Grey Enlightenment

Anyone who did SEO in the early 2000s, including yours truly, probably recalls the adage ‘content is king’. It meant that rather than focusing on building links, writing the best possible content should take priority. In theory, links would be rewarded without having to buy or ask for them, because people would apparently feel compelled… Continue reading The internet is overflowing with ‘content’, and it sucks. Users are fighting back.

According to a 2018 Guardian article, we are living in an ‘age of rage’. Such anger is often framed as having an ideological or political bend or etiology (e.g. Trump, Biden, Covid). Another article The West needs to grow up argues that infantilism is to blame for society’s problems. Jonathan Haidt makes similar arguments that… Continue reading The Age of Rage: Why are People are So Angry?

Item #0: RIP to the GOAT: Jim Simons, a Pioneer of Quantitative Trading, Dies. It is believed that Renaissance Technologies’ Medallion Fund earns title of the greatest performance of any hedge fund. Although we don’t agree on much politically, I like to think he served as inspiration for my own life. He set the standard… Continue reading Daily View, Finance Edition: RIP James Simons, Huge Gains Shorting Bitcoin

Trump Media (DJT) stock keeps going up, now at $53 as predicted here and here. When I claim to be to best investor and forecaster, it’s not bluster but backed by quantifiable evidence and results. So many people said it would go bankrupt or go to zero, yet when sone of the smartest people says… Continue reading Explaining DJT stock surge in the context of efficient markets

Early in an interview with Tim Ferriss, Nassim Taleb discusses the closure of his old Fund, Empirica Capital, and the launch of his new fund, Universa: Not surprisingly Taleb glosses over why Empirica closed, nor does Mr. Ferriss press him on the matter. If I had to guess, it closed due to poor performance, until… Continue reading The failure of tail hedging, and why barbell strategies are misleading

Item #1: Jane Street is big. Like, really, really big. If anyone is confused as to what Janes Street does exactly, that is the point. Like all quant firms, it’s highly secretive. MainFT already reported the headline numbers — net trading revenues of $4.4bn in the first quarter, after a $10.5bn haul in 2023, and… Continue reading The Daily View 5/6/2024: Jane Street, 180+ IQs Study, Crypto, and more

The following stories went viral this week: Harvard applications drop 5% after year of turmoil on the Ivy League campus; and by Nate Silver, Go to a state school. Every year, for the flimsiest of justification or evidence, pundits trot out the same tired predictions or pronouncements about how the ‘Ivy League has peaked’ or… Continue reading In an era of overabundance, elite colleges matter more than ever

From Nate Silver: Go to a state school. This guy was taken seriously as a election pundit, and after capitalizing on that fleeting fame until his prediction models stopped working, basically been a long decline as a contrarian gadfly ever since. his week, for instance, Google — despite probably being the most progressive or Silicon… Continue reading Nate Silver: Go to a state school

As Bitcoin faceplants, at around $57,000 or so as of publishing this post for a decline of over 25% after peaking in March on what is likely a trajectory to $20,000 or lower, I am reminded of a useful heuristic: “Anything that is hyped or promised as a shortcut to wealth for the masses will… Continue reading Bitcoin’s crash is a reminder of the importance of high barriers to entry

Rob K. Henderson discusses his writing process, interestingly, downplaying the role of talent: Yes, you need some bare minimum level of ability to be a good writer, but not as much as you might think. It also implies that the writer can only do things he or she is “good at.” Most people aren’t working… Continue reading The importance of talent and the difficulty of ‘good writing’