Tesla flying car demo: production not set to start for a few years but still very cool…
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AI happenings October 2026
The big takeaway from the below 3 posts on cybersecurity, math, and banking - AI is having massive impacts on some of the most foundational fields and industries in the world. And it seems the impact will only continue to increase.
Li Lu has been called “the Warren Buffett of China” and has one of the best long term investing records of all time. He gave a very rare interview this month, covering his 6 principles of investing:
- Fish where the fish are - there are certain markets, industries, businesses, geographies that will be better or worse for investing
- Your Wealth is a percentage of ownership of global purchasing power. Buy great business in the most dynamic economies, and wait long enough for value to be created.
- The market is there to serve you, not to instruct you. Don’t be dictated by what the market decides to do at any given time
- Stay in your circle of competence: invest in businesses and products you understand.
- Enormous attention paid on the downside protection. Need margin of safety since investing is about the future which is inherently unpredictable. Over time, it’s remarkable how compound returns works. And the basic idea of compounding is that you don’t lose what you already have.
- Think of a stock as a piece of ownership of a business, not as a piece of paper that you trade around.
Recently I asked ChatGPT a question I’m sure most of you have asked it as well: “If great diplomats from world history were thrown into various different time periods, geographies, and general circumstances, which would have generally done the best averaged out across these various scenarios?” Very classic standard question I know.
The response listed Otto Von Bismarck, a person I admittedly knew next to nothing about, as perhaps number one. So I decided to read this book, but almost stopped several times both because it was not the most fun read and because I was disappointed to find Bismarck was not a person I admired. But I wanted to grasp why he was one of history’s most capable diplomats, so I read on.
For my takeaways from the book and the story of Otto Von Bismarck, while I did have multiple, I will focus this post on the most overarching lesson I am taking away from it - be flexible. If there was one recurring and enduring theme to Bismarck’s approach to uniting Germany and navigating 1800s Europe, it was staying responsive to circumstances, continuous recalibration, and a repeated display of adapting to the people, movements, and opportunities around him. Top few quotes from the book below:
A few passages from the author
- Bismarck repeatedly maintained multiple possible paths and chose among them as circumstances changed.
- Events are stronger than the plans of men. He discovered that events would not conform to his plans, and he began to live with reality, instead of trying to force his will upon it. The future is a land in which there are no maps
- Within a few months, even a few weeks, he changed course. He went with the current of the times, Steering with events instead of against them.
- As usual he acted on his beliefs at the exact moment when they served a practical need
- In other countries, a change of policy needed a change of government. Bismarck made his own changes, ruthlessly attacking his own arguments of yesterday.
- His greatest gift was in packing the cards, not in playing the hand
A few quotes from Bismarck himself:
- “I wanted it like this, and everything happened quite differently. I’m content when i see where the Lord wishes to go and I can stumble after him.”
- “Politics are not a science based on logic. They are the capacity of always choosing at each instant, in constantly changing situations, the least harmful and the most useful.”
- “I have never been a doctrinaire. Liberal, reactionary, conservative. Those I confess, seem to me luxuries. I’ve no fixed opinions. Make proposals, and you won’t meet any objections of principle from me. Many roads lead to Rome. There are no eternal rules.”
A one hour meeting can be the most important moment in your career, for better or worse: In Netflix’s early days, their founders met with Blockbuster’s CEO to try and sell Netflix to Blockbuster for $50 million. Blockbuster said no without giving it much thought.
Fast forward to today: Netflix is worth $300 billion, Blockbuster has gone bankrupt. How did Netflix do it? Their founder and CEO Reed Hastings wrote a book on it - my top 5 takeaways from "No Rules Rules".
And if I had to summarize in one sentence: value great talent even more than you think you should, and once you have such talent do not underestimate the very real but avoidable cost of rules, approvals, and friction that can prevent those talented people from having the freedom, speed, and ownership to do exceptional things.
1) Hire extraordinary people who fit the needed role extraordinarily well. In certain fields (like Netflix’s software and entertainment business), the best people can be more than 10 times as impactful as their closest peers. How do you get and keep these people? Simple - pay top market rate.
2) Talent density reduces the need for talent management. Once you have great people, give them real responsibility. Netflix deliberately removes approvals, policies, committees, and other friction that exists primarily to prevent people from making mistakes. Employees—including junior ones—have been trusted to spend large amounts on shows, launch unconventional marketing campaigns, and make decisions that would require layers of approval elsewhere. Some decisions will be wrong. Netflix believes the cost of occasionally being wrong is lower than the cost of making everyone slow.
3) Vacation! Hastings takes roughly 2 months of vacation every year, setting the tone for many others at Netflix to use their unlimited time off to recharge, come up with creative ideas, and sustainably keep contributing to the company.
4) Candid high frequency feedback. This is a key part of their culture - tell people what you really think, whether good or bad, whether junior or senior, whether publicly or privately. Employees got better and made smarter collective decisions because of feedback they got quickly and honestly. And Hastings himself describes changing decisions and behaviors because employees told him directly when they thought he was wrong.
5) Experiments are often much riskier not to run than to run. Launching a new business line (like producing instead of just buying content) or betting on a show that doesn’t fit neatly into an existing genre (like Stranger Things) may fail. But not taking those swings almost guarantees a company won’t evolve, innovate, or hit business home runs. A failed experiment has a visible cost. The great idea that was never tried doesn't. Building a culture that encouraged these experiments, and accepted the failures that sometimes came with it, has been a key reason for Netflix's success, creativity, and ultimate ability to play such a loved role in our lives today.
Bucket list item - US Open Championship! Takeaways: the food has gotten pretty good (and expensive), bring sunscreen in case your seat is swallowed by the sun, and the difference between winning and losing a tennis match looks pretty marginal:
- An inch off one shot can cost you a tiebreak
- Losing focus for a two minute stretch can lose a set
- Being a few percentage points more consistent can compound into winning the championship or losing in the first round.
Case in point, Zverev won the championship but came two points away from losing his very first match of the tournament!
Software progress 2026 - ChatGPT's new leading model makes some leaps, and Marc Andreesen on how the pace of tech change is about to get much, much faster.
