Jaap Vergote

yes

you must cross the river by feeling the stones

@blueprintsmb22 At some point, people realize that compounding is the only thing that matters. The main ingredient is time. Better to own what you want to compound over decades.

It’s cliche but life comes at you fast. I go back and forth between pushing for a sense of urgency in life versus enjoying the journey. I’m in my 40s and feel young but also am stressed that I don’t have enough time. Recently I connected with two early 30 hedge fund guys asking for advice. First guy’s path was equity research and then pod hedge funds where he’s experienced some bad luck as both of his portfolio managers at different firms had been let go after poor performance. Recruiters were chasing him and his resume is clean so he would have been able to find a job quickly, but he was reticent to stay on his current path as the idea of finding a new job every 2-3 years seemed unsustainable. He came to the factory earlier this year to learn about business buying. Second guy’s path was banking, private equity and now single manager that has over a $1bn but performance has been blah and he is losing confidence it is a path of growth long term and is considering long only or pod hedge funds. He is smart enough he will both options no doubt. First guy lives a spartan life with his fiance (W2) and they live in a cheap apt outside of Manhattan to save money. They have enough liquidity to buy a sizable business and are now pursuing this path. They want to play the long game of finding a business knowing it could take time. Second guy is more debating if pods worth it given the stress and high turnover with exit options less clear to him if he’s 40 and gets canned (happens a lot) versus the lower beta long only path with less upside. I’m in year 4 of business ownership and it’s hard as heck and there have been periods where I didn’t pay myself for 6 months to prioritize not having to let employees go and pay down debt (I’ve paid off close to 7 figures of debt since the deal closed). I am still trying to figure shvt out myself and still have days I think I’m dead while other days I think my business is worth 8 figures. I’ve been fortunate that things have been working out, but what’s funny is that I would love to be 32 again. As I’ve gotten older I’ve realized time is just as important if not more important than money. I had similar concerns as both of them at 32. I was at a pod and like most of the industry had severe career insecurity as I basically saw a team fired weekly. I was too scared/risk adverse to leave until I had a daughter and realized I wanted to be around her more. I asked my friends if they would rather have $500k and be 30 or have $5mm and be 40. 100 pct said be 30. I agree with this. Both of these guys will be fine. I get the stress. But 40 will be here sooner than they think and it’s smart they are both thinking out 5 years. They both don’t realize it because they are too focused myopically on their current decision trees, but they both still have something us older guys wish we had more of=> time.⏳ x.com/adamstatonsmit…

what if everything goes right

@startingfromnix Nubeluz. Tigre. the Grill

I'm interested in what people consider "perfect places" - perfect bars, restaurants, places in the city to people watch - where the experience is not "optimized" per se, but the "vibes are just undeniably good". Which places in NYC/SF are like this?

I think genius is what happens when someone's energy is fully unblocked for a few years (internally and externally) and it compounds for a few years.

A tree is essentially compounded sunlight

Game theory pretty much proves that the long game is not a strategy most people can execute at all. That's because it tends to require a negative short-term position in exchange for a real advantage later. Most people cannot commit to this because their threat-detection system reads current loss as an existential failure. And that's vicious short-sightedness. It leads them to optimize for visible progress and sacrifice their real position. The people who constantly win rarely have better information. Instead, they accept that losing now will pay off later. Never quit a game before it starts.

I don't remember where I found this, but its spot on.

The joy of owning beautiful things, a good knife, a proper linen towel, a jar of excellent honey, one soul encapsulating perfume, over many mediocre things. Doing this slowly across every domain.

you can outsource your thinking but you cannot outsource your understanding

@DaveRekuc Yep we can do that. Dm’d

Is there an app that can upsell a subscription product in checkout (not post purchase) on Shopify? I want to set the price to 100% off in checkout, but recur at the full price. This is for our membership product. So far, run into apps not supporting subscriptions.

@fortelabs I like notesmesh, dead simple notesmesh.com

Can anyone recommend a dead simple, easy to use notetaking app based on markdown files? Obsidian is far too complicated for me. I'm looking for Apple Notes, but with markdown storage

Here in brief is the method I’ve honed to optimize a two-week vacation: When you arrive in a new country, immediately proceed to the farthest, most remote, most distant place you intend to reach during the trip. If there is a small village, remote spa, a friend’s farm, or a wild place you plan on seeing on the trip, go there immediately. Do not stop near the airport. Do not rest overnight in the arrival city. Do not pause to acclimate. If at all possible proceed by plane, bus, jeep, car directly to the furthest point without interruption. Make it an overnight journey if you have to. Then once you reach your furthest point, unpack, explore, and work your way slowly back to the big city, wherever your international departure airport is. In other words you make a laser-straight rush for the end, and then meander back. Laser out, meander back. This method is somewhat contrary to many people’s first instincts, which are to immediately get acclimated to the culture in the landing city before proceeding to the hinterlands. The thinking is: get a sense of what’s going on, stock up, size up the joint. Then slowly work up to the more challenging, more remote areas. That’s reasonable, but not optimal because most big cities around the world are more similar than different. All big cities these days feel same-same on first arrival. In Laser-Back travel what happens is that you are immediately thrown into Very Different Otherness, the maximum difference that you will get on this trip. You go from your home to extreme differences so fast it is almost like the dissolve effect in a slide show. Bam! Your eyes are wide open. You are on your toes. All ears. And there at the end of the road (but your beginning), your inevitable mistakes are usually cheaper, easier to recover from, and more fun. You take it slower, no matter what country you are in. Then you use the allotted time to head back to the airport city, at whatever pace is your pace. But, when you arrive in the city after a week or so traveling in this strangeness, and maybe without many of the luxuries you are used to, you suddenly see the city the same way the other folks around you do. After eight days in less fancy digs, the bright lights, and smooth shopping streets, and late-night eateries dazzle you, and you embrace the city with warmth and eagerness. It all seems so … civilized and ingenious. It’s brilliant! The hustle and bustle are less annoying and almost welcomed. And the attractions you notice are the small details that natives appreciate. You see the city more like a native and less like a jaded tourist in a look-alike urban mall. You leave having enjoyed both the remote and the adjacent, the old and new, the slow and the fast, the small and the big. We’ve also learned that this intensity works best if we aim for 12 days away from home. That means 10 days for in-country experience, plus a travel day (or two) on each end. We’ve found from doing this many times, with many travelers of all ages and interests, 14 days on the ground is two days too many. There seems to be a natural lull at about 10 days of intense kinetic travel. People start to tune out a bit. So we cut it there and use the other days to come and go and soften the transitions. On the other hand 8 days feels like the momentum is cut short. So 10 days of intensity, and 12 days in a country is what we aim for. Laser-back travel is not foolproof, nor always possible, but on average it tends to work better than the other ways I’ve tried. #KKtraveltips

Future of all software/digital experiences

Imagine every pixel on your screen, streamed live directly from a model. No HTML, no layout engine, no code. Just exactly what you want to see. @eddiejiao_obj, @drewocarr and I built a prototype to see how this could actually work, and set out to make it real. We're calling it Flipbook. (1/5)

Getting painfully obvious that frontends in the future will be 120fps diffusion models

It’s very hard to lose the day if you wake up at 5am and work out.

Thinking is unnatural. You should try your best to do as little thinking as possible. You should trust your gut

the trick to surviving is having a european approach to life with somehow an american work output

Hence, never use the brakes on a Rhino Citibike in NYC