Liberty's Highlights

One of my very favorite annual traditions is conducting this interview with my friend David Kim, aka Scuttleblurb (

Mark Nelson is back for Part 2!(If you missed it, here's part 1)Another wide-ranging conversation: We discuss the implications of the new U.S. administration on energy policy, particularly focusing on Chris Wright, the incoming Secretary of Energy.We explore Wright's background in the oil and gas industry, his connections to the nuclear sector through his board position at Oklo, and what his appointment might mean for both conventional and advanced nuclear power in America.We also get into the dynamics between different energy sources, including the relationship between nuclear power and electric vehicles, the future of LNG exports, and the complex economics of oil and gas production.Don't miss the under-discussed love story (

Mark Nelson is back! (our first conversation is here)We discussed how AI's massive power needs are reshaping energy policy in unexpected ways.For years, Big Tech claimed to run on '100% renewable energy' while quietly relying on nuclear and fossil fuels. But now, as companies race to build massive AI computing centers requiring gigawatts of reliable 24/7 power, that pretense is crumbling. Starting with Microsoft's Three Mile Island deal for the revival of a shutdown nuclear plant, we explore how Silicon Valley's desperate hunt for steady power is forcing an energy policy reset across the industry and how that may impact anti-nuclear NGOs and policymakers everywhere.We dive into Germany's nuclear situation, Taiwan's power challenges, and how the world's richest companies went from being part of the problem to potentially part of the solution. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.libertyrpf.com/subscribe

I'm excited to share with you one of my favorite podcasts that I've recorded!

On his eighth appearance on the podcast, MBI (

Here's something a little different. A fun — but dark! — one.I'm a big fan of Denis Villeneuve, and I was due for a re-watch of ‘Sicario' (2015, written by Taylor Sheridan).It was the perfect opportunity to nerd out about the film, so I recruited my OSV colleagues Ed William (

Today, I'm joined by my friend Trung Phan! He's multi-talented, funny and smart, a great writer, podcaster, and just overall good dude

On his sixth appearance on the pod, MBI joins me to discuss the most polarizing of the Big Tech companies: Meta Platforms (the artist formerly known as Facebook).Of course, it's impossible to talk about it without talking about Mark Zuckerberg, so we try to better understand how he thinks about the company that he founded when he was 19, and how he compares to other founders.There was a lot to cover, and I think we touched on most of the big things: Facebook, Messenger, Whatsapp, Instagram, Reality Labs (AR/VR), AI, Threads, regulators, competitors, high-variance founders, and even cage matches (

I'm excited to share with you another fun conversation with my good friend MBI (

Over the years, I have gotten to know Jim through one-on-one conversations and by listening to Infinite Loops and other podcasts where he was a guest.My goal with this podcast is to help you get to know Jim better, from his origin story to his early career in finance and quantitative investing, the writing of his influential book, all the way to the seeds of the idea that became O'Shaughnessy Ventures (OSV) where I now work (more on that below) and how we see the past and future of the Media space.I hope that you will enjoy our conversation and learn a few things even if you've been following Jim for years. If this is your introduction to him, I hope you'll come out on the other side feeling like you have a good understanding of who he is, what his North Star is, and what he's building.

I had the great pleasure of talking with someone I admire a lot: Kevin Kelly!He not only influenced my life directly through his works & ideas but he's also cited as an inspiration and influence by many of the people that I admire, so I'm sure there's an indirect influence too!Among other things, we discuss his new book (order your copy today!), creativity, the impact of AI, how to create family traditions and rites of passage, Universal Personal Interns (UPIs), what is scarce in the universe, making friends with older and younger people, and more.Please enjoy my wide-ranging conversation with the inimitable K.K.!

I'm very happy to share with you this conversation with my two very good friends, Jimmy Soni (

What could be more exciting than carefully reading through Big Tech proxy statements to look at management incentives, comparing them across companies to see what's similar and different, what we like and don't like, and how they rank from best to worst..?If this is not your bag, you're in luck! MBI did this work for you and shared his findings in a post.But that's just a starting point: In today's episode, we go deep into Big Tech compensation, and MBI shares additional thoughts and analysis based on feedback he received after publishing his work. We discuss Apple, Google/Alphabet, Microsoft, Amazon, and Meta.For a lot more good stuff from Mostly Borrowed Ideas (

David Kim is the author of Scuttleblurb (now also on Substack! More on that new development in the podcast).This is the third time I have interviewed David — he's that interesting! For more context, you can find the previous two interviews linked below.In this one, David shares his journey as an investor, talks about how Scuttleblurb started and how it's doing these days, and who inspired him to get started (if Scuttleblurb is the grand-daddy of a lot of current ‘deep dive' newsletters, who's the great-grand-daddy?).It's a two-way conversation, so we also talk about what I'm doing.We also touch on some businesses: Carvana (

Let's go deep into season 1 of Severance (2022, Apple TV+), a thriller with science fiction elements created by Dan Erickson and directed by Ben Stiller and Aoife McArdle. It was nominated for 14 Emmys!

First, something to keep in mind: This is a conversation about these companies not an interview of MBI. We both talk about equally and ask each other questions. I want to mention it upfront just so you don't expect a different format going in.I had a great time discussing these two very interesting companies with my friend MBI (

I'm very happy to share with you this conversation I had with my two very good friends, Jimmy Soni (✍️) and David Senra (

This is part 2 of my conversation with Mark Nelson about the energy crisis and nuclear power. If you haven't heard it already, you should start with part 1:

Mark Nelson and I had so much to talk about, we had two hour+ calls on our energy crisis and nuclear power. This is the first one.Mark is a former generation fellow at the Breakthrough Institute and was a senior analyst at Environmental Progress. He holds degrees in mechanical, aerospace and nuclear engineering. He is the founder and CEO of the Radiant Energy Group.Part 1 covers Mark's origin story, the interesting and unique psychology of nuclear power, the historical link between nuclear weapons and energy, disentangling the physical accident at Chernobyl from the memes, Amory Lovins, nuclear regulations and incentives (good & bad), what the nuclear industry has gotten wrong, the nature of the professional opposition, nuclear medicine, what to do with nuclear waste, are plants built decades ago immortal, have we lost the capability to built large projects in the West and how could we regain it, de-industrialization vs re-industrialization, energy storage, and much more. And there's just as much in part 2, including potential solutions to the crisis, small modular reactors (SMRs), advanced reactor designs, fusion, Canada's CANDUs, the energy crisis worldwide and in Europe and which countries are most screwed, coal and gas, etc.

We cover so much ground in this conversation with friend-of-the-show David Senra (

This is an interesting one that goes in many directions! (starting with the Earth sandwich..

Thank you for your questions!

Full disclosure: I'm an investor in Koyfin. Not a big one, and I loved the company and products for years *before* I was even offered the opportunity to invest, but I want to make that clear so there's no ambiguity. I invested *because I love what they do* — not the other way around, I don't say that I love what they do because I invested. But it's up to you to decide whether to see it as a conflict of interest, or as putting my money where my mouth is ¯_(ツ)_/¯ I need to get a new joke, I made the same cheesy joke at the beginning as on the episode about Constellation Software with MBI…

This is podcast #7, I hope you enjoy it!

My friend Jimmy Soni (

Here's a mini-pod (14.5 minutes) about my note-taking adventure so far. I wrote about the changes I made a few editions ago, but then I wanted to spent some time just living with the system and refining it to have a better idea of what I thought of it.This is a snapshot in time, giving my current thoughts about why I think it's worth putting some time and energy into, what the different apps are and what some of their pros and cons are, and what I'm doing myself specifically.I expect this to keep evolving, so if you're reading/listening in the future, don't assume that everything here is still exactly the same for me.(as usual with the podcast format, I feel like I forgot to say a ton of things and wish I could edit and add things as easily as with text, but gotta accept the pros and cons of each medium…)(And here's the big news this morning! Koyfin paid plans & even more features! I'll cover in more detail tomorrow… I became a small investor in Koyfin earlier this year because I love the product and the team, and have been living in the app for a few years. Really happy to see them keep evolving and building more great features!)Obsidian ScreenshotsThis shows the whole window (you can change the appearance, there's a zillion themes with very different looks, but this is my fave one right now — it's called ‘Obsidian gruvbox').You can see the folder structure on the left, and on the right I have a calendar view (if I click on a day, it takes me to that day's daily page), the page outline (you can click on a sub-title to jump to that part of the document), and a mini-graph view that shows what this page links to.The view above is the editor view, so you see the markdown code (if you're familiar with HTML code, this is like a super-super-simplified version of that). You can switch to ‘preview' mode, which shows the rendered page without the code. They'll soon be adding the ability to edit from preview mode, but Markdown is pretty easy to learn. You basically do stuff like this [[link]] or *this* and it renders as links or italics or put dashes in from of stuff to have a bulleted list or whatever..If you want to give it a try, Obsidian is free and multi-platform (mobile apps in beta right now, but coming). And the devs and community are constantly cranking out new features, improvements, and new useful plug-ins. Very vibrant software.This is what my daily page template looks like. You can create your own template, and every day a new page is created using today's date and will contain whatever you put in the template.What I call my “daily highlight” in the “to do” section is the most important thing I'd like to do that day.That's my graph view. Every bright dot is a note, every dark gray dot is a link that is created, but the page hasn't be created yet, and the other colors (brow and blue) are tags and files.In the app, this is an interactive view, like a Google Maps view. You can zoom in, see the names of the files on each dot, when you hover your mouse over one it shows what other notes it links too, and you can click on any to see that page. It's very cool.Update: For those who want to give Obsidian a try, check out this 6-part series of Obsidian video tutorial by Nick Milo.It's the best way I've found to take a running start at that learning curve, and it's what helped me get started.What I Learned Recording this PodcastDon't have much to say about this recording experience. It was fairly straightforward. This is what the project looks like in Audacity:You can't see it on this, but I did a bunch of edits, took me about an hour to do surgery on the raw audio… And it's far from perfect, but at a certain point you just have to call it done and move on to the next thing.Note: I'm still using my son's toy piano for intro and outro music. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.libertyrpf.com/subscribe

Thank you for your questions!