Sunday Reads And Listens...Apple, Google, Uber and Choose Good Quests

Good morning.

I am off for a 50 miles ride in Encinitas this morning with a friend.

Next week I am heading to Steamboat with Ellen in Colorado for the first time for the first time. We are staying with friends. From there we are headed to Aspen to see some friends and I can get some mountain rides in.

This week, I found a lot of good reads that are worth sharing.

The first is ‘Choose Good Quests’ written by Trae Stephens is partner at Founders Fund, and cofounder of Anduril and Markie Wagner the founder of Delphi Labs, a frontier tech research and advisory firm with a focus on applied AI.

The Gist…

Today, Silicon Valley faces a crisis of nonsense. With no shortage of problems, and no shortage of both young technologists and well-capitalized former founders capable of solving them, our best and brightest have largely lost themselves to easy money, the attention grind, and early retirement. In tech especially, for all of the industry’s rare potential, such abdication of responsibility does not only constitute a failure of progress, but a moral failure.

Big change of pace to an awesome essay by Bob Lefsetz (music and media writer who I read weekly) titled ‘Throwing Objects On Stage’. So many great riffs including this one…

This is what the internet has wrought. It has brought us together, showed that we are like-minded and have power, that we are not lone wankers. Come on, go online, you can find a group for anything and everything. You feel included. The media might not pay attention, but you feel powerful.

This is the story of our age.

And the powers-that-be think they can just quash it as opposed to appease it, get in bed with it. Only a police state could change the course of history. Which some people want. Yes, those Trumpers feel powerful. As for that Jim Caviezel movie, a conspiracy-mongering piece of trash, it’s got a huge gross based in large part on people not going to the theatre. Don’t you know that story? Sold out shows are empty. They’re gaming the system.

You have to pay attention.

Next up…some Apple reading since earnings were last week.

Do not be surprised if Apple ( I still own it) and even the markets slow down for a bit as Apple digests a sharp short term price trend break. I like Helene’s master chart work on the stock and I called this chart ‘Down Goes Frazier !’ :

Michael Parekh wrote a piece titled ‘Apple I-Phone Is Our WeChat’ that I really liked.

Here is a second one from Michael which I agree with strongly predicting that Google will win the AI wars. I own Google always.

Another good Apple piece - more research oriented is from Maverick Research titled ‘ Apple = The Most Valuable Company On Planet Earth’.

Next up…Josh Brown had a great piece on $UBER titled ‘X Will Never Be Our Everything App But Uber Might Be’. I own some shares myself.

Ok…that’s enough.

Enjoy your Sunday