Eureka

Lewis Grafton left private equity to cofound and raise US$55m for a pre-launch crypto-native game (SolChicks) I have profound admiration for anyone who takes the leap to start something new, and I was excited to talk to Lewis to see how he did it. Cherry on top: he's expecting his second baby with his wife shortly. We speak about: What is SolChicks What's special about gaming on the blockchain How do you back yourself as finance guys to build a winning game experience Working remotely from Australia and the global team Day-to-day work in the early days What SolChicks is doing differently, including innovations in fundraising Going from zero to one Taking the leap to a new career Why gaming is a such a powerful sector and systemically underrated Is Play-to-Earn dystopian? 0 to 1 to 2 to 3 kids

We cover a lot: the immigrant impulse rascality as a temperament fatherhood Judaism unchosen obligations as the nexus to a meaningful life the intellectual life as respite to depression + more

The history of the Jews, including Ashkenazim, Sephardim and smaller communities like Greek, Yemenite, Moroccan, and Chinese Jews, and how their experiences diverged around the world. Plus, the miracle of modern genomics. “I'm imagining a future where genomics gives us a window onto the biochemical metabolic processes that are going on. We shall be as gods. We are biting of the apple” “The first human genome was $3bn. In 2010 the human genome was $20,000, and now it's $200.”

Noah as a Lithuanian yeshiva student American growth and decline Critical Race Theory How the left dominates academia and has cut off the right's head 2020 riots and how we know anything Noah's conversion out of Judaism and into 90s gamer culture Cultural preservation, including Judaism Christian revivalism The misguided fixations of the right and the left The fertility crisis Noah's cultural composition: Jewish, Texan and Japanese What Noah invests in + Much more

On life as an angel, failure and success, humility, portfolio construction, what we can know East Coast vs West Coast  Differentiation in a world of cheap capital What a restructuring background can teach you and why he didn't pursue private equity This moment in technological and political history What he's reading Whether you should become a VC today Why he teaches “The biggest mistake most new angels make is they invest in things where they know it's going to succeed”

A special episode for the Sydney Cremorne Jewish community, everyone welcome to listen in 

This conversation picks up on a strand that I've been thinking a lot about. Diana Fleischman in my conversation with her said: Institutions are increasingly reflecting the values of middle aged women. Tyler Cowen often writes about the feminization of society at Marginal Revolution. In addition to feminisation we discuss: Growing up with another language Richard's folkways American culture as a dissolvent Impact of immigrant background Money, fame or power? What is the source of GOP derangement?

Diana's writing a book called “How to Train Your Boyfriend” – so, there's a lot of that. We also discuss: The mating market and the downstream effects of untangling sex from marriage Big lies in the open today Things that don't work if you name them Feminisation of society and how, in her words, institutions are increasingly reflecting he values of single middle aged women Sorcery and witchcraft The problems of knowledge in evolutionary psychology And a lot more. Including tangents. Lots of tangents.  This was a really fun conversation. I hope you enjoy it as much as I did.

Razib and I discuss “Genghis Khan and the Making of the Modern World” by Jack Weatherford, which Razib had recommended. We deep dive on the book, read extracts and discuss the Mongols and related history. We discuss: The profound achievements and impact of the Mongols Potential relationship between the founding story of the Mongols and the story of Genesis Cultural and political aspects Military tactics and brutality How they seem somewhat liberal and globalist in a surprisingly modern way How they seemed in many ways less brutal than their contemporaries The decadence of second and third generation Khans Other downstream effects of their rule

Fun conversation with Delian Zebulgar, who is both a full time VC investor at Founders Fund and a co-founder of space manufacturing startup Varda. What better excuse to speak to a guy? I discover the space economy is much closer and bigger today than most people think. Also pleased and surprised to learn that Australia and New Zealand are up there in terms of pushing the space frontier - yet another reason to be bullish the region.   We talk about: Space factories! What a mature space ecosystem looks like How he walks the line between exploring opportunities and focusing on doing something great, which is something I struggle with a lot as well What makes a great operator What he disagrees about with some of the people we both admire most How he made his best public markets trade ever by betting against Peter Thiel What impact his Eastern European immigrant background has had on him I hope you enjoy this conversation as much as I did. Let's go!

Nicholas is a prominent Australian economist, and has chaired various Australian government groups and initiatives as well as Kaggle, where he was an early investor. Lindsay Tanner has described him as "Australia's foremost public intellectual". We cover: Toyota, Tech and Isegoria Problems with technological scale vs human-centred design Our inability to solve child abuse and indigenous disadvantage Corporate value phoniness The surreal waste of government programs Mentorship Interesting people Investment philosophy The Australian Dream and Australian identity The meaning of life and what Nicholas would do with a billion dollars New banking initiatives Plain packaging cigarettes Regrets and the long shadow of the Holocaust A Poem Advice he'd give his younger self “We need the eggs”, a joke that gets better with age https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W-M3Q2zhGd4

In this conversation Alex and I discuss: The Big Lies we are told about relationships, family and meaning and the personal and social derangements that surround these issues today Romania, where Alex lives, and the liminal space between Eastern and Western Europe Individual optimisation vs group optimisation Alex: “I'm here to bring the dad energy. Here are the facts of life. Place your bets” We end on a bleak note: our society may be dominated by childless smart people filled with ennui, but that moment will pass, and the future belongs to those who propagate themselves – for better and for worse   www.mishasaul.com

Professor Rory Medcalf, Head of the National Security College at the Australian National University and author of Contest for the Indo-Pacific. We cover a lot to do with Australian defence including China, nuclear weapons for Australia, political interference in defence procurement, where he sees potential for technology obsolescence in the next war, lessons from his time as diplomat in India, and much more including his book recommendations. What is the importance of steering Australian defence strategy towards the Indo-Pacific? What are the key military threats facing Australia over the next 50 years? Looking back, Australia first relied on British imperial support, then on the post-WWII US liberal order. What does Australia standing on its own look like going forward? How do you think about Chinese threat to Australia? Where else could realistically a threat come from, and over what time horizon? Should Australia get nuclear weapons? What's going to be the big military surprise next conflict? That aircraft carriers are rendered obsolete by drones? How at risk is our strategic execution from provider capture and politically motivated employment schemes? What's your biggest learning and fondest memory while a diplomat in India Book recommendations:  The Dark Valley: A Panorama of the 1930s by Piers Brendon Everything Under The Heavens: How the Past Helps Shape China's Push for Global Power, by Howard W. French The Leopard: by Giuseppe Tomasi Di Lampedusa

Byrne generates one of the highest insights per unit of speech or writing I've come across. Some of what we covered + highlights: Interest rates and bubbles Why interest rates have been declining over the long run Low interest rates and private / public market valuations Structural sellside optimism Are Google and Facebook undervalued Signs we might be in a bubble This was recorded months before the Gamestop fiasco (!): “so you can find people on wall street bets who are just insanely exuberant and who are clearly just deranged gamblers who are buying out of the money call options and pyramiding up their gains until they get wiped out” On the Buy Now Pay Later phenomenon Why Australia? All about CAC, baby! “My view on that is that in FinTech, the dominant factor is always customer acquisition cost. A lot of people come up with interesting ideas for financial products that are interesting to the kinds of people who dream up new financial products. Then they figure out that very few people are interested in a financial product as such people are interested in free money” How FinTechs typically unravel “A lot of that comes down to the fact that it's hard to market financial products, because it's just really hard to create an ad advertising something that is so ephemeral. You can't show someone on TV having insurance. You can't show a picture of alone.” Byrne's journey Learning to trade stocks in high school Dropping out of college Realising he could be a tech analysis in a time before tech analysts – finding his niche and making it his thing How he ended up writing full time The natural narrowing of focus in finance careers What he learned living in a former crack den in New York. One roommate was a currency trader who just listened to techno and day-traded the British pound all day: “I think practicing the ability to just grind out the normal thing at a fairly high quality level is a useful background for doing something different” (Byrne uses the Beatles and Picasso as examples)" Ricardian comparative advantage: I first really appreciated Ricardian comparative advantage the first time I paid a laundromat to do my laundry and fold my laundry and while I was there, I was able to write an article that paid for the cost of the laundry. Investing What's an overlooked asset class? On investing discipline: “I try to be very disciplined about having stop losses, just so that I don't talk myself into really dumb reasons to own something or short something.” Momentum investing: “Often being able to say, I agree only more so is actually a pretty powerful way to find things that don't look contrarian. That's why they are contrarians.” Why shorting is such a hard game (note John Hempton!) Self-perpetuating mechanisms for credit bubbles, and how in the short term they lead to volatility but in the long term can lead to stability and prosperity Question from Patrick McKenzie: I believe this is called a “lobster pot”: “In addition to being long short tech stocks and doing some stuff with futures from time to time, I have one company that is really tiny, illiquid enough that it does not trade every day. It's just a very deep value stock that I bought and have resolved to not pay attention to until the CEO dies and the company will presumably get liquidated then.” Impressive companies, determinant optimism and recursion Whether kids have made Byrne more or less ambitious How the Anglosphere, largely surrounded by bodies of water as it is (UK, US, Australia / NZ) is inoculated from the existential risk of tanks rolling through, which happens from time to time basically everywhere else On the meritocracy / nepotism tradeoff / synthesis What Byrne disagrees with Bryan Caplan and Peter Thiel on “You basically need a lot of natural Republicans to run a socialist country”

Rob Wiblin is a founder and leader of the modern Effective Altruism movement…. and one of my oldest friends! This conversation is different because there's not much about Effective Altruism – there's Rob's excellent podcast and prolific writing for that. This conversation is a chat between old mates, and it tries to track our intellectual development since we were teens. Is that self-indulgent? Maybe! But it's the conversation I was excited to have with Rob. We cover a lot: What Rob learnt from his parents How we shaped each other's views My Theory of Rob Rob's excellent conversation with Russ Roberts (best rebuttal of Effective Altruism on record) How Rob's views have changed since starting out with EA and how confident he is in his views What keeps him up at night Whether he's winning Should we stop eating animals? What we're watching Why has the Lord of The Rings held up so well? Podcasting tips On kids Was learning Spanish a mistake? What was it like being an exchange student in Spain On institutional decline and the US today Hope you enjoy, and let me know what you think.

The Georgian language has one of the most beautiful scripts I have come across. Unique to Georgia, tucked away between the Russian, Persian and Ottoman empires, and unrelated to any other language in the world, I've always wanted to know how it came to be. I got to ask that and more in this conversation. Transcript at www.mishasaul.com

Daniel Gulati is one of the most all-round impressive people I know: brought up in Wollongong, NSW, he's founded and exited 4 startups and launched his own VC fund, Forecast Fund, in the US. We kick off this conversation with fatherhood, a subject close to both our hearts, and then cover what opportunities he's looking for, why he's bullish on Australia, building his VC business, the role of a Board member and much more. Topics we cover and great quotes: “I'm interested in…the anti-Amazon” “I don't think there's any reason that the next great consumer company can't come out of Australia” Why he's a Zero to One founder and not a One to Ten founder “If you're a really good idea or content creator or really good coder, you can take over the world. And if you're not one of those two things, better to invest in people that are” “School teaches you to address your weaknesses, and I think life teaches you that you actually need to double down on your strengths” “The best startups are the ones that exist in many categories or don't exist in any categories” The power of the immigrant chip on your shoulder How he's built out his investment funnel and sourcing network for his VC fund The role of a board member: “not holding a mirror to a founder but actually doing the opposite and trying to counterbalance a founder is really, really important” “Good founders are able to execute on their vision and great founders are able to adapt”

Speaking to Tim is like drinking from a firehouse: singularly the most impressive growth marketing person I know, he seems to have seamlessly transitioned to company building. I love the way he thinks deeply about product and company strategy, building his team and capability, and the trade offs involved. But it's really the insights that you get when he talks about his marketing craft, that you really won't get anywhere else.   Transcript at www.mishasaul.com

I got to ask Agnes Callard questions about her work as well as on philosophical topics I've been pondering for years. I also appreciated her personal insights into family and Jewishness.   “There's something thin and insubstantial about tech optimism”   Full transcript at www.mishasaul.com

I had a wide ranging conversation with Mark Lutter covering The impact of US riots on the future of cities Mark's role in helping Hong Kong citizens find a new home Why mature societies stop building new cities Population growth in the US vs Australia NIMBYs and why they might be right (or not) Importance of culture  How to measure institutional decline and progress How you can help And much more!

Sifting for insight in an ever changing world with host Misha Saul  www.mishasaul.com