The Future of Investing 101

Pondering The Future Form of My Writing Function

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Where Did I Come From?

In March 2020, I had an idea of this concept: "you can explore the basics of investing by exploring the boundaries." The basics (101) would be informed by the revolution (2.0). That led me to coming up with the name Investing 101 2.0.

Much to the chagrin of anyone I know who has a sense for marketing and SEO, that led to the Substack domain of "investing1012dot0.substack.com." Not an easy one to explain to someone who isn't in front of a computer.

Despite coming up with the idea in early 2020, I didn't write anything until March 2021. My first post was an exploration of my research process for investing and, in particular, how I use Roam Research. Since then, my writing has evolved into this blog. Spurred by the goal of "never miss a week" and driven by the philosophy of "I write because I don't know what I think until I read what I say."

Since then, I've written 397,570 words across 156 individual posts. Some of that has helped me unpack my thinking around things like:

The Business Model of Venture Capital

• The Puritans of Venture Capital

• Institutionalized Belief in The Greater Fool

• The Blackstone of Innovation

• The Value Chain of Capital

• Playing Different (Stupider) Games

• VC Contagion

• The Unbundling of Venture Capital

• Surviving The Death of Venture Capital

The Psychology of Hype Cycles

• The Hype Cycles of Venture Capital

• Updating The Hype Cycle

• Blaspheming Against The Hype

• On Hype and Hot Air

• Hype Deflation & Inflation

The Nature of Work, Ambition, and Balance

• The Renaissance of Rise & Grind

• Toil We Must

• The Hardening of The Great Softening

Over the course of dozens of posts and hundreds of thousands of words, I've also spent some time reflecting on why I write:

• The Wrath of Reading & Writing

• On Writing

• Panic Writing

• From Digital Sandbox To Digital Garden

All of this has reinforced for me the power of writing to force reflection on the things I'm thinking about. The number of times I find myself surprised by what I'm writing; that's the real value of spending time doing this each week.

Despite the value of the output being the experience of writing, I've been reflecting on the most valuable part of creating a perspective and putting it out into the world. That formula comes down to outputs AND inputs. And my question going into the new year is... what are my inputs?

Why Am I Here?

One of the benefits of writing weekly has meant that I have to go deeper on the things I'm exploring. As a result, I read more than I would otherwise. I find the time to read the blog posts and watch the podcasts that I would have otherwise thought to myself, "Oh, I'll get around to that eventually," and then don't.

So I read, I watch, I synthesize. And there's power to that. But one input I've noticed that, when it does happen its crazy valuable, but it doesn't happen often? Conversations. When I end up talking to an investor friend or a founder or a group of students about a topic I've been jamming on, the insights from that are much more free flowing vs. writing from a cold start.

I also find a fair bit of value in engaging in a healthy dose of wordceling. I'm a chatty guy. And sometimes just ranting about something leads me to say things I wouldn't otherwise say or frame them in ways I wouldn't otherwise have thought of.

So... talking. I think talking is the thing that has purpose but not enough of it in practice.

Where Am I Going?

From here, I've been structuring plans to improve the future form of my writing function. I want to improve the discoverability of my writing. I want to expand and capture the conversations I'm having as part of my writing. I want to give myself more opportunities to talk publicly about the things I'm thinking about.

From the very beginning, I've described my writing as "learning in public." And that's true. But as much of learning is reading, watching, and writing, there are other aspects as well. Talking to other people and even talking to yourself is critical.

So as I kick off the new year, those are the things I have in the works to improve the quality of my thinking machine.

Stay tuned!

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