World

China will never be a democracy

(Excerpt from Lee Kuan Yew: The Grand Master’s Insights on China, the United States, and the World) No. China is not going to become a liberal democracy; if it did, it would collapse. Of that, I am quite sure, and...

September 21, 2019| China, Politics Read More

China can continue to grow at high rates for at least another decade

(Excerpt from Lee Kuan Yew: The Grand Master’s Insights on China, the United States, and the World) During the last three decades, China’s economy has grown at the phenomenal rate of 10% per year, sometimes even...

September 21, 2019| China Read More

China needs access to US technology

(Excerpt from Lee Kuan Yew: The Grand Master’s Insights on China, the United States, and the World) China knows that it needs access to U.S. markets, U.S. technology, opportunities for Chinese students to study in...

September 21, 2019| China, Tech Read More

China’s challenges in culture, language, talent integration and governance

(Excerpt from Lee Kuan Yew: The Grand Master’s Insights on China, the United States, and the World) Internally, the chief challenges are culture, language, an inability to attract and integrate talent from other...

September 21, 2019| China Read More

China’s peaceful rise

(Excerpt from Lee Kuan Yew: The Grand Master’s Insights on China, the United States, and the World) The Chinese have concluded that their best strategy is to build a strong and prosperous future, and use their...

September 21, 2019| China, Politics Read More

Lean Startup is not enough. You need a bold plan.

(Excerpt from Zero to One by Peter Thiel) Even in engineering-driven Silicon Valley, the buzzwords of the moment call for building a “lean startup” that can “adapt” and “evolve” to an ever-changing...

September 21, 2019| Strategy, Tech Read More

Finance doesn’t know how to put money to good uses

(Excerpt from Zero to One by Peter Thiel) While a definitely optimistic future would need engineers to design underwater cities and settlements in space, an indefinitely optimistic future calls for more bankers and...

September 21, 2019| Investing, World Read More

Modern society is rent-seeking

(Excerpt from Zero to One by Peter Thiel) Instead of working for years to build a new product, indefinite optimists rearrange already-invented ones. Bankers make money by rearranging the capital structures of already...

September 21, 2019| Life, Survivorship Bias, Tech Read More

China is a pessimist

(Excerpt from Zero to One by Peter Thiel) A definite pessimist believes the future can be known, but since it will be bleak, he must prepare for it. Perhaps surprisingly, China is probably the most definitely...

September 21, 2019| China Read More

Tech founders with extreme strength and serious flaws are often the outliers

(Excerpt from Barking Up the Wrong Tree by Eric Barker) Marc Andreessen spoke at Stanford, saying: . . . the venture capital business is 100 percent a game of outliers, it is extreme outliers . . . We have this...

September 20, 2019| Inversion, Tech Read More

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