Zack Milles

@gregoryblotnick Extremely well said. Thanks for sharing.

on reading habits... the way I'd break it down to my 23-year old self arguably the most important thing to get right in determining the trajectory of ur life 1/5 first priority, u gotta master whatever is needed for work + reach the highest level of proficiency...this is not limitless, somewhere in the 5-10 year range u should be "finished" lets say ur done with most work days at 7-8ish on two or three weeknights, when u arent being social, u can knock out 1-2 hours of reading go out friday night + either saturday day or sunday day, and block off the other day as "work" (usually sunday) if ppl are out u say "I can't make it, I have to work," which is true in the sense of...ur working because u want to win. and reading always falls under the bucket of work after u do whatever actual work u need to do, u knock out 3-5 hours reading the compounding of these days, and weeknights, is what creates a massive difference over a decade 2/5 once u no longer suck at ur job / are done with that reading, u start mixing in stuff like top novels of all time, classics, history but really u want to focus on "The Eminent Dead" as Munger calls them great man bios, heroes, conquerors, leaders, all the way back to the Greeks and Romans u want to build relationships with them, where u develop their collective voices in ur head, and let their advice be what guides u through life. I didn't understand this until say 35 but it could've been useful at 25 3/5 uploading the "eminent dead" is how u become a leader and exercise independent judgement, rather than blindly following the crowd u will quickly realize that most people have no fucking clue what they're doing, a lot of opinions are just mechanically repeating what they were told if u ask ppl "why do u believe what u believe?" they freeze up and in following the footsteps of the eminent dead, u will recognize that there is a wide divergence in what they would do vs. what the crowd u see around u is doing..."this isn't right, this isn't how all the heroes throughout history would act." everything great comes from having courage in ur own convictions + from a willingness to say, "I see everyone going that way, but I know that the correct thing to do is go this way" over time, people will pick up on that u have some clue what ur doing, and they will start following u 4/5 on social media, u mostly want to leave this shit alone all it does is slopbeam "crowd habits" into ur brain rather than the habits of the eminent dead, which u would get from books these forums are best used for getting "reps" in writing, in creativity, evaluating ur ideas, and getting feedback stay as far away as possible from the gossip section, or passing judgment on random finance/tech "celebrities" who u will never meet and have no bearing on ur life when ur young, u will see the crowd doing it and u will blindly do what the crowd does so u can "fit in" u will make an anonymous account and talk about how stupid terry smith is, despite that he runs 12 billion, and ur unemployed daytrading a $25k robinhood account as u read more u will see that the Eminent Dead are unanimous on critics...loathed, held in contempt, viewed as cowards, and criticism in general is viewed as a massive waste of time, i.e. "great minds talk about ideas, small minds talk about people" when u look back at the time u spent engaging in it, u will realize they were right. u never gain anything in bringing others down, every single minute is an 100% pure waste of time u will learn that u can read people very quickly based on what they talk about, because people talk about what they think about, and people think about whatever they upload for some that's books, for others its gossip but for all, the output will always reflect the input... because "what you focus on expands." 5/5 as long as u block off these weekly hours, and u keep a stack of 10 books around, ur gonna be good u can have several genres going - few novels, few bios, few history books, few psychology/philosophy, etc because ur mood will change, ur attention span is variable, and some books require deeper concentration than others biographies tend to be a heavier lift, whereas any novel written in the last 50 years... u can be tired and hungover and still rip through it read what appeals to u, dont worry about what everyone else thinks, never force anything some writers or individual titles inevitably just wont click for u there's no rhyme or reason, I don't like Dickens, I don't like Dostoevsky, I like Tolstoy, I like some Thomas Mann, but not all....is this how it's "supposed" to be, I don't know and don't care u read these books to try and figure out how this life shit actually works. there is no "supposed," a book is either helping u or it isnt if one isn't working for u, just give it to a friend and keep starting new books until one "clicks," it always will END that's all there is to it if u read a lot, u will never in your life know what "boredom" or "loneliness" feel like every problem u will ever face, there is a book written on how to either solve it, or how to navigate it while keeping ur head about u and if a book shifts ur worldview, and u suddenly recognize u have the wrong ppl around u, trust ur gut and change what needs to be changed the eminent dead will never steer u wrong will end this with a letter that John Adams wrote to his son: -- "Read somewhat in the English poets every day. You will find them elegant, entertaining and instructive companions, through your whole life. To one who has taste, the poets serve to fill up time which would otherwise pass in idleness, languor, or vice. You will never be alone, with a poet in your pocket. You will never have an idle hour. How many weary hours have been made alert, how many melancholy ones gay, how many vacant ones useful, to me, in the course of my life, by this means?" - J. Adams Amsterdam, May 14th, 1781

@FishtownCap @DiogenesLaertus Good debate. I wrote an article about this earlier this year in case of interest. zackmilles.com/p/saasapocalyp…

Business use but solo. Believe me, operating in a major 50k+ corporate environment is far different, cybersecurity is #1 concern still, Microsoft hugely entrenched. There's a reason paid CoPilot seats increased 33% QoQ in Q2. I'm not sure they need their own. I think they work great as a distributor. Regardless, I'm not sure how hard it would be to develop one given their financial resources. Good discussion, will be interesting to see how it plays out.

$META went $600 to $580 on news from 2 days ago then to $638 AH on AI release news. Market approaching 2021 absurdity. In a couple years all models are so good they’re commodities and $MSFT is the winner as the massive window deploying it to the enterprise.

@StockJabber Congrats Edwin!

Some personal news: Hunterbrook Media has acquired The Bear Cave newsletter. I started The Bear Cave to pursue independent investigative research and am excited to partner with a team that shares that mission. Hunterbrook will invest in bringing more original reporting to The Bear Cave’s readership and together we will bring the publication to new heights. I’d like to thank so many people for helping make The Bear Cave a reality, starting with Professor John Shoven at Stanford, my first paid subscriber Jim Carruthers, early mentors like Marc Cohodes, Andrew Left, Doomberg, Petition, Bill Martin, and many others, including Substack founders Chris Best, Hamish McKenzie, and Jairaj Sethi for making it possible for anyone anywhere to build a following and income from writing online. I owe endless gratitude to everyone who read and shared The Bear Cave, and especially those who supported The Bear Cave with paid subscriptions. Above all, The Bear Cave would not exist if not for all the activist short sellers who speak truth to power: @CitronResearch @FriendlyBearSA @muddywatersre @WolfpackReports @JehoshaphatRsch @ScorpionFund @KerrisdaleCap @ResearchGrizzly @CapybaraShort @NMRtweet @HitHawk_ @NingiResearch @GlassH_Research @FuzzyPandaShort @AureliusValue @blueorcainvest @IcebergResear @CulperResearch @GothamResearch @SnowCapResearch @FugaziResearch @WhiteResearch @SunlightPartner @Pelicanwayre @callistores @BmfReports @QCMFunds @JCap_Research @BonitasResearch @Jonathan_Keith2 @viceroyresearch @umibozuresearch @HindenburgRes @Manateeres @MorpheusRes Thank you.

@JayaGup10 “The transmission that used to require a particular network now requires curiosity and the willingness to ask.” Unreal Jaya, amazing article

AI will make software easier and cheaper to build. The winners may be the companies that own the business context and the surface where work gets done. In this memo, I outline a Microsoft bull case amid the "SaaSapocalypse": - Coding advancements can expand product suites faster - The agentic layer may consolidate around whoever controls the operating system + identity + business context This is a working thesis — I genuinely welcome critiques and counterarguments. This piece was posted in Feb 2026. It took me a bit to set up my X to post here. Hope you enjoy and more to come. zackmilles.com/p/saasapocalyp…