Sizhao Yang
@zaoyang
Followers
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Following
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Statuses
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Now: investor/entrepreneur. Previously: Farmville Kaspa $kas
Joined July 2008
1/ There's a concept known as financial compounding, but most people don't know about intellectual compounding. Buffett and Munger employed this to great effect and to accumulate mental models such that they can make large decisions quickly. Intuition is simply reading a lot.
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Startups (founders + employees) work 10 year with below market salary hoping for equity value. With 43.4% capital gains, in California, that is 56.4% tax. Estate tax takes 40%. Spend your life creating to give 73.8% to the govnt. Buy over priced real estate. Effective tax 90%.
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I'm moving to Miami from the bay area. Five things make this possible: .* Zoom as clearing house for investments.* Housing policies in the Miami-Texas region .* Community with culture .* Startup incubators backed by seasoned operators .* Ambitious local talent.
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5/ Most people value themselves on their individual badges, which is what society labels for you. But most of what is predictive in life, is how you make decisions. Being effective and investing your time in the right area at the right time is a skill, not purely luck.
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How do you make a billion dollars? Start with $7.5B, invest it in WeWork. Take a loss, try to think of a way to get it back. Open a Robin Hood account and buy $4B of OTM call options on Tesla, Apple. Correct 20% in two days, call options down 75%, you made $1B.
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1/ What are some unpopular ideas that could be wildly distributed in the future in the nex 5 years among the rich and distributed across the upper middle class in the next 10-15 years? This is a thought experiment. Please feel free to add your own.
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21/ These are mindsets and as for strategies. People need to take concepts from Learning how to Learn by @barbaraoakley and @sejnowski and Art of Learning from Josh Waitzkin. They are are a manual for your brain.
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9/ While politicians say it's education that's important, it's only partially true, it's the ability to assimilate knowledge trees and compound knowledge that leads to satisfaction, mental stimulation, and long term wealth.
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14/ It turns out that if you just tell students that their mind is like a "muscle" and spend just 10 minutes explaining that concept they will improve their grades dramatically.
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1/ Everyone knows about "deliberate practice" "grit", but how do you apply these tactically. Physical sports like basketball have drills and habits that you can apply and idols like MJ or Lebron. Are there the equivalent? Meaning what habits do you need to unlearn and learn?
1/ There's a concept known as financial compounding, but most people don't know about intellectual compounding. Buffett and Munger employed this to great effect and to accumulate mental models such that they can make large decisions quickly. Intuition is simply reading a lot.
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3/ One of the common patterns for a self made billionaires is their ability to self study, self reason and accumulate a set of their own mental model. Intellectual capital compounds at a hidden rate and most people use tangible badges and net worth as measures.
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8/ As the world get faster and faster with AR/VR, AI, crypto. The ability to invest in your own intellectual capital is a crucial prerequisite to maintaining and succeeding in this world and also for your children.
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23/ @LHTL_MOOC takes you from beginner to intermediate, and art of learning takes you from expert to being world class. Then you have Cal Newport's material, and those three resources are simply the best that I know of to hack your own brain.
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If Biden wins and the wealth tax gets passed in California, if someone builds a startup in their 20s and builds it for 60 years (life’s work) then after selling stock Uncle Sam gets 37%, uncle Cali gets 26% and then another 16%. Effective tax rate is 79%.
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Miami .* warm water with beaches .* salads with picanha .* roasted branzino with kimchi.* chimichurri steak with salad.* welcoming people .* affordable housing .* Latin Americans, Europeans, New Yorkers, SF, LA, Africans .* Optimism everywhere . Why not Miami? Build together
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25/ In conclusion, as the world become more and more technical and complex, most people don't have the mindset nor tactical skills. In short, people have to re-learn the manual to their own brain. Just because you have a computer, it doesn't mean you know everything about it.
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Wealth in this era is a function of your ability to recognize opportunity early from a combination of unique community plus skills. This is different than what school teaches you which is to follow existing ladders. The greatest opportunities will have emergent ladders.
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What's the name of your company? bitcoin .What market are you addressing? Central banks and currencies. What problem are you solving? Central bank manipulation of fiat .Who are your competitors? USD and gold .How are you going to grow? Forums, mailing lists, twitter.
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4/ Intellectual capital is filling out the decision tree and is a forward looking view and net worth is backward looking. Just like how the wrong way to value tech companies with network effects is revenue but instead by their retention rate and network effects.
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2/ This allows people to convert typically slow thinking and bad fast thinking (bad intuition) into good intuition. In academic literature this is known as Type 1 and Type 2 thinking. Most people don't accumulate enough of knowledge the tree.
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People I've met in Miami recently . * autonomous vehicles founders ex-MIT .* deep tech VC from MIT .* ex-Uber .* executive from Oyo/Uber .* Defi builders .* NFT builder .* Deep fake founder .* Doordash engineer .* Figma engineer . Plenty of builders. Try out Miami for a week.
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7/ More and more, just like the last 20 years was focused on physical athletes, the next 20 years would be focused on mental atheletes. These ways of thinking and compounding, Buffett, Munger, and polymaths have already used to a large degree and have been confirmed by academia.
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6/ Allowing readings to fill your mind takes advantage of your diffuse/focused mode of thinking and type 1 and type 2 decision making. Meaning you can focus and use your creative brain (diffuse mode) to wander and make associations. This is the key toward STEM education.
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For people that talk about bitcoin being a tulip. Is your tulip secured by millions of computers? .Is your tulip sendable to anyone in the world? .Is your tulip divisible to any decimal points? .Is your tulip a replacement for central banks? .So, yes, exactly like tulips . lazy.
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12/ "Growth mindset" not "Fixed mindset" . "Motivation mindset" not "Fixed mindset" . "Student directed AND teacher directed education and projects".
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1/ What is the hypothetical scenario where crypto becomes the global store of value and medium of exchange? What is the timing and how will it happen?
1/ What is the function of demand and how will that influence the price action of the coin?
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1/ What are the of series of articles of books, concepts, courses, articles that have been interesting for 2017? Feel free to add your own.
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Alcohol reduces deep sleep by 20% equivalent to aging by 20 to 30 years .6 hours of sleep per night for 1 week changes your genes by 3%.Reduced sleep increasing insulin resistance and puts someone who is exercising consistently into pre diabetes
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15/ It turns out this concept is for a person's mind and for each skill set. People can have verbal "fixed" mindsets, humor "fixed" mindsets, math "fixed" mindsets. Almost everything. So, you have to consciously unlearn this and apply it consciously even if you know it.
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The world just realized their Multi generational Store of Status in college credentials were just double spent by a small minority.
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Courage, conviction, grit are the scarcest resources in the world. Scarcer than IQ, brilliance, and money.
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16/ Why is this? It turns out people are criticized by society and labeled. So even if you have a "growth" mindset for physical items, you don't have it for mental items. This applies not only for students but also for adults. You always hear "That's not me." It's a label.
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22/ You thought just because you own a brain you knew how to operate it right? Why do you think the drop out rates for STEM is so high. Most people attribute it to pipeline or professor, but perhaps it's because people don't know how to learn difficult subjects.
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17/ There's another concept called "motivational mindset" which teaches the person "what good looks like" which simply teaches the kid to follow "go do the extra problems" "go to office hours" "do more problems" Follow the process of the "motivated student" and it will work.
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Whenever you find yourself on the side of the majority, it is time to reform (or pause and reflect). Mark Twain.
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19/ The last concept is student self directed project plus teacher lectures is the best. This surprised me, but conceptually, it gives the student agency and motivation. Most students have been so battered down by the system that they can't do this, but that's another story.
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1/ Update 2018. What are some ideas that can be popular in the next 10 to 15 years? This is a thought experiment. Please feel free to add your own.
1/ What are some unpopular ideas that could be wildly distributed in the future in the nex 5 years among the rich and distributed across the upper middle class in the next 10-15 years? This is a thought experiment. Please feel free to add your own.
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10/ What politicians are doing now is simply aiming backwards, but how can you scale this to everyone? It turns out that charter school have been doing a grand experiment.
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I'm visiting Miami for the week and considering moving to Miami who should I meet? @FrancisSuarez and @rabois did such a good job evangelizing Miami that now I'm down here to check out the scene. #miamitech.
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Most usage of social media is correlated with lower happiness but that's because people are using it as entertainment and not seeking info.
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30/ A famous VC once said the role is not future prediction but to see the present clearly. Put in another way. What do you see in small populations around the world that you think will be wildly distributed? The future is here, you just don’t know where.
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18/ It turns out these two concepts turn someone that's socio economically disadvantaged similar to the education status of someone who grew up upper middle class. This is not a panacea as a lot of people have so much stressors in their lives that they can't study.
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20/ These concepts have to be mind beliefs. Just like in Dune how they cite "fear is the mindkiller" These concepts have to be constantly applied to adults and children as they opposite tends to be pervasive and insidious.
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Top traders of all time . George Soros .Paul Tudor Jones .John Paulson .Nancy Pelosi and her husband. 100m net worth out of a 193k salary. Wow. It ain't easy representing San Francisco and trading. Just look at the clean streets and low crime.
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11/ Taking children from disadvantaged backgrounds and making them fit for college. This has worked and three of the results are the following.
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Telegram is probably the greatest threat to Facebook since Whatsapp and since Zuckerberg is the most paranoid tech CEO since Andy Grove, it's no accident that he's investigating decentralized technologies and its implications.
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1/ What are the top coins and what are their perspectives in the world? Meaning if bitcoin focused on security with the exclusion of everything else. What do the other coins do?
1/ What are the use cases of blockchain or crypto? So if bitcoin is accounting (debit/credit) "triple ledge accounting," what are the other use cases?
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1/ Everyone makes pros and con list to make decisions but they only take into account the first order effects or short term effects. The best decisions take advantage of embedded optionalities. It allows a hidden compounding that provides exposure to positive black swans.
1/ Everyone knows about "deliberate practice" "grit", but how do you apply these tactically. Physical sports like basketball have drills and habits that you can apply and idols like MJ or Lebron. Are there the equivalent? Meaning what habits do you need to unlearn and learn?
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1/ There's a concept called "high agency" people, which is the attitude behind "Aut inveniam viam aut faciam." "I shall either find a way or make one" by Hannibal. Are there ways to create environments to educate "high agency" people?.
1/ Everyone knows about "deliberate practice" "grit", but how do you apply these tactically. Physical sports like basketball have drills and habits that you can apply and idols like MJ or Lebron. Are there the equivalent? Meaning what habits do you need to unlearn and learn?
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I always wondered what it like to be at the birth of a religion like Christianity. Now I get to experience it first hand. Satoshi is Jesus. Catholics are bitcoiners, Eastern Orthodoxy christianity is bitcoin cash. If this holds true, the forks are just starting to accelerate.
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18/ Badges from Harvard will decline in relative importance as badges from triple byte and work based badges (YC). Your resume will consist of Udacity, Coursea, Triple byte, YC, Techstars as signaling. This is adult education in the future.
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13/ In turns out statistically those three items are the most predictive. What are they? I'm glad you asked.
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1/ What are the open problems in the blockchain and what are some existing approaches to solve these problems?
1/ What are the top coins and what are their perspectives in the world? Meaning if bitcoin focused on security with the exclusion of everything else. What do the other coins do?
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Jurisdictional competition has already happened. Crypto people moving to Puerto Rico. Engineers moving to Seattle and Austin. Crypto engineers in Toronto and Berlin. The second order effects is that the next generation of companies will start in those area. SV is being unbundled.
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This is the tweetstorm version of your Mom saying “you can be whatever you want” as long as you put your mind to it.
1/ There's a concept known as financial compounding, but most people don't know about intellectual compounding. Buffett and Munger employed this to great effect and to accumulate mental models such that they can make large decisions quickly. Intuition is simply reading a lot.
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24/ Do you know anymore? Would love to know more resources and techniques.
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San Francisco: .* overwhelming crime. * organized crime targeting locals and tourists.* pervasive drug use .* syringes and feces on the ground .* signals they don’t want technology .* politicians that just talk and complain.* no housing for anyone. Come to Miami, try it out.
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Monoculture, high housing prices, ever increasing taxes. Covid broke the flood gate. Palantir moving to Colorado is simply the beginning.
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1/ What are articles, books, concepts, courses, articles that have been interesting for 2018? Feel free to add your own.
1/ What are the of series of articles of books, concepts, courses, articles that have been interesting for 2017? Feel free to add your own.
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3/ Here a couple: home schooling is better than public/private schooling, the new private school is EKG computer enhanced brains for emotional and cognitive enhancement, investment banking will be replaced by Eth/Neo/Qtum and ICOs, bitcoin will reserve currency of world not USD.
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9/ Most people want to study and learn, but that's not what happens in the short term. Netflix, Facebook, games happen. Just like cigarettes was the biggest blight in the Baby Boomer generations causing cancer. Digital addiction is the biggest blight in current generation.
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Diversification is a way of not doing your homework and not being ultra wealthy
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What defensibility do you have? All the code is open source .What's your product roadmap? The community will provide it .How can I help? Repent your fiat ways and convert to the ways of Satoshi.
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4/ Meditation is a form of cognitive therapy just like weightlifting that will enhance social, creativity, and focus. Pill taking to augment intelligence will be normal, the next united states will be on the moon as it's the new frontier opened up by bezos and musk rockets.
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Things could be worse in crypto. You could be holding bitconnect
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17/ Lastly, I shipped most of my stuff over to Miami already but currently driving cross country with a Tesla Y with a trailer :)
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2008: financial crisis .2009: lower interest rate to 0, CB buy financial assets .2016: financial assets inflated, massive gap between rich and poor, populism rise, trump gets elected .2018: interest rate rise, gap down in financial assets, real estate .2019: fill in the blank:.
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24/ In conclusion, the bet on Bitcoin is whether the first cloud currency issued by the people for the people can long endure. It is a grand experiment and will be helluva ride.
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17/ The new bitcoin oligarchs will be the biggest set of angel investors in history funding diverse projects all over the world and they themselves will be outside of the USA located in low tax countries coordinating via telegram and digital tools.
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80% of the founders I talk to in the YC batch before March were based in the bay area. Now, 90% of the founders in the YC batch are now outside of the bay area. Billions of dollars in value accrual that used to go to SF now happen outside. No real patterns in geographies yet.
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5/ The housing prices prices out musicians, artists, and chefs. They go to places that have pro housing policies like Miami. In Miami, you can go to a music festival, eat at great restaurants, go to lil Cuba/Argentina, and then go St Barts for a day trip.
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Totally agree that it feels like 2000s S.V. Hope not pessimism.Ambition to build .A critical mass of entrepreneurs, investors, and talent here .Acceptance of the weird.Clean.Uniques neighborhoods .Nature and water .Housing for all. Miami is a light on a hill in the US.
Spent the last few days exploring & meeting folks in Miami. Some observations. 🧵👇.
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Description: Robin Hood checking and savings account yielding 3%.Translation: Using your money to market buy of treasuries when the US federal reserve is dumping 4 trillion dollars of treasuries, and we’re likely going into an inflationary crisis in USA in the next 3 yrs.
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1/ Right now, people assume that belief leads to store of value which leads to medium of exchange, what if it starts instead with the unit of accounts which leads to store of value which leads to medium of exchange?
1/ What is the hypothetical scenario where crypto becomes the global store of value and medium of exchange? What is the timing and how will it happen?
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Developer dominance is 99% for $eth right now just like $btc dominance was 99% of market share a couple of years ago. Now $btc is 33.6% and shrinking, I think in the next 2 years we’ll see developer dominance on $eth shrink to 35% as well. Thoughts? Open to all perspectives.
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1/ icp has some controversy around it esp in the crypto community. I think it’s a combination of the seed investors and the team dumping tokens. A lot of the seed investors have a lot of gains and probably didn’t stake their tokens. I don’t think it actually matters.
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6/ Community needs density. SF had density and culture and that's why people went there, but because of rampant crime, (my cars got broken into 5 times in SF, friends I know have their places broken into or punched in the street in good areas), feces, and syringes. It's too much.
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8/ As a result of this being the second homes of many people from LA, NYC, latin america, and europe, Miami has now been an unusual melting point that's quite refreshing for someone that is just in a monoculture of technology in SF.
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28/ The new startup hub will be in Toronto as more angel investors emerge from exited AI startups and foreign grad students apply to Canada and not the US due to taxes, immigration, and finding jobs.
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