “neural entrainment,” which I’d never heard of. Apparently, it can occur when “something that’s rhythmic [harmonizes] with brain waves, which forces you into a state of more focus.” It could be triggered by movement, motion, or sound.

Sound neural entrainment caught my attention because it reminded me of conversations I’ve had with some of the most talented people I’ve worked with about their work style. Several of them listen to certain types of rhythmic music (no voices) when they’re doing focused work. This pattern jumped out to me every time I heard it because I don’t listen to music when I work.

After listening to this video, I now realize that those people may have been leveraging neural entrainment (whether they knew it or not). This made me want to try it. Luckily for me, the video mentioned Brain.fm, a company focused on playing music that’s personalized  (based on neuroscience) that helps you focus intensely. Think Pandora or Spotify, but meant to help you focus. I did some research, and it seems that Brain.fm works especially well for people with ADHD.

I’m always looking for ways to improve, and this neural-entrainment idea sparked my curiosity. So, I signed up for a 30-day trial of Brain FM. I can’t wait to see if the platform helps get me into a state of focus more easily and keeps me there. If you’re interested in listening to or watching the entire video, you can check it out here.

Continuing with my new protocol, here I’m going to share content I consumed and learned from.

What I struggled with:

• No material struggles this week

What I consumed this week and what I learned from it:

• Claude Managed Agents = office space of AI agents – YouTube interview detailing how to think about managed agents and when to use them, with detailed explanations and a demo of the Claude Console.
• Claude Managed Agents explanation – YouTube video that explains how Claude Managed Agents works and demos them. Quick, short video.
• $6M to $32B acquisition by Alphabet – YouTube interview with Gili Raanan, Founding Partner at VC firm Cyberstarts. Interesting interview where Raanan discusses his strategy for investing in early-stage cyber companies and why his unicorn hit rate has been so high. Raanan doesn’t ask about the founder’s idea at all. He invests in the person. And he invests only in people who have shown the ability to recover from setbacks.
• The Roblox economy turning devs into millionaires – YouTube interview with the Founder and CEO of Roblox, David Baszucki. Interesting interview where Baszucki describes how the Roblox platform works and how it’s really a small economy. His points about the value of the 3D data Roblox has are interesting, especially for robotics training. He explains how building AI-generated worlds is different from building interactive games. He makes a few references to parallels between YouTube and Roblox and how Roblox has a technical advantage over other game platforms.
• OpenAI’s 2029 projected growth, unique in history – YouTube interview with Michael J. Mauboussin, adjunct professor and investor. Fascinating interview where he discusses the importance of using base rates to evaluate probabilities. He shows how in 18,900 companies examined, no company the size of OpenAI has ever grown 108% compounded annually for five years, and how OpenAI’s 2029 $145B revenue projection would be a first in history. His ideas about intangible assets, AI, and expectations got me thinking.
• Secrets of investor athletes, and fear distorts reality – YouTube interview with Dr. Gio Valiante, world-renowned performance coach for professional athletes and investors. Founders of smaller funds and small investors can pivot and adapt to change faster than institutional investors, which is an edge. His thoughts on fear, motivation, and confidence were interesting. Confidence is inversely related to fear. Fear distorts our interpretation of objective reality. When you approach things from a place of fear, you see only the dangers, not the opportunities. Higher-performing investors operate at a level of optimization just like professional athletes’. I like his term “investor athletes.” Also, his point that high performers fall to the levels of their system (i.e., habits) or the culture and environment of their organization stuck with me.
• Thinking like an M&A buyer – YouTube Interview with Javier Enrile, Managing Director of M&A at TIAA. Interesting interview to understand how corporate buyers think about M&A. His thoughts on valuation and finding companies to buy caught my attention.

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