Rajesh Jain

NYTimes: “When we talk about optimism, it’s often easy to oversimplify it as having a relentlessly upbeat outlook. Optimists, we imagine, spend their time gazing at the bright side of life through rose-colored glasses, sipping glasses half-full of good cheer. But the science suggests that optimism is best understood not as an unchanging attitude but as a pattern of responses — which taken together dictate how we view our prospects. Being optimistic is more complicated than blithely thinking, “Everything will turn out fine.” Optimism and pessimism, it turns out, are all about the stories we tell ourselves after both our successes and our failures.”

Art Carden: “Public choice theory—the economic theory of politics, or a body of work that analyzes political decision-making with the same tools we use to study market decision-making—has been derided as cynical if not outright immoral. Such criticism sells it short, though, and it fails to recognize the subtlety of public choice assumptions and analysis. Anyone can tell a story about how things would be better if people were not fools or knaves. What makes public choice interesting, however, is that it does not rely on assumptions of foolishness or knavery to arrive at its conclusions. It only needs to posit that people respond to incentives. The rest, as the Talmudic scholar Hillel might say, is commentary.”

FT: “We should think of honour as a way of making sure we are behaving in a way that is worthy of respect, rather than as a value system in itself. “The psychology of honour attaches itself to all sorts of values, and sometimes those values are good, and sometimes they’re not,” [Kwame Anthony] Appiah says. But on the whole, “when you have a culture where people want to do the right thing because it’s worthy of respect, people will behave better”…Behaving honourably means doing the right thing even — or especially — when we will not personally gain from it. A society with this approach would surely be a better one. We need to learn to honour honour again.”

Gulzar [1 2]: “I believe that the biggest challenge for India in the years ahead is to manage the quality of its economic growth and create jobs to absorb its youthful population…It’s on jobs that the structural transformation pathway is important. Specifically the nature and quality of the structural transformation….[India] needs to spread industrialisation and productive economic activity beyond the current few urban cores to cover the hinterland areas. At least some of its currently numerous sub-optimally productive urban centres (largely parasitic economies dependent on government activities, like many state capital cities are) should embrace productive industrial activities, especially of the labour intensive kind…The country needs to geographically spread out its industrial base to ensure broad-based economic growth. This requires industrial policies that promotes large anchor industries which can provide the basis for knowledge spill-overs and eco-system development; labour intensive manufacturing sectors like textiles, footwear, toys etc; agriculture secondary and tertiary processing etc. Equally, if not more importantly, it needs to address the poor quality of its public services especially in health and education.”

FT: “There are basically two investment models in venture capital. The first is the Greater Value Theory model, where a VC invests in a start-up that is able to create value through sustainable high-growth, and hence can IPO or exit through acquisition during good times or bad. The second is the Greater Fool Theory model, where a VC invests in a loss-hungry company that is able to, through a certain amount of hand-waving, convince retail investors, bigger investment firms or large corporations to facilitate an exit through IPO or acquisition. The problem with the Greater Value Theory model is that it’s actually really hard to find and invest in high-growth start-ups that generate durable and outsized returns. The problem with the Greater Fool Theory model is that the off-ramps (retail investors and large companies) are closing.”

Ruchir Sharma: “Since early 1998 [when it was ground zero of the Asian financial crisis], Thailand has faded on the global radar but the baht has proved uncommonly resilient, holding its value against the dollar better than any other emerging world currency and better than all but the Swiss Franc in the developed world…Thailand has achieved financial stability despite constant political upheaval, including four new constitutions in the last 25 years. By overcoming challenges the Swiss franc never faced, the Thai baht has sealed its unlikely claim to be the world’s most resilient currency — and a case study in the upsides of economic orthodoxy.

Julian Simon: “The quantity of a natural resource that might be available to us – and even more important the quantity of the services that can eventually be rendered to us by that natural resource – can never be known even in principle, just as the number of points in a one-inch line can never be counted even in principle.” [via CafeHayek]

Eugenia Cheng: “There is a whole branch of mathematics devoted to attempting accurate calculations just by folding paper—that is, by using origami, best known as a Japanese art form. The idea of employing physical tools to do math goes back to the ancient Greeks, who tried to make mathematical constructions using just a pair of compasses and a straight edge. The straight edge didn’t have markings and wasn’t used to measure things, so there were only two basic actions to this method: Drawing circles of any size or a straight line between any two points. By folding paper we cannot even draw circles, but we can make many more straight-line constructions…The art of origami provides ways to solve equations and design gear for outer space.”

Ed Warren: “America has a strenuous challenge ahead. Ideologues bemoan America’s failures and proclaim “American carnage.” But their shortsightedness and self-interest should not dictate America’s future. Instead, we should build upon the virtues already integrally woven into our civic DNA. Average Americans give their full measure of devotion by leading decent, honorable lives despite the distractions and disappointments of our current moment. They request very little outside help; they simply want the economic opportunity, social foundation, and basic respect to build lives of meaning for themselves and their children. The task ahead of us is to see the goodness in their example, internalize it, and begin the work of building a more empowering and respectful society.”

Arnold Kling: “We might think of the state as a set of commitments and mutual obligations between the rulers and the ruled. One of the implications of this perspective is that government must have long-term credibility in order to function…Democracy works better than autocracy because the transfer of power does not entail a crisis. In a democracy, the mechanism is in place for a peaceful transfer of power. Civil servants can keep working. Soldiers can remain at their posts. Citizens know that they ought to continue to pay taxes and obey the law. The regime persists.”

WSJ reviewing “How Big Things Get Done”: “Mr. Bent Flyvbjerg identifies two common flaws in developing large-scale projects: inadequate planning and prolonged execution. Managers and politicians have a bias for action, he says, often treating planning as an annoyance that must be endured before the real work begins. Imposing tight deadlines for completion may end up adding costs and time, because the easiest way to craft a tighter schedule is to short-circuit the planning process. Rushed planning can result in problems that crop up later, generating delays that push up the cost. Thorough planning, in Mr. Flyvbjerg’s view, should be followed by quick execution: The biggest source of risk, he says, is low-probability events—black swans—that occur after the start of construction or implementation. This is the time when a pandemic, a burst of inflation, a labor dispute or a natural disaster can delay even the best plans and upend cost estimates. The way to mitigate the risk, he says, is to “think slow, act fast,” investigating the project carefully on the front end but then, following the decision to proceed, moving full speed ahead.”

Richard Fulmer: “The rule, “from each according to his ability, to each according to his need,” creates incentives to demonstrate minimum ability and maximum need. Poverty is the inevitable result.” [via CafeHayek]

Burton Malkiel (of Random Walk fame): “My view is that the case for passive is stronger than ever. More than half of fund assets are in index funds, and the reason for the success is that the evidence just gets stronger and stronger that index investing is not mediocre investing, it is above-average investing. I’ve done empirical work over the course of 50 years, and SPIVA [the S&P Indices Versus Active scorecard] has done work showing that over the past 20 years about two-thirds of active managers are beaten by the index, and the rough third of active managers that win in one year aren’t the same ones that win in the next year. Compound that over 10 years, SPIVA finds that 90% of US active funds underperform their benchmark index.”

WSJ reviews “Outsmart Your Brain”: “Memory retrieval feels hard at first, like failing to do a pushup. But that’s precisely why it works. You must build new muscle…Mr. Willingham counsels that although rereading notes and books are among the most common strategies for studying—they quickly render the material familiar and therefore feel productive—they are among the least effective. Better to prepare study questions and try to answer them. Memory retrieval feels hard and useless at first, like trying and failing to do a push-up, but that’s precisely why it works. You must build new muscle…From the chapter on staying focused: We all know the advice to work in quiet locations and silence our phones, yet some of us still try to multitask or quickly answer texts in the middle of a thought. We underestimate how long it takes to get back on track after switching attention from one thing to another.”

Economist: “Advertisers pay handsomely for access to Google’s users, not least because they are typically only charged when someone actually visits their website. The revenue of Google’s parent company, now called Alphabet, has grown at an average annual rate of over 20% since 2011. In that period it has generated more than $300bn in cash after operating expenses, the bulk of it from search. Its market value has more than trebled, to $1.4trn, making it the world’s fourth-most-valuable public company. Unlike Apple and Microsoft, its bigger middle-aged tech rivals, it has not felt the need to reinvent itself. Until now.”

Noah Smith (from 2020): “One of the scariest scenarios for the 21st century is that of a zero-sum world, where low productivity growth convinces people that the only way to get rich is at someone else’s expense. That sort of dog-eat-dog world would see intensified conflict and political instability. But cheap energy, even more than other kinds of innovation, offers the potential for the world to return to the sort of positive, future-oriented, growth-oriented, win-win culture that we sometimes managed to achieve, in some places, during the 20th century. It’s the future we thought we had lost, but which we might finally get after all.”

FT: “The more we use technology to insulate ourselves from the discomfort of asking questions, the more fearful we might grow about doing it face to face. One academic told me the vast majority of his students “are really up for it” but seem too nervous to take “that final step”. He got so frustrated by the silence in lectures he brought in one of his child’s soft balls and told them: “I’m going to chuck this out and whoever catches it has to ask me a question. Any question.” He says they looked at the ball like it was a hand grenade. Yet asking someone questions face to face can be the best way to make sure you really understand something. I have sometimes asked people to sketch diagrams for me too. This matters if your job involves clear communication — otherwise you can end up regurgitating technical terms because you don’t have the confidence to put them into plain language…Fear of looking ‘stupid’ holds us back from understanding the world better.”

BCG: “The success of any Web3 loyalty offering will entail pairing utility to issued tokens. The utility spectrum can span physical, social, or pure digital utility. Physical utility involves coupling access to real products and services to the digital asset, such as an NFT that grants access to a redeemable product. Tokens can also have social utility in the form of access to community events, VIP benefits, or exclusive brand voting rights. Digital utility extends privileges and access to the digital world in the form of metaverse events, virtual meetups with brand ambassadors, or in-game use of tokens.”

Sam Harris: “I’ve learned about the power of incentives, because as much as I’ve wanted to get back to writing books, having a podcast has shown me that–this won’t surprise you as an economist–but like virtually everyone, I am a creature of incentives, and all of the incentives are aligned away from writing books at the moment. Podcasting is easier, I reach many more people, and it’s a better business. So, for me to go back to writing and embrace the opportunity cost of writing at the moment, I really have to decide, ‘Well, I don’t care about doing the harder thing. I’m happy to do the harder thing. I don’t care about reaching fewer people. I don’t care about it taking much longer to reach those fewer people. And, I don’t care about losing money.’ So, all the incentives are wrong for writing my next book…I think I will ultimately do it, because I think writing is just a muscle. As a thinker, you need to work and you really don’t think as clearly as you can unless you’re writing your thoughts and finally producing the sentence that you think is the best version of any specific thought.”

Mint: “Not so long ago, in the 1990s, travelling in air-conditioned coaches was considered a luxury by India’s middle class. And then came the game changer: AC three-tier coaches, which promised AC travel at affordable prices, which married the comforts of AC travel with the economy of the humble sleeper class. It demonstrated how price-sensitive the Indian market was. This story played out in the Indian skies as well. India’s fast-growing middle class embraced low-cost airlines (perhaps the equivalent of AC three-tier trains) that promised relatively affordable air travel. The steady growth of Vistara seems to suggest two things. India’s fast-growing middle class – which may already be the size of the US population – has begun climbing up the value chain. It is a consequence of the economic boom and the steady rise in standards of living after 1991.”

Graham Duncan: “How close to that 10 can you get when you’re first getting to know someone and deciding whether they are a fit for your team? When I started making those sorts of judgments about people, I’d guess my average was a 3. I’ve since done thousands of interviews, spent just as many hours talking to references, and helped hire hundreds of people—as consultants for a research firm that I helped run right after college, and since then as analysts and investors in my role investing large pools of capital.  Now, when I’m in the zone and the conditions are right, I think I can sometimes get to a 7. A lot of people, in my industry and others, see all of this as a drag, a distraction from the central mission of their team. But I’ve come to consider it the most important skill for anyone building teams—and to believe that, to the extent I have any unique skill, this is it. In the work context, managing the complexity around people is the most important skill for anyone building a business. As the gaming company Valve puts it: “Hiring well is the most important thing in the universe.”” See the reference guide at the end.

Shankkar Aiyar:  “An abiding truth about governance in India is that it excels in projects – whether it is Jan Dhan Yojana or rural electrification — but struggles to reform processes which determine efficiency. The crux of success rests in the alignment of national goals with systemic reforms in the states to propel growth. A mystifying paradox is at play in India’s political economy – of attention and inattention. There is much debate and audit of the Union Budget and almost none about the budgets of state governments.”

Jeremy Tate: “Socrates never wrote a term paper. Active participation trumps essays in classical education….The more permanent fix would be to rethink the way teachers judge a student’s mastery of classroom material and come up with an option that doesn’t rely on essay writing. The essay hasn’t been banished from classically minded institutions. Rather, the more personalized, discussion-centric model of instruction by its nature renders essays a secondary tool. Students that skip their homework won’t be able to hide for long when asked to offer an opinion on last night’s reading. For centuries, the classical curriculum was the norm, rather than the exception. In the modern era, however, the march toward factory-style education replaced the old ways with more specialized studies delivered in lecture form. Perhaps it’s time to rethink this change. The classical method survived as long as it did because it fostered critical-thinking skills that can then be applied to any category of specialized study.”

Dallas Innovates: “John Carmack, the iconic Dallas game developer, rocket engineer, and VR visionary has pivoted to an audacious new challenge: developing artificial general intelligence—a form of AI that goes beyond mimicking human intelligence to understanding things and solving problems. Carmack sees a 60% chance of achieving initial success in AGI by 2030.”

Pramarth Raj Sinha: “India needs its best minds to work on and significantly impact the world’s toughest problems. For this to happen, our best faculty and students need to carry out cutting-edge research. Unfortunately, teaching and research have often been delinked in our country, despite the fact that it is research excellence that powers teaching excellence, and vice-versa. New thinking and insights from research-active teachers create an engaging classroom experience. In turn, inspired young minds are motivated to research solutions to intractable problems.”