"Good Risk", BTC and Tesla

Howdy Y’all!

Here are 5 things I learned this past week, that I thought were worth sharing…

1. I’ve been thinking a lot about risk the last 6+ months, as it relates to investments, job decisions (shameless plug to a blog I wrote), relationships, and basically everything. And the more I dig into risk, the more I see its prevalence in so many decisions that I would have otherwise overlooked. So, last week on his podcast, when Tim Ferriss was asked “What is good risk?” I was all ears…

   Tim’s Answer:

   • High likelihood of developing or deepening skills that will transfer to other things 

   • Developing relationships that can transcend ‘the project’ 

   • Something that will help develop attributes or emotional resilience (or to take things ‘less seriously’)

2. Another nugget from the conversation: "Goodreads is the ‘movie trailer’ to a book". I continue to buy books on recommendation, giving myself no budget for books (as a frugal person, it’s hard - but I think knowledge at my fingertips is a worthwhile cause), so this resonated with me as an easy and quick filter for what books I should buy/read.

3. Bitcoin made a little run, popping above $10k for the first time in ~6 months, and proving to be one of the best investment returns so far in 2020. Below is a great twitter thread on BTC, that I came across last week…

Meltem Demirors @Melt_Dem

bitcoin is an open, permissionless communication network ❤️ finance has always been a function of social networks which have evolved with communication technology. bitcoin is the next evolution of finance. spot on thread 👇�eC

zane pocock @zanepocock

3/ Bitcoin is not a security, but nor is it a commodity. Bitcoin is a distributed communication protocol that relays messages. It is text. @Beautyon_ has made the argument that it is speech protected by the first amendment. Let's take this logic further. https://t.co/5xCnmTtSdQ

4. Tesla was the #1 best investment return in 2020 on the list above, though wildly fluctuating in price. Last week, Charlie Munger was asked what he thought about Elon Musk - I loved his response:

   • I would never buy [Tesla], and I would never sell it short, but also:

   • Never underestimate the man who overestimates himself.

5. I finally got around to reading Rework, written by the founders of Basecamp. The book is controversial (read: polarizing) in Silicon Valley, because they push for work-life balance (working “only” 40 hours a week), and not trying to build the next unicorn. Although I’m not fully on board with all of their beliefs, I love the unique perspective in the software bubble of high-achievers(attempters). No matter your perspective, it has some amazing business fundamentals in it, and is simply a fun and easy read.

Thanks for learning with me this week! If you enjoyed this post, I’d love for you to share it with anyone you think might also enjoy it!

See y’all next week!

Cheers,

Brendan J Short