118: Mikael Syding | Life, Lessons & Experiences From The European Hedge Fund Manager Of The Decade

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Mikael Syding is one of the most interesting people I’ve ever had the opportunity to speak with on this podcast.

In 2010, his hedge fund, Futuris, won European hedge fund of the decade. Mikael is an extremely popular voice in the Swedish investment community and as erudite and eclectic in his interests as they come.

In addition to popularising the Italian word for effortless mastery, sprezzatura, Mikael also writes regularly about markets, philosophy, psychedelics, his own personal story, science, sleep, psychology and just about all the interesting type of stuff that the audience of a Curious Worldview are primmed at attention for.

This chat covers a spectrum of topic including…

• Mikael Syding’s Formative Years
• Patrick Bateman As A Role Model
• Consciousness & Psychedelics
• Short Positions (Elon Musk & Tesla)
• Nassim Taleb & Risk
• + More & More As Well

Links To Mikael Syding

• Mikael Syding Website
• Mikael Syding Twitter

Episodes Of The Curious Worldview Podcast Mentioned.

• Nassim Taleb & Incerto Podcast
• Ludvig Sunström – Breaking Out Of Homeostasis
• Carl Jung Series

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• 00:00 – Introduction.
• 02:15 – Formative Years, Experiences & The Influence Of Patrick Bateman.
• 16:45 – Left Brain Right Brain Divide & Emotional Depth.
• 39:45 – ‘I Had Zero Empathy’
• 45:26 – Antidepressants & Modernity.
• 1:02:55 – Mikael Syding On Risk & Antiloop.
• 1:15:05 – Coincidence Of Opposites.
• 1:32:25 – Famous Short Sellers & Mikael’s Favourite Short Positions.
• 1:43:10 – ‘Elon Musk Is A Conman’… Tesla & Twitter.
• 2:03:26 – How Investing Expands Your Curiosities, The Information Edge In Investing, Due-diligence & 80/20.
• 2:25:58 – Pippa Malmgren & Signals.
• 2:37:59 – Mikael Syding’s Theory Of Consciousness.
• 3:16:32 – The Role Of Serendipity In Mikael’s Life.
• 3:20:57 – Advice To Young People (Lex Fridman).
• 3:25:52 – Country Mikael Syding Is Bullish On.
• 3:28:49 – Swedish Exceptionalism.
• 3:33:05 – Conversation Between Any Two People Of History.

🍻☕: https://www.buymeacoffee.com/ryanhogg

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Mikhail Seething is one of the most interesting fellas I've ever had the opportunity to speak with on this podcast. In 2010, he's hedge fund futurist one European hedge fund manager of the decade. He's an extremely popular voice in the Swedish investment community and is Aerudite and eclectic in his interests as they come. For me, there are lots of echoes of Nassim Taleb in Mikhail's writing and his style of voice. In addition to popularising the Italian word for effortless mastery, spreadzatura, Mikhail also writes regularly about markets, philosophy, psychedelics, his own personal story, science, sleep, psychology, and just about all the interesting type of stuff that the audience of Acuria's worldview is stiff and primed and ready at attention for. In this podcast, we get a little bit about Mikel's formative experiences, why Patrick Bateman was the reason he got into finance, Mikhail's best shorts in his career, a full decompression on Tesla and Elon Musk. Mikhail talks about his ever-changing worldview when it comes to psychedelics and consciousness. Plus, we hear him speak about modernity, Swedish exceptionalism, and more. This podcast is right up there for me with episode 100 with Stephen Hicks in terms of personal highlights on this podcasting journey. And that is why I'm finishing off 2022 with this episode. This is the biggest year in the podcast short life so far. We were in the top 20% listened to on Spotify, top 5% shared, and over 100 people had a Curious Worldview as their number one most listened to podcast. This was so incredible for me to learn. I really couldn't believe it. So thank you if that's one of you, and um if you're now being introduced to a curious worldview, be in that statistic next year in 2023. Now, fellas, it's Christmas time. So review the Santa Claus out of this podcast. Pump your good juice into the algorithm because while this podcast took me over five hours to put together, it will only take you five seconds to review. So whether that is on Apple or Spotify or anywhere else you listen, leave fat, healthy reviews and pump your good juice into the algorithm. Okay, and with that, here is Spreza himself, Mikel Seething. So the Retarded Hedge Fund Manager is an autobiographical book that takes us from your beginnings up north, north of the polar circle, through to and then a bit after your team winning hedge fund managers of the decade. This is a quote from the book. This entire book is about learning from your mistakes, picking yourself up, and improving, growing, and excelling, not despite your errors, but thanks to them. And yet the overarching impression is one of ignored lessons in a cyclical pattern of hubris. So I wanted to ask that question to open up with you explaining via the formative years of your life.

SPEAKER_02 2:56

I think the um the um I think the the la the biggest thing that happened to me, the most important thing that happened to me, was um when we had uh just left Kiruna, Jokas Jarve, where the Ice Hotel is built, uh, and ended up in in Vesteros, uh like a medium-sized city in the middle of Sweden. Um there one summer my elder brother died. He drowned, and he drowned before my eyes, before the entire family. My father dived in, tried to find him, but there were undercurrents that just swept him away. Uh they actually re made the harbor after that to make sure that the big ferries did not. Um that they were not connected with the with the like the small small salvo harbor. Um anyway. Before this, I was a very happy child. I was exploring. I was curious. Uh, after that I got more or less um just locked in. Um I did not communicate well. I was not interested in other people. I th nobody understood me, I thought, and and actually uh I didn't didn't even know this uh until just a few years ago. So between the ages of more or less eight and forty eight, um I could not look people in the eye. I never looked people in the eye. Um I um um hardly had any emotions. This is not something that that I I knew about in this during this time because I thought that it, well I have I have emotions. It's just that after uh a certain event in 2019, uh it was like turning on the collar. Um so um um this this event, my brother dying, and we actually also we moved from uh uh we moved into a more like uh up upscale area. Uh and so I I also got bullied. I got bullied because my parents were divorced, I got bullied because I was a sad person, I was got bullied because I uh had trouble communicating, and I also bullied because I had like ripped clothes because we didn't have that much money, so if if I happened to uh ruin my clothes, I had to keep them on. Um, so all of this turned me into like the perfect person for the finance industry, and I had no idea that I was this person, I had no idea how people viewed me, um, and I wasn't even interested in finance. I actually ended up there just to spite one of my old bullies.

SPEAKER_00 6:02

Until 48, you couldn't look people in the eye.

SPEAKER_02 6:06

Yes.

SPEAKER_00 6:07

How did that affect the way you would form relationships with people?

SPEAKER_02 6:12

I think that explains why I had a couple of a handful of long relationships with with girls. Um they found me attentive and kind, uh, but sooner or later they realized that there really is nothing there. There is nothing behind the surface. He he doesn't really have real emotions. Uh so it always ended up us just being friends, and it also explains why I'm still friends with with all my my exes. And and um whenever I have a new girlfriend, they are not at all um bothered by by my by my exes, uh, because they they see it, they know that they are just friends. We because we probably really never were together. Um and in work life um uh it's it's just very easy for me to um to get new colleagues or uh counterparties uh because I kind of I used to like act like a person. Um and and that works very well in in professional life. It it um uh it turns you into a very agreeable machine that just simply works. Uh and in finance, it's it's a perfect thing to do. You can you can just click on and click off with whatever counterparty you talk to and whatever position you take, they are uh they are just positions, it's nothing that you that you live and die by. I I had a actually I had a colleague, he was very experienced, he was an MVP, most valuable player. He got that like well, there are a lot of silly titles in the finance industry. Um, everybody wants to be like a a sports star. And um uh anyway, when he moved from the sell side to the buy side, he's he he we hired him to to the hedge fund, he had truly really had trouble sleeping because the positions were every single position was larger than his entire uh own private like economy, and and he took it personally. And I was like, it's just percentages, it's like 2.2% up. It you don't have to think about the the the billions or or the or the millions. That that's not your um it has nothing to do with you, but but he really really took responsibility for it, and um now I see it, now I understand. Um but but back then it was like everything is just numbers and um functionality.

SPEAKER_00 9:04

It's impossible not to make a uh Patrick Bateman comparison. I mean, how often do you think about that?

SPEAKER_02 9:11

And he is the reason I am in finance, apart from the the bully. Um the the bully put me in Stockholm School of Economics because that was he that was his dream. He wanted to go there, uh, but he couldn't because he had to have the top grades in everything. Um but once there I had no idea what I what I was doing or what I was supposed to do with the education. But two years in, you were supposed to to choose your your your masters or or your uh whatever and your major. And um a girl that I uh we we did some collaborative uh work together with the the US embassy uh on IT stuff back in 1992. And um I happened to read on the cultural pages in a major Swedish newspaper that there's this weird book called American Psycho. And I just saw like a um an angled, like a tilted cutout. You could read some of it, but not not all of it. And I just thought this is this there's something very weird and particular and gory about this. Um, and I I just well I happened to mention it to her, and she was like, I have the book here, you can you can borrow it if you want to. And then I started reading it, and then I reread it, and I started reading it a third time, and then she asked, Have you have you started reading it yet? And I was like, I'm on my my third round now. And she she was like, Give it back. And anyway, I told this, told about the book to my to my friends as well, and when they read it, one of them he was like, Now we know what we are supposed to do for our majors, finance, we will do this, we will be Patrick Bateman.

SPEAKER_00 11:01

What does it say about people that Patrick Bateman is a um a figure that they idolise so much that they want to emulate him? Is it just because he looked really good and had a high powerful position in an organization that people deferred to him and gave him power from? Um, because I mean, he's not a good guy, right? No. So, how do you explain why so many people latched onto him as a sort of role model?

SPEAKER_02 11:29

Somehow, society has told us that we're supposed to work hard and play hard, we're supposed to like have super fun and be super competent and buy all this stuff. Uh, then we are at the top of it of the hierarchy. Um that's um that that's a trap, it's it's a trick of society, and it's taken me like 50 years to get past it. Uh, but I can definitely see how most people they are not in control of their lives, they are just put in school, they're put at a like a some profession that they didn't really choose. Things just happen, and you spend 95% of your time just doing what other people expect you to do, um and and then you see Patrick Bateman, and it's he kind of it seems like he has agency on on one hand, but mostly it's probably that he like epotomizes uh whatever the word really is, um the um uh uh this work hard, play hard lifestyle. He's on top of everything. And yes, then he murders prostitutes at night.

SPEAKER_00 12:44

Right. Yeah exactly, and he makes it uh look easy. Maybe he's a bit of a Sprezzatura character.

SPEAKER_02 12:50

Ah yes, um he he is, um, and well he was born into it because his his, as they say in the movie, his father practically owns the firm, so you don't really have to work. No, um, but being there, he um he has no troubles in the world at all. He just creates his own trouble, but otherwise it's it's it's I mean, how can he be a finance professional which is supposed to be the most competitive profession in the world? And he he just strolls in late, uh books lunch, he never does any real work, right? Yeah, and and it still just works, and that's it, that is what sprezzatura is. Um, the the original sprezzatura, it's actually James Bond. In the early movies, you never see him practice, but he knows Japanese, he knows politics, he knows karate, he he he knows wine, he can tell with the the the uh vintage and whatever he knows exactly everything. But when did he ever ever study that? He must have studied super hard, and that is what sprezzatura is. You put in the hours and in and the work, but you also have to have like a basic like engine, uh strength, intellectual, and and and physical like DNA. And and and then you you don't talk about your efforts. You just show how easy everything comes to you.

SPEAKER_00 14:32

You said something quite devastating earlier that uh they would eventually realize that there was nothing there by looking beyond the eyes. Um is there something in there worth talking about?

SPEAKER_02 14:48

Um well back then there really wasn't anything there.

SPEAKER_00 14:54

Uh so but what does that mean, I guess? What does it mean there's nothing there?

SPEAKER_02 14:58

I was just a more or less a placeholder, I was a a function. I I I did what I what was expected of me. I, for example, in in in school, I I just thought that school, what you're supposed supposed to do in school is just show up, answer questions, do your lessons. To me, there was never a question at all whether you could not learn like the whatever you were supposed to learn, like capitals or or or um or words uh in in in English. Uh you gotta you got a task. Here, here it is, do it, and I did it. That's that's it. Uh same thing when I showed up at work, I had no conception of what working really was. So I thought, now I am like the uh a serf or or or a slave to this company. I have no other uh function in life than to to to do whatever uh the work uh demands of me. Um and the thing the same same idea permeates permeated all aspects of my life. Like if you're if you're a boyfriend, you're supposed to do certain certain things. You so you show up, you do this, you do that, uh, at work, just give me a task and I'll and I'll do it. But there were like there was no no real agency, no real me, no, no, nobody like making decisions.

SPEAKER_00 16:30

And why do you think you were that way?

SPEAKER_02 16:33

You gave an explanation that was because you watched your brother pass away and yeah, there there are um several ways of of talking about this, but one is that uh um the last few years I've read up on the the modern studies of the human brain, the left right brain hemisphere divide, and uh there is like a pop cultural version uh from like decades ago that's completely wrong. Um just to make sure nobody thinks I'm talking about that. Um but but the but the new version uh says that the the right side of the brain it has like more or less an one-to-one connection with reality, but that's too much for us to take. So it just hands over whatever it thinks that the left side can handle, and the left side, the left side is the one that manipulates reality. The left side can talk and it can grasp things, it can grasp things intellectually and it can grasp things physically. And um what I think happened when I had these this like triple trauma of a toxic divorce, my my elder brother dying, and moving to a place where I was bullied. I think that triple trauma it just completely shut off more or less my my right side of the brain, and and that's where uh everything with depth uh relies. The reality side, yeah, it's yeah, exactly. So it's the depth of actually of vision, it's depth of uh emotions, um and and and and um actually the the like the overarching you, the what actually is uh uh the real uh the real conscious me. The left side, it's just as Ian McGillchrist calls it, it's just an emissary, it just gets to do stuff, it gets orders and it does stuff, and that's exactly what how how I was as as a person in total. I just I got orders and I did them. And and then I was like caught in this whole whole of mirrors where uh there's no way of thinking that there is an outer side of all of this. Uh so I I couldn't see that I didn't really live uh a full life. Uh so what I really think happened is that my trauma was so severe that the right brain side it just shut off because you cannot handle this. If you are going to function, if you're at all going to survive, uh we will just shut off being you.

SPEAKER_00 19:20

Okay, so um, because I am trying to figure out why a trauma might necessarily shut off one side of the brain, but then also the other side of that question is why simply reading it and bringing that knowledge to life would be enough to overcome it. You know, there must be something more.

SPEAKER_02 19:38

There is something more. Um I had um um well several years ago, I I I um stumbled upon uh the realm of psychedelics. So I started reading up on it. Uh I had no idea that there was a ton of research made in the 50s and 60s. Um I had no idea about Aldous Huxley and Doors of Perception uh or or the rediscovery of um magic mushrooms in in Mexico in the early 60s. Um and and when when I started reading up on this, I realized that um as a child of the 70s, I had gotten it completely wrong. And people were always saying, like, okay, sure, you should you shouldn't do you shouldn't do drugs, um, you shouldn't drink alcohol either, uh, but that's okay. Um, nicotine, sure, it's a like a fun pastime. But in reality, it's alcohol and and nicotine that are like the really bad guys, um, like cocaine and heroin and stuff like that, it's they are bad and dangerous and addictive. Um, but in popular culture, it's like this is just fun stuff. You can play around with that, but in reality, those are the ones that that can draw some people in even worse than than alcohol. Um and then on the like far right side with psychedelics, it's like they are there are stories of people jumping off buildings, going completely crazy, psychotic episodes just following them through their entire lives. And in reality, the the research back in the 60s and the research that is once again surfacing uh shows that it's more or less the opposite the other way around. Yeah, they can actually cure mental illness. And um, and anyway, I was reading up on this. Uh, I read a lot of books that I've read, I've read Jim Fademan, who was one of the original researchers. He he was there with with the the top guys at Harvard, um, uh Sekodelic Explorer's Guide. I read Stanislav Graf, who is uh he was a not a Swiss, uh like Austrian uh researchers. Uh researcher, he he attended 3,000 LSD-assisted uh therapies, therapy sessions. Uh, and he like mapped out all the um archetypical um experiences that you can have during a psychedelic experience. And and and that book, um, after reading a lot of other stuff as well, uh, it kind of something clicked into place. I realized that I have issues. I didn't know I had them before, but reading that I saw that I have issues that should be like exposed. I need to scratch open this wound because there is something that needs to get out. Uh and and and then I I um made sure to actually have a really heavy psychedelic experience. Um and um it opened up. Um I saw my eight-year-old self. I saw how how misunderstood, how sad, how hurt. Uh I saw that the reason I couldn't look people in the eye were because back then I was like so sad. I I had to like only glance at people because I didn't know them, I didn't want them to see how how hurt I was. Um and during this experience, I could go through situation after situation, open up to like this person looks distorted. They look distorted because I'm looking through a lot of like tear liquid. Uh, but I could I could in this in this trip um just take person after person and and turn them around and look at them the way they actually look. And then I realized these were grown-ups trying to see me. They were looking at me like we want to help him, but we can't. Well, what can we do? And I I just thought they were kind of almost scary ghouls because they looked so distorted. And after there is a before and after this this experience. Before I couldn't see color, I had no emotions, I didn't realize what life was about. I couldn't relate to people and really relate to people. Um, I'm actually amazed that I I have friends because I don't understand how I could have have them and keep them. Um and and after I I just understand life, it seems.

SPEAKER_00 24:55

What was the trip specifically? What'd you do? The psychedelic experience, I should say.

SPEAKER_02 25:01

Um it was a heavy dose dose of of LSD. Um and that seems to be like the well, some people talk about magic mushrooms as the as um the better choice, um, but the the early research focused on on mescaline and and LSD, and uh it seemed to me like um there would be uh a cleaner and more direct source to to your to opening up your your um uh your subconscious. Um magic mushrooms. The way I read that read up on it seem to be more uh fuzzy around the edge edges. Um it it's um some people get like um a completely new angle on life, or and and it they it seems like the the trip in itself uh has a life and and and a and a meaning, whereas LSD is more clinic clinic. It it like it it it it lays bare your subconscious um so you can deal with it. Whereas you're more you're more like high if if you if you take if you take medic mushrooms. I'm not completely sure about this, but the way I I I read about about it, it seemed like LSD should should be the choice for me.

SPEAKER_00 26:33

And you were you were alone, where were you?

SPEAKER_02 26:36

Uh I was with a friend. Um uh and um uh so it was a like a safe space. You you really need to be very uh particulate about um set and setting. This is what they discovered in the in the 60s, that it's super important that you are in the right state of mind and you're in a place where it's completely safe. Um because there is a there is a recursive element to an LSD trip where whatever goes on in your mind and whatever goes on in your mind is affected by what goes around around you, and what whatever goes on in your mind can be reinforced, and that reinforcing reinforces itself. So whatever happens can be much stronger. Um whether it's good or or it's bad, or just like a like a deep dive into your own psyche.

SPEAKER_00 27:35

I I wasn't there for this, but I remember um my mates telling me about a time when they were all doing lots and lots of psychedelics, and one particular evening, you know, one of the one of the guys doing it had a really, really bad trip, and he became compelled, without any, you know, rational explanation or talking him out of it, compelled to jump out of the window. Oh wow. And they were on a you know, in an apartment building. So they stopped it from happening, but it was obviously an extremely scary moment of you know, this guy fighting you off to do something completely irrational out of character, etc. Um, you're familiar with Tim Ferris, I'm sure. Yes. Uh how what do you think about what he's doing with psychedelic research? I was like, you know, flawed when I listened to his podcast, where he basically, throughout psychedelic research, uncovered his own trauma that he'd buried way, way, way deep down. Um, and not knowing you very well or Tim Ferris very well, but I mean I've listened to his podcast so much, so maybe I do know him a little bit.

SPEAKER_02 28:41

Um I think there is a lot in common between the two of you, potentially, just maybe in the demeanor and the I think I think he's um very brave to talk so openly about it because there is still stigma. Um, people call it drugs. Um but on the other hand, uh, a lot of we feed our teenagers with amphetamines like SSRIs. Um there are like 10 to 20 percent of the Western population are on SSRIs, uh, and it's been proven that sure it it can help some, it stops suicide sometimes, but on the other hand, it just makes people empty. When I when I read about the effects of SSRIs, it seems like people are becoming what I used to be. Um so um I think it's I think it's very important work that uh Tim Ferriss is doing because he was a super popular person, he seems smart, explorative, curious, and then he finds out about psychedelics and he really dives in and talks about it. That's really important. And I'm I'm I'm so happy that the research is is taking hold these days. Uh, there is this um uh company called maps.org. Uh they started doing research in 1986, and it's taken all the way, it takes like 30 years before they they got recognition. Uh and and now their their uh most recent um phase three study uh got um uh designation breakthrough from uh the US FDA and the Europe European uh uh counterparty, they just uh tucked on, so there's a breakthrough designation here as well, and um it's it's because they they got tremendous results on people with uh treatment resistant PTSD, people who on average had 17 years of PTSD, they tried everything, every kind of drug, therapy, whatever, and it didn't work. And um, I think 66% of them got symptom free after three sessions. It's just amazing. You you just give them uh a molecule over uh uh an amount of three months, and they get the same kind of like debriefing and therapy that they have that they have tried for 17 years, and then they're actually they are symptom-free. It's gone. They do not have PTSD anymore. And what's even more amazing is that the other, the the last third, they also get better and better over the ensuing time. It they they don't fall back, it doesn't get worse again. They actually get better over time without doing anything, no therapy, no molecules, um, which means that there is something here that you tap into the subconscious and you you you just restart the brain's own ability to heal because we have an ability to heal, and it's actually called REM sleep. When we sleep, when we are in REM mode, um the brain is flooded with calming chemicals and that enables you to try out a lot of emotions, like you had a strong emotion yesterday or last week, and then you dream variants of that emotion. It doesn't copy the event, it just copies the emotion. So if you were a little bit annoyed, or if you were a little bit afraid or very happy, then you will dream that emotion in a lot of different ways. Uh, and if it wasn't that you were scared or hurt or or afraid, and that that can be like that that's that's traumatic in in real life, but when you're dreaming in REM state, it is not traumatic, it's just you kind of feel like um you're safe, even though there are weird and and scary stuff happening. I mean, I'm sure you're familiar with with like scary dreams, but they're not scary, they're not really scary. It's like watching a scary movie. You're not scared.

SPEAKER_00 33:02

Though at the time while you're living it, it's yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 33:06

But not in the not in the dream. Um and when you have PTSD, it's because you had such a strong uh experience that the the the sleeping chemicals they are not enough. But add a little bit extra, um then you do get that safe state, and you can actually um uh in waking in a waking state talk about anything like people who have been assaulted or raped or been through whatever hellscape you can think about, uh they can actually uh under the influence of of certain molecules, they can talk about this, and talking about it integrates it into your personality, and once it's integrated, it's just a memory, then it's not real anymore. But before that, before you can integrate it, when when it's still kind of locked away in a in a in a in a place in in your brain, you um the brain can't can't um um discern what's what's real, a real threat, uh and what's just a memory. But integrating it, it will just become a memory. Like when you stab your toe, you've stabbed your toe like a hundred times, it hurts like hell. It's almost like there's no worse pain in the world than stabbing your toe. But thinking about all the hundreds of times you've done it, it's it's it's nothing. And and that's that's the state you can get in with with uh, for example, MDMA.

SPEAKER_00 34:40

Is there any knowledge as to um what's actually happening in the rewiring of the brain when you take a psychedelic trip to have such dramatic changes of mind?

SPEAKER_02 34:53

One single trip of psilocybin, which is the active component of uh magic mushrooms, uh, actually creates ten percent more synaptic connections. One single trip. Imagine you have like uh a hundred trillion synaptic connections in your brain. You have a hundred billion neurons and they have up to a thousand connections each, so more or less a hundred trillion. You get ten trillion more connections overnight from one single trip. And those connections are also ten percent more myelinized, they are ten percent better, stronger, faster. So imagine how much your brain have have actually changed physically, and and and those are um what they create is like a blank slate. Um you get to choose who you are the day after rather than having to to to walk these downtrodden paths that that you can cannot choose anymore. So you actually get that agency that I was talking about earlier. Um so um this is a I mean it's a huge physical change. Even a 1% would be astonishing, but it's 10%.

SPEAKER_00 36:08

And it's not 10% in perpetuity, I suppose there's a steep.

SPEAKER_02 36:11

No, it it it it wanes, but because that's what the brain does. It always uh prunes uh like and things that are not used, but it gives you a blank slate the day after and for a couple of weeks.

SPEAKER_00 36:24

So I'm shocked to hear that until 48 you would have struggled with eye contact. Um, you know, because we've met each other in the eyes so far. I mean, do you feel like a totally new person? Uh what how do you reflect on the first 48 years of your life almost like this giant missed opportunity a little bit?

SPEAKER_02 36:46

No, not at all. I was a very content person. Uh I thought I had emotions, I thought I had agency. I am I'm very happy with whatever my previous self bequeathed to me because um I have a materially very comfortable life. I actually still have friends and my my family still likes me. Uh so I did get a lot of good things, and um maybe if I had been a different person, I would have chosen uh like a more um um a life that was more meaningful than than doing finance. Um but I'm um uh I was happy during these years, or at least the the kind of happy that I knew, and that it um changing doesn't take anything away from that. Actually, nothing at all. All I can see is uh now I I've gotten a lot of new things. Um and maybe even the contrast the contrast between the then and now even adds to the whole experience. So I'm I'm just I'm actually waking up happy for real every day.

SPEAKER_01 38:03

Wow.

SPEAKER_02 38:04

Uh I don't use an alarm either, uh which I think is something people should strive for, never use an alarm.

SPEAKER_00 38:11

But doesn't that kind of fuck you here in Sweden? Cause because I kind of feel the same, but I notice a significant difference in the hours I sleep according to the season, um, which I mean you're super well read on all the sleep literature, but it's good to have consistent wake bedtime, uh waking up time amount of hours you're asleep, right? And if you don't set an alarm, for instance, when it's so dark out until 11, 12, you can actually end up sleeping in more and then you go to sleep earlier.

SPEAKER_02 38:40

Anyway, I'm just trying to say that I'm I'm not sure uh if it actually works that way unless you're uh underslept. Um that's it. And I think the the alarm and drinking too much coffee and maybe partying, these things like they add up. Uh so for me, I mean I have an aura ring, it tracks, yeah, tracks tracks my sleep. So um uh I know that I sleep about six and a half hours in uh in summertime and seven and a half in in winter time, and uh at least like measuring in the absolute midwinter and and and midsummer. Um so there is a change. Um but when I've when I I cannot sleep more than eight hours unless I'm ruined in some way.

SPEAKER_00 39:30

Right. Okay. Um weaving on for a while. Uh forgive me if this is too much belabouring the point, but it's quite interesting. You wrote in the notes to me that when your brother drowned and you experienced um the divorce of your parents, it killed your empathy. And I know we've kind of been speaking around this a little bit, but I would assume those experiences would almost endear the opposite appreciation and empathy. Because but anyway, obviously it didn't work out that way, but what do you make of that?

SPEAKER_02 40:04

I am my own blind spot. It's very difficult to objectively analyze yourself. Um but I think that uh if I had kept my empathy, I maybe I would have uh uh had like empathy with myself, and that that would that would have been too much to bear. Um something like that. Uh it's hard to say. I mean it's I'm not a psychologist, I don't know how the brain really works, but I think that uh does anyone? No, maybe I am Michael Christ. Um but uh but anyway, um uh I think the system of shutting down in order to preserve uh just yourself to be to be able to live at all, uh it's a it's a crude process. It just shuts the brain just shuts down whatever it thinks is needed, uh and a lot of other stuff gets shut down with it. I mean, it could probably just have as as easily have ended up the uh the opposite way.

SPEAKER_00 41:14

Right. Yeah, that that's kind of what I was thinking potentially.

SPEAKER_02 41:17

But what what actually happened after 2019 is that for starters, I cried every day for a year. Every day. And I hadn't cried like more or less for 40 years, maybe five times. Um in the beginning, it was awful, it was so painful. And I would I was crying over my old girlfriend, I was crying over my dog, uh I I cried when I saw families in the park.

SPEAKER_00 41:43

Um just became a big softie.

SPEAKER_02 41:46

Yeah, and and and and I actually stopped going to the gym. I'd been going to the gym since I was 13, so like for 35 years. I stopped going to the gym uh because I couldn't bear doing squats or bench presses crying. Uh so I started going to an outdoor gym instead. Um, because that well there there I could be more or less alone. Um so um I I went from being like empathyless to um just complete soft swimming in it. Yeah, yeah. And and and after about a year I started liking it. Um I still cry a lot, maybe not every day, but it's it's close. Uh yeah.

SPEAKER_00 42:32

How about your um brother and sister, right? Yeah, how about your siblings, your brother and sister? Because they both also went to Vesteros and had to experience the trauma of what happened to your elder brother, the divorce. Um, how have their paths tracked alongside yours?

SPEAKER_02 42:54

They seem to have been less affected than than I was. Uh, I've talked to them about it. Um it took me about um a year after the experience to realize that there are other people affected here. And so I first uh reached out to my brother and like really apologized to him because I mean I was the older brother and he lost two older brothers that day. Uh, when I realized that that was like a punch in the gut, and I had to talk to him, apologize, and we we we we reconnected in in a very good way. Uh but he actually he seemed to have like gone through uh he he um I don't know uh maybe his he he his uh empathy uh area in the brain maybe could it got affected the way mine did so he he kind of dealt with it for real. I mean he was he had he had his issues uh in in his teens uh but think that was very healthy so he he dealt with it uh my my older sister uh i'm i'm not i'm not really sure uh i mean she she's a medical doctor she's very well accomplished she is empathetic she has four daughters uh they have a super fantastic family uh and i'm also always amazed when i get there because they welcome me in a way that i'm like why i'm i'm not even a good person why are you so kind to me why are you happy that i that i come here and they're like they are 18 15 and and and and 10 and they they should more they should be bothered that somebody is coming there and and and and and like disturbing their their peace uh but they are like oh here he is and i i don't even know what i what i am i'm i'm like the mother's brother i don't know even know that what that's called your uncle i'm my uncle yeah i usually call i'm unclear spare yeah i i thought i i once said that i'm i'm their aunt okay because because i can't really like i can't relate the there was something with sister and uh yeah maybe we go back to the the timeline yeah so you said something interesting earlier that the only reason you went to this fancy pansy degree at stockham university was because your bully wanted to do that yeah there's a bit of memetics there isn't there and do you reflect on that at all as being wow what a weird motivation to do something yeah but I um I really didn't have any any agency any r strong wills or emotions uh you can actually do um a parallel here back to uh to Patrick Bateman when he has his face gel on and he says you can you can grip my hand feel my flesh gripping yours you can gaze into my eyes and feel there's maybe some comparative lifestyles but they're I simply am not there. Something like that and and um uh this was at least something he said uh I want to go to Stockholm School of Economics uh Mike you should go and I was like what is that even I was thinking about like maybe getting some chemic chemics chemical chemics degree um maybe become a teacher uh I had no idea I I didn't didn't want to leave Westeros I was like confined to to this place this is this is what I am um I cannot explore things I'm I'm just like this is me this atom is me and and when he said I want to go to SSE you should go to SSE I was like well somebody said something and if I go then at least he will be a little bit bothered good enough motivation do you think there are a lot of people out there like that caricature of Patrick Bateman you just described you can feel my hand you can look into my eyes but I'm simply not there.

SPEAKER_00 47:08

Do you think walking around the streets that what percentage of people are just captured by this malaise?

SPEAKER_02 47:17

I think most I would say like 80 90% sad and concerned yeah and what what I what I think the the the original sin was the Renaissance we the Renaissance created um this the modern world it's modernity is is what's wrong. We don't live in nature anymore. We have these right lines and angles and things are everything is artificial that we have more or less ruled out fractals from our life and and the the mind wants to see fractals. It wants to see nature what's a fractal a fractal is um um it's a mathematical concept where originally I think it was a guy called Mandelbrot and and um it's when you you take a um um like a single geometrical concept like a triangle and imagine you put little triangles on on each side of the triangle and then you put little triangles on each side of those triangles if you keep going these will turn into super intricate interesting formations that you could never even imagine would originate from from just like a triangle that's how nature looks look look at a tree you have a branch or you have the the the trunk and you have a few branches and the branches they have their branches and they have their branches and it keeps just keeps going it's a really simple process it's slightly affected by the sun and the wind and whatever shade there is or whatever trees are around but it's a super simple process of the reminiscing of the triangle the triangle fractals and and it these processes create humans, trees, nature and that's where we are supposed to live this is what we are supposed to experience but instead we live in these artificial cities with just like skyscrapers and and straight angles which do not why do you live here then in this beautiful apartment in the middle of the city? Um I bought it to be close to work but I bought it before the event. Okay.

SPEAKER_00 49:47

So maybe you're rethinking it.

SPEAKER_02 49:49

Yeah and um and there is a pretty high probability that I will move out to someplace outside outside the city centre and and uh well see trees every day. Well actually I do see trees every day. I mean I I I I go to my outdoor gym every morning um and it's situated in in a park Homle Gordon in in in Stockholm so I I do see the sun and trees every morning. Nice but I interrupted you you were talking about um how it all started in the Renaissance oh yeah um so uh that's when we started understanding about nature what that there are laws and there are laws that we can exploit. So what what what's happening here it's it's the it's the emissary it's the left hemisphere taking control and saying look here is something I can manipulate I can use this I can I can cry I can I can like the dictate whatever happens in in reality rather than just experiencing it. And I think we we we're we were put here to experience the physicality and the 3D space. We can get to that later on maybe but uh we are not 3D space time uh beings and we created 3D space time for a reason just to to try stuff out because matter and and and and 3D space it it creates kind of a resistance that's interesting for us to to um well just um like butt heads against it it's it the resistance is what's interesting we are originally unresistant beings anyway so the left brain hemisphere it it realized there are laws here there I can that I can exploit and so from the Renaissance and on we have um um created more and more wealth we have exploited the natural laws in order to build stuff machines and and buildings and we have moved away from um chasing after after food and and and partners and and instead we created this work hard play hard lifestyle which is a completely like distant from um the way we were made whether it was our the the the consciousness or if you have uh more of a Darwinistic idea of life that we are biological creatures um but in just like a hundred years or at least five hundred years we we just grew completely apart from um um from from nature and and I think that's that means that now we are trapped in our left brain hemisphere we think but we still have a right brain yeah we do so how can we be trapped in one of them um well there is a way out you just have to um to to think about it and and and embrace it but the problem is that we live in a culture we live in this environment where we we grow up we start out curious happy interested and and then we were we are put in school and told to to know our place to uh think before we speak to raise your hand like there there are all these rules uh you're not supposed to make a mess things are supposed to be like clean and straight and and controlled and this is whole control thing that is the left brain hemisphere which which keeps us from actually experiencing uh the real life um and and so the renaissance created the opportunity to not having to work every day for for for your sustenance uh and it's exactly that that distant it made us distant from from from reality and I don't I don't really know how to explain it but um yeah because it almost sounds like you're um romanticizing the good old days when it was a constant struggle to almost do everything and therefore any reward would only be could would only come at the other end of a significant struggle which makes you know which is a romantic idea to to to to project onto well I don't want to struggle and I don't think people need to struggle either I think there is a way to live in this abundance of of wealth and still be a natural being um but I also think that growing up in this artificial environment makes it difficult to to to break out of it and and to actually be uh a conscious and natural being right as I I I definitely do not romanticize about dying of appendicitis when you're 22.

SPEAKER_00 54:59

No like you know or you being this you know brilliant financial mind not having any means of being able to um to take advantage of that because you live in Kiruna in the I don't know the 1580s. It's like okay well what do we do today?

SPEAKER_02 55:21

I hope nobody lived there in the 1580s.

SPEAKER_00 55:23

Yeah well I don't know I'm I don't know either but well somebody lived there this the the the the the the seams or whatever they call the Summy yeah but um it it kind of ties in briefly to what you were saying earlier about SSRIs like antidepressants um sort of the idea of that chemical escape being a reaction to you know darkness and downs um and and depression of sorts but and this ties into something I want to bring up with you with Nasim Telev and his work but in anti-fragile he says specifically about antidepressants like there is the threshold to disorder you know if you are threatening to take your life or likely to take your life because you are so chemically depressed or otherwise depressed then perhaps the intervention of a chemical substance that is going to level you out would be necessary to therefore make you available for therapy to maybe bring you back to some sort of equilibrium.

SPEAKER_02 56:30

But unless you are threatening that that suicide you're threatening pain you should rather let the natural mechanisms of the body make you a stronger person you know to be able to know that you can go really far down and and still be strong enough to come out of it and the other side and also from such depth it also gives you a much brighter appreciation of how good things can be as well you know that yes I I think you should only do those kinds of interventions including psychedelic interventions only when necessary um it's once again I mean we're here to experience all the emotions of life all the emotions of of physicality and 3D space and whenever you uh take any kind of any any kind of molecules to um to alter that um it should only be to create uh a new perspective to actual reality it's um it's both kind of cheating and a little bit of dangerous to go the route of of trying to live uh in an altered state of consciousness. They are there for perspective I think and and SSRIs the dangerous things the dangerous thing with them is that they um kind of keep need to keep taking them the the way I understand it. Because when when when you get off them it's like oh no the the the the this like reality keeps coming back to you and it's it's not it wasn't cured in any way it's fragile to deal with that reality because for so long you've been chemically leveled down. Yeah and and that's why the intervention with the psychedelics it's so so different because it actually creates something um tangible and good and and use useful in in your brain that you can you can actually start over whereas SSRIs they make it even worse to start over.

SPEAKER_00 58:37

Yeah I I I think about um antidepressants SSRIs analogous to if you had a broken arm. So if if you were to just bang completely severed bone and the way you treated that was with anesthetic you can walk around and be like everything's fine I don't feel any pain you know sure it's a bit hard to pick things up but everything's fine and then you come off those um you you come off the anesthetic and your arm is almost um damaged so badly that to come back to where it was beforehand is almost unthinkable. It's like a permanent shift downwards to the left that arm is never going to be the same as it once was as a as a as an analogy to what SSRIs might be doing to one's brain or one's ability to cope and to to to live in a world that is that is unfair you know that you might not be always dealt the best hand but you gotta be able to like meet the downside in the eyes and try and get out of that but it's so um it's so typical of um a modern society to just uh plaster over things with with stuff like SSRIs.

SPEAKER_02 1:00:00

It's like this person is not functioning correctly right now so here is here's something just to take the the edge of it right now and then we'll deal with the problems later. So you just kick the can down the road and you keep doing that and we end up in 2022 where 20% of people are on SSRIs and they just sleepwalking through life and uh and that's not even the worst of it because like 90% of of everybody is is really sleepwalking through life in the in the exact same way. They dream about retiring and when when they retire they die pr pretty quickly because they realize that they have no purpose. They had no purpose when they were working at le but at least somebody told them what they were supposed to do. Like go to work get an income care for your children and um then at least you you're worth something you have some kind of purpose but it's not it's not intrinsic. Yeah you don't feel it yourself you're just told what to do and and that's the the reason I get so fired up about these things is that I was that but in spades uh I I was just because of my affliction I was I was I had it worse than anybody else um but at least I had it um I had such a strong case of it that I didn't even feel it but I think that most people they can actually feel that they are meaningless useless without purpose and and and they don't really know what to do about it but they they dream about retirement because then they know something will change and maybe they can use the free time to to um uh explore what it is to be them um but once they get there they realize that they have absolutely nothing do you think you would have been as functional and as effective with uh futurists if you weren't no and absolutely not um it was uh like a such an unexpected and very uh useful gift to be without empathy it's perfect it I mean it's it's the Patrick Bateman right side of because it just means you can unemotionally make massive financial decisions. Yeah yeah and if you do something wrong it's just numbers sure you you do feel the responsibility to to clients and your colleagues um but those are also just like functional inputs you don't want to it's not that you don't want to disappoint them you just do you don't want to hurt them and and that's more effective.

SPEAKER_00 1:02:42

Right. How's your thinking about risk changed since this 2019 dramatic change of worldview uh because presumably uh the the the the C thing who is running futurous and can rationally just make sense of the percentage loss percentage gain the money involved unemotionally attached to it would have a different framework for risk than the one sitting in front of me now.

SPEAKER_02 1:03:09

Yeah probably once again it's hard to analyze yourself but I I yeah I do think I take less risk now and uh in in Futuris um the mandate was we could be long or short or or long short we could be balanced or or uh leverage long or or very heavily net short uh at now at Anti-Loop hedge fund where I work now my mandate is to be market neutral so I always have to balance the long side and the short side well with like five to ten percent discretionary um position but but you in in in total I'm supposed to be market neutral um and and that means that my my in um my management style now my portfolio management style uh it's naturally much less risky uh on the other hand that means that I can take as much risk as I want in single positions and and I do so I would in a in a paradoxical way some of my positions when I I was short AMC for example one of these meme stocks is this is this now with Anteloupe yes yeah so I started um uh working at Antelope in February 2022 you you could say that that's when we got our special fund um uh um permit from from the uh Swedish FSA um so I've been working but more or less a a year uh we we did have a soft start before but more or less since since February this year uh anyway uh I was short AMC which is one of the original meme stocks I was short when it actually rallied a hundred percent in just a few days uh and I kept the short oh my god and I made a profit on it uh that's kind of risk tolerance but it because it was just one of 42 uh positions you're right right um but still and I would never have done that because it's a frog in your throat when you see a rally on a short position yeah well not too much for me personally but when I talk to my colleagues and then they are like so what do you make of this Michael? Are you thinking about covering it? I mean what if it doubles again? So it's um it's actually just the discussion with my colleagues that that's um uh that makes it into situation because me personally I thought I think I have the situation under control. I think I know what's going on sure this kind of short covering when it can go like a thousand percent rather than a hundred I actually we we were short in furtheries we were short uh Volkswagen when it rallied a thousand

SPEAKER_00 1:06:00

Oh my god.

SPEAKER_02 1:06:02

But we survived it and we made money. So I think I have that tucked away in my GN DNA. I know that you can write these things out unless your position is sized wrongly. And my position in AMC, it had the it was sized correctly.

SPEAKER_00 1:06:19

Yeah, right. I I've realized now we're about an hour in. It's likely not going to follow any sort of timeline. It's just going to be random jumping around. That's okay with you, right? Yeah, sure. Is Nisim Taleb uh a guy you're familiar with? Uh yes.

SPEAKER_02 1:06:34

Uh I've I've read uh The Black Swan. I've browsed through some of his other stuff, but I don't and they didn't really resonate with me. Yeah, I thought it was the Black Swan was his like Magnus opus. That was really, really good. The rest is kind of rehashed, or or maybe his editor is like saying, write something.

SPEAKER_00 1:06:57

That's probably true. Um he he's actually been a really, really influential guy on my thinking. I think, particularly maybe if he gave fooled by randomness another chance, uh, because it is this lovely sort of philosophy about how to live one's life, how to think about randomness and uncertainty, less so than say what Black Swan is, which is um you know kind of like a playbook for for market participants. Um so, but yeah, I mean, because I do have questions about Taleb in here as well, so I'm just not sure whether you whether you want to answer them or whether you yeah, but yeah. Um so I wanted to ask you about the philosophy of anti-loop because it's uh quite an intriguing name. Um, if you want to talk about that.

SPEAKER_02 1:07:45

Yes. Um a few years ago, like five years ago, um, I had a podcast. Um, my my girlfriend was about to start uh a new podcast, but her her two uh partners they just dropped off the same day they were supposed to launch. So she just said, like, Mike, we already have sponsors lined up and everything, and we're supposed to make this episode. Could you like just fill in and be my partner? So we started this podcast called Outsiders. And um, I think anti-loop is exactly what outsiders is, it's a completely new way of looking at investments, a macroeconomy, um, old like tropes and cliches and and and and rules about the market. People just keep like repeating these like old truths, but they have no um have no real mass on it themselves. They they people say like you should you're supposed to just buy and hold. But how do you know what to buy and hold? Well, you buy the the average and hold it. Okay, so what what's your what's your input? You're not doing anything. Uh so why are you trading different stocks? Why don't you just buy the the index and just be done with it? You don't have to to spend any time on it. No, but I think I think it's fun and I I I want to buy good companies. So you're saying you're actually using your brain. So why don't you use your brain for more than just buy and hold? How do you know that you chose the best companies one time and then you're supposed to hold from there? It just doesn't make any sense. So things like this, it just permeates the the entire industry and especially uh retail investors. So anti-loop and outsiders uh was a reaction to that. And um here in this very kitchen, uh Anna once said, Um, but Mike, why do you keep holding on to your short positions in the market? You just keep losing money. Why do you do it? And uh that discussion it ended up with actually her managing my money and um her crafting uh an asset allocation strategy, which um um changes weights between gold, agricultural products, and and stocks because they have counter-cyclical properties properties. Uh, and uh after crafting this strategy and and doing some some uh statistical work together with an other friend, uh, we decided to to talk to some of my old colleagues, uh Martin Sandquist, who who um founded uh Lynx Asset Management, which grew into one of the largest CTA fund strategies in in the world, actually. So they had like I think five, six billion dollars or something like that. And um uh when he listened to the strategy, he thought, like, no, this is really something. Uh uh low frequency trading that's an unused like area in the business because everybody's doing high frequency, or you're supposed to like do a lot of research, and and it was like you do the long cycles and you just position between gold and agricultural and stocks. Um, so that was the uh origin of anti-loop, just being not do what everybody else is doing, uh don't short the stock market because it's expensive, do something else instead. You shorting is dangerous because you can trends can always just keep continuing, or or central banks can can print money, things just go the opposite of what what you think they will do. But there's always some other place, some other market which will go, which will perform better than the stock market. So when everybody was screaming Tina, there is no alternative. Uh Anna was saying, no, there is an alternative. There is uh agricultural products and there is gold. Um so anti-loop is about not being in the loop, doing whatever we like to do, and and which which is different from from whatever everybody else is doing.

SPEAKER_00 1:12:19

I I just was wondering if there was like the any of the the Hofstetter Strange Loops uh inspiration from it or anything.

SPEAKER_02 1:12:27

But the funny thing here is that I really love Hofstadter. I I I I um read Gerdlerscherbach um uh 25 years ago. I thought it was amazing. Uh I took my sweet time reading it. Uh I think it took more than seven, yeah. Yeah, more than seven months, I think, in in in reading it, almost a year. Um, and I I really pushed through. Have you read it?

SPEAKER_00 1:12:52

Uh I'm reading at the moment upon a strong recommendation from a very, very sort of savant mathematical genius friend who said it changed his uh worldview more than anything else. I was like, okay, then so I bought it, assuming it would be this pamphlet or something. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:13:10

There is um a chapter where he actually proves Gödel's theorem. And I think it took me a couple of months to get through that chapter, but I I I kind of sensed you are supposed to do this. Uh I think it says in the book, you can skip this cap chapter, you don't really need to know this. Um, but actually going through the proof and and completely realizing that uh even mathematics is not um it's not a closed system. Um there are things in there that are out of control. There are true statements that cannot be stated, or there are false statements that cannot be proved, sometimes like that. I don't really remember. But but you actually go through the symbols, you you you learn a new system of symbols, and you do the mathematics, and once you get through the chapter, you you truly see the the reality of of Girdles' theorem. Um, so that was um uh a really formative book for me uh in itself, but also um regarding that there there are important stuff to learn from books. Um and uh but I haven't read I Am a Strange Loop. I have it on my list and I really want to read it, uh but I I I need to find the the the right time to do it.

SPEAKER_00 1:14:39

Maybe it's worthwhile mentioning um the and like we like we said earlier, it's this is now just jumping around a lot, but that's okay, right? Um the paradoxes in this recent cloak and daggers trip you took to Switzerland. You you mentioned a couple of very interesting paradoxes.

SPEAKER_02 1:14:56

Um yeah, the the um coincidence of opposites.

SPEAKER_00 1:15:00

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:15:01

So uh it it's a concept that I slowly realized over several years. I over and over again, I realized that there are a lot of important questions where the answer is is another question. It's how long is a piece of string? And the answer is it depends. Um I first thought that this is just some kind of fun coincidence. Um and and over over the years I saw this over and over again. It was like you always get the question, how do you know how much of something to do? And how do you know if this is good or bad? And it it turns out that everything lies on a spectrum. It's like the superposition of of uh the the Schrdinger equation. Things are coexistent and they only coalesce into a specific when you when you really ask the question, but the question you ask um determines your answer. Um so that that's a coincidence of opposites in itself. There is a like a broad spectrum of things that could turn out, uh, but it's your question that creates it. So uh going to Switzerland on this very weird journey, um, I was just asked to give a speech on something that I was knowledgeable about and that I cared about. Uh and I just said maybe coincidence of opposites. And he was like, uh, well, he, somebody I don't know, I had never heard about, never talked to, didn't get a picture of, didn't even get his full name, or not a name at all. I just got uh like an eponym and and uh a pseudonym. And and he um so I just went to Switzerland preparing a speech for a group. I had no idea who they were, and uh and I just said, well, maybe coincidence of opposites, and he was like, he he researched it a bit, and he was like, Oh my god, this is Alan Watts speaks about this a lot, and he loves Alan Watts, but he still hadn't stumbled upon the coincidence of opposites. So, what it is is that um, for example, music. You might what is music? If I ask you what is music, you might say, Yes, well, it's it's it's notes, um, it's a melody, it's a bass. Um well, it's not the bass, it's not the the notes, it's actually the spaces in between. That that's that's what creates a pace and a rhythm. But you of course you you need both the notes and the bass and and the spacing. Um so you need all of it, and actually the melody, I mean it it it it it flows like well the melody is supposed to float. Um and the bass actually interrupts the flow. But interrupting the flow actually creates um it actually emphasizes uh the melody. Um so in in in one way it completely interrupts the melody. It's like boom boom boom. You you you you ruin the melody, but ruining the melody and and it um the contrast creates the melody. It even it it makes it even even more interesting and and and and strong because you you you you keep the melody in your in your head, um anticipating the bass, and and and that is what's what actually makes the melody go. And and the melody in itself, it's not the notes, it it's the spaces. Um so what are you really listening to? Yeah, well, it the spaces is what the composer made. He made the spaces, the notes were all there, all there, they're just like 12 notes, but he makes the spaces. Uh so that that's one coincidence of all of opposites, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:19:04

What's another one?

SPEAKER_02 1:19:06

Well, one one that actually uh uh forms the basis of my entire world view and my my motto and my way of living, yeah. It's uh it's a just one more. Uh I'm actually writing a book now that will be called just one and parenthesis more. Um, and um it has to do with um uh being process-oriented or goal-oriented. So if you want to accomplish something, some they say that you should have like a really tangible and lofty goal. This is what you're going for. I will win the Olympics, or I will be the richest person on earth, something like that. Um, so you have a goal, then you can work for that goal every day, every hour. You you you you see it, it burns like a fire, like you're going for it. Um, it's being goal-oriented. But if you get to the goal, then you're done. You reached your goal. So, what do you do then? Well, you have to maybe you have to form another goal, but reaching the goal just makes you feel empty and like so now what? And reaching the goal, nothing really happens. There is no catharsis, there is no that's Patrick Bateman again. Um when when you're done, you're done, then you're you're useless. So reaching the goal is the worst thing you can do, except for one thing, not reaching it. Because then it was all for nothing. You didn't even reach the goal. You you never felt any joy, because the joy you it was postponed till you reached the goal. Um, and if you don't reach it, you were empty all the way along, and then you were a failure that didn't reach the goal. So everything was useless. But if you instead have like a process, you wake up every day, or you every hour or minutes, you have an idea of who you want to be in the moment, not who you want to be then, not a goal, but like right now, right here and now, I am a person who works out every day in the outdoor gym. It makes me happy to think that I am that person. I'm happy walking to the outdoor gym. I'm happy in the outdoor gym because I am I'm being me. I am being the person I'm supposed to be, and I'm being it all the time. Um that that gives me joy and a purpose, and um I feel good in the moment. And I I and I also then this is the actually the really important uh stuff, is that if I have a process that I'm happy with, then I will do it every day. There will never be an end point, I will never reach a goal and and and be finished. Uh so uh focusing on the here and now and and just doing a process that gets me to any kind of goal and beyond. So just one, which seems like you just cut something into you cut something up into just a little piece that actually gets you beyond whatever lofty goal you you might have had. Uh this is uh like the the ultimate um coincidence of opposites.

SPEAKER_00 1:22:38

To add to that, in the notes that you wrote on um just one more, which is poo we alright? Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:22:50

Um you said two things there. Pooh means uncarved, unworked, unfinished, like a raw piece of wood. You just like you find a piece of wood in in in in the forest. It's unworked, but that's the most beautiful and raw potential there is.

SPEAKER_00 1:23:15

Unlimited limitless potential.

SPEAKER_02 1:23:17

Yeah, yeah. So it's the most beautiful thing there is. Um, and uh Da Vinci might come by and and and and make a statue of it. The statue is in there if you wanted to be in there, but there is much more than just that one single statue. There are all the statues that could ever be made. So that's poo. And then you have wu wei, which is kind of related. Wu wei just means um unforced action. It's um it might it it can convey um a feeling of um of laziness, maybe, uh, because it's about uh keeping with the natural flow of nature. Um so like if if you're if you're swimming downstream, it's much nicer and easier than swimming upstream. Some people would see think that no, swim upstream. That that's the thing. Then you're really, really doing something. Like walk up a mountain, swim upstream. But if you if you swim, if you swim downstream, everything is effortless.

SPEAKER_00 1:24:26

It's the idea of harmony.

SPEAKER_02 1:24:28

You get farther, it's harmony with nature. You can you have a little bit of agency, you can swim left and right, uh, but you get so much farther, and you're getting where you're supposed to get.

SPEAKER_00 1:24:41

So is the book trying to explain that philosophy for an individual to understand how they can swim downstream or how they can figure out what they are supposed to get? Because these are like giant, almost unanswerable questions in one way.

SPEAKER_02 1:24:57

Um, yes, I I try to um instill into the reader uh the idea of you don't really have to work that hard. You already are you, and just keep being you, go with the past of least resistance of being you, but not the past of least resistance of just being part of society and working hard and playing hard. But it's a it's um it's a fine line to choose between those two, of course.

SPEAKER_00 1:25:31

It's the finest of lines, because as soon as someone decides to not participate fully in society, they all of a sudden become much more difficult to find to employ, and you be you especially here in Sweden, yeah. You know, where there is a very, very regimented uh mould for a cultural fit, not even going to introduce the whole problem of um Swedish for workforces maybe not um um hiring, say, immigrant people who are immigrants because they don't fit the cultural fit. Um if one is to live outside of society, not join the work hard, play hard mentality, you know, not be content with taking lunch at 12 with everybody because that's what you do. This is a part of the culture. How does that same person then go on and find income? You know, um, find a partner, yeah, find a community, yeah, all these like necessarily important things.

SPEAKER_02 1:26:26

Yeah, you have to uh actually adapt to uh to what whatever environment you have. Like you you cannot be um captain fantastic. Are you do you know Vigo Mortensen uh is it Vigo?

SPEAKER_00 1:26:41

Uh I'm pretty sure it's Vigo. This is the movie where they're in the bus in Oregon.

SPEAKER_02 1:26:49

They they uh um there are like these two kids and the father, and they live in the forest, and uh like when when the the the son turns like nine, he has to hunt down his own deer.

SPEAKER_00 1:27:01

There may be a remake of it then, because this movie came out a few years ago.

SPEAKER_02 1:27:05

Yeah, this is like five years old.

SPEAKER_00 1:27:06

Yeah, and there was like ten kids.

SPEAKER_02 1:27:09

Okay, no, no, no, it's not it's not the same. Okay, maybe maybe But anyway, anyway go on. Um It's more or less impossible in this this day and age to just like live off of nature and be be completely independent of society. So you have to be here. Uh maybe you have to work at a bank. That doesn't have to kill you as a person. Uh you just have to go there and and and and like be a good employee with it without um understand that this is the cost of the other things you want in your life. Yes, yeah. And there are costs. I mean, there is as we talked earlier about you don't want to have appendicitis when you're 22 and and and even if you live in a castle in the 1500s, you would still like die from a cold before age of 30. Uh that's not good, but but that that's the cost of living. Then and there. And the cost of living here and now is you have to have like a work. You you do difficult stuff that you don't want to do. Of course, it's part of being alive and an adult. We don't like gravity. Gravity is like a is a hassle. But still, it's something we have to deal with. And having a bank job is like having gravity. And um uh kind of lost track there.

SPEAKER_00 1:28:27

Um trying to get to what with the book that you're writing right now, what the purpose of it is. How does one balance between the um competing forces of trying to fulfill their ambition to realize their potential, but at the same time not necessarily jiving with society?

SPEAKER_02 1:28:47

Yeah, so society tells you to like be successful, I think. Um you're supposed to be this, like you're in control, and you have a nice house and a beautiful partner and and a and a great job that whenever when people ask you what you do, you tell them what you work with, and it's supposed to be like the best work you can get. Uh it like anybody who gets a uh a less expensive car or a less good job than they could get, then it's like it's it's a weird signal, or it's it's a signal that no, that that's actually the best you could get. Um, so what I'm trying to convey is this idea of uh stop thinking about goals and endpoints, or or uh uh anybody judging you, you are the only one judging you, and the judging is made in the present, in the moment, every moment counts. Unless somebody is right now sawing off your knee, there is nothing wrong with right now. Um if you pull it close enough, you're not even hungry when you're hungry. Um that's a little bit of a stretch, but like like in the absolute moment, you don't have to eat right now, and I think this is a um this is a mental tool that uh marathon runners use. They only they some of them at least they say they aim for the next 10 meters, they just run 10 meters more all the time, and that's just recycling in the head. Yeah, I'm going for that that tree or or that whatever crossing, some something they see. They just go for short, short stretches all the time, and it just keeps going. And and that's exactly how my workouts look. There have been times when I've gone to the gym uh right straight from a party without even sleeping. Uh it's been times that I've been extremely hungover or just like I don't want to train. But just let's put on the shoes and maybe go there, maybe just go to the sauna, maybe well, I'll I'll I'll go into the to the like the gym area and maybe I can lift something. And then it turns that into one of my best uh sessions ever because I just do one, because doing one just one more, yeah, just one is so easy, and then right when you think, okay, I've done and now I'm done, I've done one, and I'm I get to go home. Then just before the weight hits the floor, I'm like, just one more.

SPEAKER_00 1:31:36

Nice, I love that. Cool. I'm keen to see how that comes out. Uh let's transition to maybe some more of the not finance-related questions, but related to you know, your career at Futurists, then also as well. I mean, you know, um, because there's a lot there. Um, and I first discovered you and Ludwig through future skills. This was back in it must have been 2018 or 19 that I was listening to it, you know, and I discovered through their Eric Townsend, I discovered through their Pippa Meling, you know, who have gone on to be some of my favorite podcast guests and podcasts with macro voices. So um, you know, it uh there is a lot there, the topics that you covered there as well, that I think we probably have the biggest sort of mutual interest in. But you mentioned before agricultural products, gold stocks, agricultural products, just an example of what that is.

SPEAKER_02 1:32:28

So wheat, corn, coffee, cocoa, okay, sugar.

SPEAKER_00 1:32:34

Nice. Um, what about what do you think about the famous short sellers? It sounds like you've had you've held a few big short positions, but say Bill Ackman, Jim Chainos. Um, how do you think about them? And how do you think about activist short selling?

SPEAKER_02 1:32:46

Well, I think uh Jim Chainos is absolutely brilliant. Uh he and uh uh Draken Miller. Those those are my absolute favourites. Uh sure people talk about Soros, but I don't I don't really have a like a feel for exactly what he's doing. I mean, sure he he he he uh uh had his uh way with the the British pound in 1992, but I think that was and the Swedish Krater, right? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah. So uh that that that's interesting, and those are interesting risks to take, but I think that was a different time, and I think he knows that as well as well. But Draken Miller uh um well they they they are they still keep at it and they they keep getting better at it. I'm not sure really sure about Ackman. Um he must be brilliant in some way, but um he's he's made so many uh wrong calls lately. But I'm I'm I'm sure it's just bad luck. He's still uh well, he's still there, he's a billionaire and he's running billions. Yeah, and um what's he called? Um John something uh Paul Paul Paulman Paul yeah John Paulson. John Paulson. Okay, uh it was one of the the big short sellers in in the big short in in uh um the housing market in 2008. Um he made several billions.

SPEAKER_00 1:34:11

Yeah, right.

SPEAKER_02 1:34:12

Um so I admire short sellers, they do tremendous work for the society, they uncover wrongdoings, fraud, uh, bad people generally. It has nothing to do with with ruining good companies. Never. And people running good companies, they know this. Um, there is actually um well, there is a lot of positive to be had if you have a company and people are selling it short, because that means you have uh a latent pool of forced buyers that as soon as you prove, as soon as you prove that your company is doing good, they will have to buy. So there might be like a 10, 20, 30 percent of the entire outstanding capital that needs to be bought. Not only that, when they sold, they had a negative effect on the share price, which is very, very good, because that meant that more people got to buy the stock cheaply. So rather than you could just that they could just be 100% owners, there could be 130% owners and at cheaper prices. So it's like the there is no better gift to your company than short sellers.

SPEAKER_00 1:35:33

I'm sure that's a uh that's an opinion that it would be tough to hold when someone was shorting against you.

SPEAKER_02 1:35:39

Uh no, because unl unless you are uh unless you are a forced seller in that very moment, uh, then there is absolutely nothing hurting you. You can buy more. If you are convinced that this is cheap, then it is a gift to you, even if you're holding uh a ton of shares. Was your short against Volkswagen your greatest short of all time? Uh no. Uh let's see. Um there were a couple of uh tech companies back in between 2000 and 2002 that uh that I uh I had really good shorts on, Red Hat, for example. Um but none of the shorts I made in the early 2000s were like spectacular. I it was it was more like guerrilla shorting, like 10 different companies. 10 different companies. I I uh shorted in between uh or or well uh depending on the rhythm of the reporting and where whatever I thought was was expected, I kept shorting, covering, shorting, covering. So I never really took like one big bet and just held on to it. So that was typically institutional risk management style shorting. Uh but overall between 2000 and 2003, four maybe even shorting was the way I made my money. Um but I think that my absolute best shorts I've actually done this year. Okay. Uh so so I've I've I've shorted Shopify, I've shorted Tesla, it's actually spectacularly well in Tesla, depending on considering what kind of company it is. And they have a huge following, huge fan base, and and it's fanatical. Yeah, and Elon Musk is a master public relationist. He he he he just controls the the narrative. Um and um uh but but still I've I've I've I've been lucky to short it at the exact right moments, and actually also I have it like this idea of when it feels perfect, like my short is doing so well, now I have the news flow with me, then I cover. That's time to leave. Yeah, yeah. And and every time it feels so wrong, but I I just know I have to do it.

SPEAKER_00 1:38:07

And then do you then do the work in hindsight to realize whether it was the right decision or not?

SPEAKER_02 1:38:12

Uh no, because there um there isn't any information. Uh I mean I I try to do the work, but I I realize that it's it's just a feeling. Um I still want to be short and I kind of know that it's the right thing to be over the coming year or two. Tesla specifically. Yeah, with Tesla specifically. But other other names as well. Um but um I still want to like carve out some some some extra performance by by timing because I think that I mean this is the most intellectual competitive environment there is, I think. Um and you're supposed to use your intellect, but people think that you're not supposed to. You have an idea, like like be short this this this name, and and just be short until it's over. But I don't think so. You're supposed to be alert and attentive and and actually use your brain.

SPEAKER_00 1:39:12

You think being short specifically is the most intellectual competitive environment?

SPEAKER_02 1:39:16

Um finance. Well, I actually hadn't thought about it that way, but yes, um I always think about finance in general, but but shorting is even worse. Um there are not more short sellers, and short sellers are not your competition, but there is a general drift in um uh in in the markets, it's a drift upwards where you have um the authorities against you, you have other buyers against you, you have money printing against you, you have growth against you, like the growth of uh people, productivity, the economy. So everything is against you, everything is stacked against you. Um and the only thing you have is do you know this? Do you know it better than everybody else? Do you understand that this is fraud or it is expensive? Somebody will have to pay.

SPEAKER_00 1:40:15

Do you have any shorts right now?

SPEAKER_02 1:40:18

Uh yes, I I do. I'm short Tesla. Uh I um I I covered a few days ago. Well, the specifics aren't interesting, um, and then it rallied, and then I increased my short just the other day. Uh, and and that increase is in the money. Okay. So I'm I'm I'm very happy about that. I'm short Shopify. Um interesting.

SPEAKER_00 1:40:40

Oh, sorry, go on, go on. Yeah, sure. No, no, go on, go on. Is it just Shopify and Tesla?

SPEAKER_02 1:40:45

Uh no, I have like 10 shorts. Um it's uh uh hard hard pressed to actually recall all the shorts right now. Um I'm called I'm short Sintas. It's it's uh it's a company renting or selling uniforms. So I'm I'm betting on the job market becoming more difficult and that they will not have to replace or sell or rent uh more more uniforms uh than usual. Uh so if if we have a recession then Sintas, which is a very expensive company, then they they they should they should fall.

SPEAKER_00 1:41:15

Is that the same thesis for Shopify? If we go into a recession, e-commerce and over hyper consumption is going to go down?

SPEAKER_02 1:41:22

Actually, it's it's it's mostly that they are extremely expensive.

SPEAKER_00 1:41:25

Uh and I think that even still after their like 90% haircut?

SPEAKER_02 1:41:30

Yeah, it's like 10, 15 times sales. I don't know if that means anything to you, but like this is my my philosophy of uh valuation. You have profits, and if something that is similar to the economy is worth about 15 times earnings, so 15 years of earnings, then that's uh that's average. That's okay, that's good. Um, if you bought the general index, the entire stock market at about 15 times earnings anytime during the last hundred years, you would get about 10% compound annual total returns. That's pretty good. It's not spectacular, but over time it it it adds up. That's 15 times earnings. So a normal company should be well valued at 15 times earnings. So if you are valued at 1.5 times sales and have 10% margin, that's the exact same thing. Okay. Uh because then you well, um well, it just translates. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:42:32

And they were 15x sales.

SPEAKER_02 1:42:34

Yeah. So either they would have to grow to 10 times their current size, or they would have to have much higher margins than 10%. Over time, almost no company can sustain more than 10% margins, and that's the average for the economy. And the competition ensures that you will either be replaced or you will your margins will competitive away. Um, so Shopify needs to be 10 times larger than they already are, but they already are super successful.

SPEAKER_00 1:43:06

Yeah. No, totally. Okay, interesting. Um, more on Elon Musk. I've seen some tweets from you and stuff. I get the sense that you, like you just admitted to, you admire his ability for public relations, but you generally consider him to be a bit of a con man.

SPEAKER_02 1:43:23

Uh yes. Um it's hard to tell, and I'm kind of I'm impressed by him, and we do have a a bit of parallel lives, so maybe it's just jealousy. I mean, we both programmed like computer games when we were like 10 years old and and uh made money off of it. I mean, I sold computer games when that I had programmed when I was 10. Uh, he did something similar, uh, and then he became the richest man on earth and he created like five incredible companies, and he he's he's sending his own roadsters uh around Mars. So, I mean that that's super cool. He's a super cool guy. How however did he make make this? Anyway, when I go through Tesla and all the stories around Tesla and Tesla's employees and their security personnel, there's so many stories of him being just a complete ass. He he's like an he's evil and he's not even an evil genius. He he is kind of smart, but but not that smart. And he's just he's a person trying to sound smart by using fancy words and changing his his own um uh dialect. That's not I mean he doesn't talk that way the way he talks publicly, he doesn't speak that way uh privately. Really? Um there aren't any real recordings except for very old ones where you can tell that well there these are different people. He he's he's a like a complete psychopath in that way. He just he just changed his whole way of his his rhythm, his cadence, his um uh intonation, his uh vocabulary, uh even his accent. Like he had an original South African accent and now he's changed it into something something other. So he the everything just screams psychopath. And going through Tesla's uh accounts, the the the actual like numbers, things just don't add up. Uh it's like how can you run this empire that is valued more than the rest of the auto industry combined, and you you run it on a like a bare bones uh uh annual investment of like one or two billion dollars. Like the other the other companies, they spend ten billion dollars a year on improving their technology and their production facilities, and he's actually cutting. He's actually investing less and less every year, claiming to be super efficient. His cars are they are like admired and revered by his fans, but the the statistics shows that they are ten to twenty times as as more prone to accidents and uh uh lemons. Um there are a lot of faults with it with the with the with the cars, there is um uh alignments of different parts of the car. It's only about like one or two or three percent of the cars, of course. The other the rest are super cool and and and they look good and they they they go like like well they're really fast at least, uh even if they seem not to be that durable. Um but but for for all practical comparisons with other car companies, they're extremely unreliable and like faulty cars, um and he still manages to to sell as many as he produces, and he just keeps adding factories and he has these weird ties with China, and not just weird ties with China, he's even had a sales room in this region where they were torturing Uyghurs. Like, why would you have like a showroom there of all places? And he just keeps like sucking up to the Chinese government, uh and um but anyway, in the end, as we are now, the company has grown extremely fast, it's like still at a 50% annual clip. Um official numbers are like 25% gross margins on the cars. Uh typical car company has like 10% if you if you're really really good. Um, but on the other hand, um there is no insurance, there is no um accounting for for um uh for for for faulted cars, but instead he he does these like goodwill repairs and um far beyond the the gross margins. You're supposed to actually take these into account in the in the beginning, but but he just puts them somewhere else in the in the accounts in the P ⁇ L. Um there are a lot of like fishy stuff going on. Um and there are no there are no um um like um quality owners in the company either. Every quality owner who has ever uh bought into Tesla stock, they leave within an hour, within within a year. They they they they visit like I don't know the annual general meeting or some some quarterly statements and they try to talk to Elon Musk and then they realize that no fuck this, I I cannot be in this company. There's something weird here. And he hasn't had had no lead, um what is it called? You have this like legal council. You're supposed to have like a uh a lead legal council on your on your on your company that that takes care of of uh um whatever might go wrong in the company legally legally, and and uh he's he's replaced like five of those in five years. Nobody stays on because they know that like this could backfire on me personally. Um on the other hand, it's still like a 600 billion dollar company. Um it's it's it's it's a it's a it's a weird thing.

SPEAKER_00 1:49:48

So in your eyes, there's just too much smoke for there not to be fire somewhere.

SPEAKER_02 1:49:52

Yeah, but that is not the reason I'm I'm I'm I'm short, uh, because shorting frauds is the most dangerous and difficult thing. You can do because they can always fraud you even more, like Wirecard. Took 10 years for Wirecard to be exposed, even though people 10 years before said such an incredible story. This is fraud. They they people showed the evidence, and then uh Wirecard like put like um uh muscle onto all the people who said anything, and and for 10 years that that went on, or madoff took 10 20 years to expose after people said look at the mathematics and the statistics, this is fraud, it cannot be done. Uh took 20 years to to expose it. Enron. That also like 10x in 10 years before it was exposed, after everybody talked about it. And the same thing is going on with Tesla, but I may only short it because it's at seven times sales. You cannot have a car company at seven times sales, it's impossible. The other ones are at 0.3, 0.5, maybe one times sales, and they are at seven. And it's just a car company. People say it's not, but 85-90% of the sales uh are cars.

SPEAKER_00 1:51:11

Is there room for a in your worldview? Is there room for the argument that Elon Musk is in fact just exceptional? And him being a dick, him being a complete asshole, is an explicable factor for why he runs through marketing executives, legal executives. There are so many bad um former employee stories that come from Tesla, him suing the shit out of the actual guy who founded Tesla. Um X, Y, and Z example are all explicable just from the perspective that he is such an exceptional operator and unusual, and he has asperges and is willing and is kind of awkward and weird, you can see him in interviews, but at the same time honest in what he's saying. I'm just uh this is not necessarily my view, but I just want to s uh give the op give the uh the what do you call it, the counter. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:52:09

I think it's very easy to to paint the picture that if he is exceptional, then all of the other things would follow as well. Uh people who are uh underperforming or lazy, they they would say exactly those things about him that they have said, like former employees. And if he is exceptional, then he would create five exceptional companies. And if he is exceptional, then Peter Thiel would say do not bet against Elon Musk. On the other hand, if he just is uh like a con man and a and a dick, uh then uh everybody would say exactly those things as well, including Peter Thiel would say do not bet against him.

SPEAKER_01 1:52:46

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:52:47

Uh so both things, this is like a coincidence of opposites, you don't know which one which one it is. And maybe he has a good heart, maybe he actually wants to do the things he says in his master plan, he wants to make sure humanity survives and become a multiplanetary species, um, and and he's doing just everything he he can, and he is exceptional and competent, and and this is a way to do it. That that might be that might be true. And even if he started out good and then it turned bad in the middle, and now he has a platform where he can raise more or less as much money he wants to. I mean, he's he's raised like 30 billion dollars for Tesla, which is more than the entire profits over the course of the company's history. So it's actually the the shareholders and the bondholders that have paid the profits. So there are no profits in in Tesla in in total. Uh, but having that platform and being able to raise that much money, now he can invent all the things that maybe he wants to invent. So maybe he was good and then was bad for a while, and using everything and now he can be good again and use the money. Maybe Starlink is good, even though it's actually polluting the atmosphere. Um maybe the boring company can be used on Mars for some reason, uh, even though you're not supposed to make like a tunnel in Las Vegas that's just show and it's useless and it's actually dangerous. So it's like um uh there is always with Elon Musk this like completely bipolar reality. Uh it's super bad or it's super good. And if you only if you if you start out getting exposed to the good sides, you think that these are the perfect cars and he created the Eevee revolution, then you get sucked into that reality, and and and then that is true, and maybe it is true, but if you start out from the other side, you just have a super expensive company and a an egomaniac uh company leader and he create rule that ruins people's lives and put private detectives on them, then that then that is the reality. So I'm I'm completely open to him actually wanting to do good, and it actually is doing good, uh, but I just can't get around my my head around why does he act the way he does uh on Twitter and in like his interviews are super weird and yeah, then did you ever read Ashley Vance's biography of him?

SPEAKER_00 1:55:27

Yes, and what did you make of his portrait of him? Because my I also listened to it and I got the sense I I got a lot of appreciation for Elon Musk from listening to that. So I just wonder whether how that how you responded to it.

SPEAKER_02 1:55:43

Well, the way I recall his his biography was that uh uh I I got the opposite view. I I kind of thought that like he he's he he really is a fraud, he really uh just um like makes things up as as you go along. Um so my uh overarching perception after that was like I I'm really onto something here that he yeah. That's that's weird.

SPEAKER_00 1:56:12

Yeah, sure. Um and is it worth getting comments on what you think about his Twitter acquisition and so forth?

SPEAKER_02 1:56:21

Oh yeah, oh yeah. Well, um his Twitter acquisition has made me a ton of money, for example. Uh why is that? Actually, one year one year ago, uh I was um supposed to like give an early-on view of my my research universe to to one of the founders or the founders of Antelope Hedge Fund. So I went through the the social um social space and Facebook and Google and all whatever you uh Snap uh and and I singled out Twitter as the one that is undervalued, underappreciated, that has the most potential. Uh they are too cheap compared to their their user base, and their user base is super low. They were like 200 million users, whereas uh Facebook has three billion users, so there and they were valued at less per user than Facebook. So it's just like it's it's uh what was it was a question of they are not really using their potential, and on top of that, every person who uses Twitter says that this is the one thing they will not give up. Whereas Facebook is like if it crashes tomorrow, I wouldn't even bother to to to go back there.

SPEAKER_00 1:57:32

Um it was something that's a damning result, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:57:37

Um so I said like if this um if this valuation situation persists, then it will be uh taken over, it will be acquired, and we will make money from that. Um and then Elon Musk comes along and and buys it. Unfortunately, I wasn't long when he made the the offer. So I I missed that initial initial one. Uh, but instead I uh I I shorted it because I thought that that there will be uh there will be problems with this acquisition. Maybe he can't fund it, or they will say no, or uh there there will be some some troubles here. So so instead I I I shorted it on on his acquisition and then it fell through because he um well he he he said, oh I don't want to buy it anymore. Typical Elon. And you never know, I still don't know whether he wanted to buy it or not. And and and anyway, so so so it it uh it dropped a lot, and then when it had dropped, I was like, no, there are legal reasons here. There he he's actually forced to buy it. And the more I looked into it, and I got legal opinions from from uh US attorneys that that said, like, no, no, no, like look look through. This is the actual legislation here, and he has already wavered his rights to due diligence, so he has to buy it, he will be forced to buy it, whether he wants it or not. And it's not like it it's not even that he just had to pay some kind of a fee or a penalty fee or something. No, he will have to go through. Uh so that went long, and then that legal opinion uh surfaced in in due time, and the share price went up again. Nice. Uh so I so and uh I think there were more turns, twists and turns, and I actually made money on each twist and turn. So I was just like, I used to say when I worked at Anteloup, and no at Futurist, I used to say that I'd rather be one step behind than trying to be one step ahead. Because trying to be one step ahead that's almost an impossible feat. Uh, but you will you will achieve the the same result by being one step behind. So I'm I'm I'm not like that that slow guy that uh is a step behind, but therefore makes the uh the right choices.

SPEAKER_00 1:59:56

But by being a step behind, you're still several steps in front of the the noise and then a lot of the energy that's gonna actually move the market.

SPEAKER_02 2:00:03

Yeah, well, maybe. I mean, I I I read a lot and I'm I'm I'm I'm there, I'm in the market. I'm I'm not like a retail guy who actually doesn't know anything. Uh so yeah.

SPEAKER_00 2:00:14

Uh that was a really interesting anecdote about your experience trading Tesla in several different ways.

SPEAKER_02 2:00:21

Oh yeah, and I've also been short Tesla due to the Twitter acquisition because I knew that he would have to sell shares to finance it. So so that that was the uh additional piece of the puzzle that I needed to actually short Tesla more with more earnestly. And um we talked about risk management before. Um and there is um there has been a sentiment at work that Mike is not allowed to short Tesla because he has a personal vendetta against Elon Musk, which is fair enough, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 2:00:59

Whether it's true or not, but it's fair enough for that to be a reasonable.

SPEAKER_02 2:01:02

Definitely and and I adhere to that view, so I said, sure, I will not short Tesla. And then I thought more about it, and I was like, no, my mandate says I must short the best shorts there are, and this is the best short there is, it's super expensive, and there are a lot of fishy stuff going on as well, and he is a forced seller because he has this Twitter situation, yeah. So if I'm not short Tesla, I am not doing my fiduciary duty. I have to be so, even in the face of my colleagues saying you cannot go, you cannot do this. This is it's your personal vendetta, you cannot do this. And I was like, no, I I must. Otherwise, I'm not doing my work, no, I'm not doing my job. Um, and so I'm um risk management-wise, that means that I have only shorted Tesla when I've felt completely sure about the case and the timing. In other stocks, I would like give less weight to the timing and the exact like share price. But here I've been extremely careful about the share price and and where I short. I wait, I wait, and I wait until I get like here is the perfect time.

SPEAKER_00 2:02:26

Nice, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 2:02:27

Um, so um, and I actually should I should use that in my other positions.

SPEAKER_00 2:02:34

Is there a great Swedish short that you see at the moment? Is is Northfold a publicly traded company? Uh no. No. Um, but maybe that is an example if it were.

SPEAKER_02 2:02:45

But are there are there businesses you cast your eye on and you think this is uh I have not shorted any Swedish name ever, I was supposed almost about to say, but actually I I I was short fingerprints back in the days in 2015 and 16. Um it wasn't uh um well I was short, yeah. Uh and it turned out very, very well. Nice. But that's the only and the only Swedish name I've ever shorted.

SPEAKER_00 2:03:14

No. Um a really, really interesting part from the retarded hedge fund manager was your exposure to these handful of uh Korean and Chinese shipyards. And I'd like for you to explain that, but then also explain how investing and your job invites you into super curious corners of the world that you would otherwise have no business poking around in, like Korean shipyards, for instance.

SPEAKER_02 2:03:44

Yes, so Korean shipyards um just have to emphasize that it wasn't my trade. So we were three people at at the firm, me, Matthias, and Arne. Arne, who was um um an old um ship oil and shipping analyst from from Norway, um, that's what they do there, and he was the CEO of uh the most profitable uh broker company in in northern Europe for five years, and he used that money to to start Futuris, uh the hedge fund that's well uh really created me and and and my worldview and my way of investing. So I owe everything to Arne. Um anyway, he was looking for various ways to uh um to get exposure to the shipping industry. So we're looking at like Finnish companies and and and Norwegian companies. And when doing this, we were talking to this this kind of newly founded analysts, uh research and broker company called Fernlis, and and they said, Well, if you're really interested, you should look into Korean shipyards. And we were like, Well, our statutes say that we are a European hedge fund with a focus on Scandinavia. And then we were like we were read our statutes like uh the devil would read the Bible, and and it was like, well, we could have like 20-25% somewhere, and or at least five percent. Five percent is not a problem at all. That that would still be we would still be European with a Scandinavian focus. So we uh looked into these Korean shipyards, and the situation was that they were valued at like two times earnings. If earnings were to turn out the way we thought they might do in in a couple of years' time, um we had to have an assumption of where steel prices would be and where ship prices would be. We had a very good idea of the trajectory of ship prices, um, but we couldn't be sure about steel prices. But uh as long as steel prices didn't like triple, they would still automatically make a lot of profits in in just like two years' time. Um in hindsight, maybe we were a little bit naive about steel prices, like what what we've seen now after the Ukrainian crisis, in whatever we've seen with gas prices, for example, natural gas prices, it's like all right, we could have been seriously fucked back then if steel prices could have done some something similar. Um I don't know if Arne had more um like um if he knew more about the steel price dynamics, like like that they cannot 10x, they can only like do 2x or 3x, and even even one, even 2x is is is improbable. Maybe he knew that. I don't know if he knew that or not. The the way if that's true, yeah. No, no, exactly. So so the the way I saw it back then, it was just like we know the shipping prices, we know the volumes, we know there is a shortage of all of these things, and probably steel prices has some kind of similar dynamics, but as long as steel prices don't go completely crazy, then the profits will manifest themselves and and they will they are actually trading at like two times earnings. And on top of that, they also have a lot of land, uh, land that is not accounted for in like Korean accounts. So they have that too that they can sell, and it's like it's just for free. Um so we invested like one percent of the fund each in five different shipyards. I think it was four Korean and one Chinese, and uh and they uh on average five X. So at a point, at a at a point we had 25% of the fund in Korean and Chinese shipyards, and we are like like a European long short traditional equity fund.

SPEAKER_00 2:08:08

But what about uh how your job and investing more generally invites you into curious corners of the world and and uh encourages your curiosity um and makes you learn about things that you would otherwise never know anything about?

SPEAKER_02 2:08:22

I think what what actually goes on is that finance is inherently like mind-numbing and boring. So if you have um a healthy mind, then you you're compelled to look for stuff, you have to make it interesting, right? And that gets you to Korean shipyards because you just cannot look at Nordic retail banks all all day long, they they will kill you, uh, and uh that's what my life is all about. I mean, I I want to get new perspectives and new insights, that's why I read, and I read nonfiction and I read science fiction and I read them in the exact exactly the same manner. I want to be wowed, I want to like feel my jaw drop and I I lose my breath. I would I what I just want to feel something new. There is something I didn't know, there's something completely surprising. And I do that in my work as well. And I think all the good investors, I think they do something similar. I think Drakenmiller and Soros, and I mean I think they they just want to know. They want to know something more. Uh it's not about making money or being better than somebody else or or or just outsmarting somebody. They we all want to know new things, see new perspectives. Just yeah.

SPEAKER_00 2:10:00

And does having status money does this give you access to information that even say an investigative journalist trying to get to the same information wouldn't get?

SPEAKER_02 2:10:16

I'm um hesitating to answer this question because on the on the one hand, uh I would like to say that I do not have access to any information at all. And and that is kind of a damning statement because that means that my my investors would like would feel like so what why are why am I investing in you? I mean you're not smarter than anybody else, you you can't do anything more, so you need to have more information. And I'm like, but that information would be illegal in in any case, so I don't have it. Uh on the other hand, I guess I do have access to information. Uh it's intangible. Um, I couldn't put my finger on what information I have or what information channels I have, but I probably have like a feel, like a feeling for stuff. Um I do get I I get whatever hints there are to get, um, but it's not it's not that I well actually um this is the way it is. I don't even meet with management anymore. I realized some like 20 years ago that they are just they are hired marketeers, they are charismatic, they are good at portraying whatever they want to portray, and they are super duper good at at uh duping me. Okay because I'm just like an average Joe. I uh and then I realized do not talk to management, just look at the numbers. Everything you want to know is there, and I uh sincerely think that. Anybody could just pick up the quarterly earnings reports and and press releases and and and do exactly what I do. So no, no, I I actually don't I know I don't have access to it.

SPEAKER_00 2:12:13

What one of the big um angles to the story at the moment with the FTX collapse and Sam Bankman Freed is everyone sort of um complaining about how none of the investors did any due diligence. Um do you think maybe not with that as a specific example, but do you think there is a a general trend is also the wrong word, but a general practice to do less due diligence or to do less the numbers are actually the only thing that matters?

SPEAKER_02 2:12:44

Well, there's definitely an element of people just buying whatever the narrative tells them to buy. So that's why people are wrong Shopify and GiveStop. Two different stories, but still both are just like, well, uh everybody else likes this. Um the question is, did SBF do any due diligence on himself? I mean, he's supposed to be in the know about this whole story, right? And and still he lost everything. So apparently he didn't understand, he didn't know. He he he he he was like fooled by himself. And um all the the the um well the story about all these prominent investors that that are in in in FTX, they have like a minute uh part of their investments in him. Even the largest one had less than one percent of their assets in in SPF or in FTX.

SPEAKER_00 2:13:42

In FTX, yeah. Uh but even one percent requires a level of due diligence.

SPEAKER_02 2:13:48

Uh you would think, but um but does it really maybe not because if you lose one percent or you could stand to gain 10% on on like that like 10x, yeah. Um then maybe it's worth it. You have to be fast and agile and you have to be you have to be there.

SPEAKER_00 2:14:07

Right, so maybe your chance to get in.

SPEAKER_02 2:14:09

Yeah, and maybe maybe being in FTX is your ticket to get into the next thing.

SPEAKER_00 2:14:14

That's in that's a really good angle that I don't actually hear um in these conversations. I mean, I listen to a lot of investing podcasts where they're talking about this sort of stuff, and no one's actually proposed that as an explanation for why perhaps there may not have been as much due diligence. It's almost like it's a it's a it's a it's a party and you don't know what the dress code is, but fuck it, like I'm going, you know. I we'll find out when we get there almost because it means I can then go to the next one. It's really interesting.

SPEAKER_02 2:14:42

Yeah, and I also think that we we all know that uh even when we do due diligence, we fool ourselves and people fool us. Uh we can never really we can never really know. And uh like Wirecard, the fraud was there, everybody knew it, uh except maybe the German FSA. Yeah like but they were probably in on it anyway, so they they probably knew, actually, actually knew. But but anyway, um if there is fraud, if there is like you really have like the the intent, uh then you can get away with it. And no due diligence will will cover it uh discover it or or or or um sure you would think that like just look at the bank account, you will know if the money is there or not. But you know that you know that the the short sellers they tell they told the the German FSA for years just check the bank accounts and they wouldn't do it.

SPEAKER_00 2:15:49

I mean that's absurd, isn't it? But that's also there's kind of a there's um there's a danger of trying to use the Y card outlier or the Theranos outlier as a rule to measure all other frauds by you know there can there could just be exceptional circumstances that are applicable to one case versus the general rule.

SPEAKER_02 2:16:09

Yeah, sure. But but it it it it does tell a story that if you really want to do it, then you can. Theranos, I mean, come on. Uh even from the get-go, from the actual inception of the company, uh the advisors, the the professors at uh was it Harvard, they said, no, this is not viable. They knew, they said, and and and and she and Elizabeth still just went on with it.

SPEAKER_00 2:16:38

Yeah, but that's part of the narrative, you know, it's the new wave. Maybe the old grey head scientists don't think it can work, but hey, they don't understand new technology and that's also part of the that's a coincidence of opposites because they're both true. Right, yes, it is coincidence of opposites. Um, and there is a also a a big part to the Theranos story that I found super interesting and compelling was the idea that if she had eventually figured it out, everyone would be saying, well, the ends justify the means. Sure, like if someone had knocked on the door at any given time, they would have discovered this amazing fraud. But look, she ended up creating this incredible technology that helps all these people around the world, you know, the ends justify the means. Could the same thing be said for Elon? Yeah if he's this giant fraud and he's driving all of this innovation and knowledge towards green tech, bringing down the cost of space exploration. If it works, do the ends justify the means? I don't know.

SPEAKER_02 2:17:36

Yeah, well, if if fraud self-driving eventually works out, then he will have created something immensely valuable and beautiful. Um but currently there there is no theoretical fundamentals for it ever to work out. I think that over the last 10 years, um well, 10 years ago, I might have thought that yeah, that should be able to should be able to actually create uh full self-driving technology. But now I think that it actually isn't possible. You have well you can do it if you do it by like brute force putting like sensors on every road every 10 meters, then you can teach the car to to like technically drive. And it's very interesting to think about cars talking to every car talking to every other car. Because if every car talks to every other car, then there will be no congestions, no ex accidents, it will like it will be like going on a train, but then why don't those trains?

SPEAKER_00 2:18:46

Yeah, exactly. I mean, there's a bit of 80-20 principle to that though. Um, with self-driving cars, I was listening to uh an investor yesterday who um um has been with Tesla from day one. Um oh, you certainly know who it is, it's Chamath Pathapatea. Yeah, so he was talking about it, and he said that um with self-driving, you know, it could be that the last 10% take, say, a decade. And it's not a decade, a hundred years or something like that. And uh you just reinforcing that point makes sense. It could be the 8020 principle applied to the adoption of a crazy new technology where 80%, which is maybe as far as we've already gone, only required 20% of maybe the effort or the long-term effort, but to get that final 20% and self-driving is only viable once it's like 99.9% secure, would actually require the biggest, hardest lift, whether it was putting sensors on the road or all other cars talking to each other, or just this unforeseen to the both of us, an exceptional piece of technology which you can install into a car. I okay.

SPEAKER_02 2:19:55

I have several tangents to go off on here. One is Nicola, you know, the um trucking company that makes um uh hydrogen uh truck.

SPEAKER_00 2:20:04

Were they another fraud?

SPEAKER_02 2:20:05

Um no. There was another EV fraud. No, no, it seemed like a fraud. They they uh on on their demonstration they they they they pushed uh a truck down downhill and said it was going by by uh by their their technology. Seamlessly. Yeah, so it's worked very nice. Uh but actually now they are delivering trucks. The company is there, and they have delivered um uh uh EV trucks uh before uh Tesla, even though Tesla said that we are shipping our uh Pepsi trucks like that was like three years ago or something like that, and there's still no Pepsi trucks, but I think they're supposed to deliver them tomorrow or something like that. Uh three months, maybe six months definitely. Um, anyway, so Nicola, the company Nicola had this idea. Trucks they tend to go the same stretch of way back and forth, back and forth. It's the same like 200 miles, they just go from that city to that city. It's almost like a train, but it's a truck, and it's it needs to be a truck, it can't be a train. Um, and that means that you can you could um position hydrogen stations along that route only. That means you don't have to create like an um uh a network of uh EV charging stations like for EVs um over the entire like world or or or or or continent because that's what you need if that that's what you need if you are um uh a private person driving, because you you want to know you will you will not buy an EV unless you know Hey guys, sorry about that.

SPEAKER_00 2:21:47

Um my audio all of a sudden just out of nowhere carked it, and by the time we got back to it, which was a 10-15 minute interlude, um we totally forgot what we were talking about. So here I will just pick it back up from when we started recording again. No, no, no, completely completely lost that general thoughts. No worries. Um then rather than the Nicola tangent, uh, was there something to be made of the 80-20 um comment?

SPEAKER_02 2:22:15

Hmm. Um Well, I've actually made uh uh several podcast episodes about the 8 to 20 rule. Um there is tremendous wisdom in the 8 to 20 rule. You should never try to perfect stuff, just um do whatever works and do just a little bit of it. Do do enough of it and and uh and then stop short of just going completely nuts about but uh the the last 20%. And I think uh Elon Musk is a genius in as far as he he doesn't give he gives zero fucks about um the details and perfectionism, yeah. He just wants let's let's get going, and then we we have like this step ladder principle. We we'll we'll get to here, and then from there we'll get to the the next part. We have no idea where that is, um, and we don't really know if if we are a fraud or not, because we we take the next next ladder, next step of the ladder, and sure, we have this super high lofty goal all the way there. Uh we are going to be an interplanetary species, like or multiplanetary species. Like why? Really, why? I mean it's it's such it's so far off. Moving atoms through space through to other planets, it's like ridiculous given our current technology. It's like you're you're stupid. It will never happen in your lifetime, it will not happen in your son's lifetime. It will it like it's so far off. Maybe even super d uh um like developed aliens would not hurl stuff through space because it's too far. Go inwards instead. Like to to to um tack on to what we talked about earlier, like take psychedelics and go inwards, like if um maybe we could upload into the spin of elementary particles, and that that's where we are. There is much more space there than then like trying to hurl atoms through space. Um, but he still does it, and that's the ultimate ladder. He has no idea how to get to the next point. Like he's he's talking about getting a million people to Mars. Why on why would you ever want to go to Mars? There's radiation, there's like I agree.

SPEAKER_00 2:25:02

I don't understand the the romantic idea about going to Mars because there isn't necessarily the same sort of adventure and exploration um call to action that say the great explorers of the 1700s might have had to go to Africa or something. You know, you you know where you're going, you're going to desolation. Like, what are you gonna find there?

SPEAKER_02 2:25:23

Yeah, better maybe and and I I don't get why people get excited about that. I mean, he actually gets people excited about going to Mars. Totally.

SPEAKER_00 2:25:32

I also don't understand that, but so bit.

SPEAKER_02 2:25:35

Um so that's kind of 80-20, but it in reverse.

SPEAKER_00 2:25:39

Yeah. There is a couple more that I'd like to ask. These are more, I think, fast, easy for you to answer. Uh, but before I do that, there's Pippa Malmgrun, who's someone who I know you admire very much. Yes. She wrote this incredible book called Signals. Yes, amazing book. And I'm getting the sense as well from your writing, but also speaking to you that the idea of looking for signals, even though they might not be attached necessarily to numbers, but it's like gut feel, signal, signal, signal, okay, thesis conclusion. Talk about signals and also at the moment, what are big signals you're seeing that might drive towards a thesis you've made.

SPEAKER_02 2:26:17

So I'm I'm so happy to have interviewed Pippa Margrian. Uh, and she's a delight to talk to. I mean, she she just gives of her uh views and her time and intelligence. It's it's like well, you talk to her, so yeah. No, I have no, no, I have no okay. Uh, anyway, um, and and when I read signals, it completely validated my own personal view of the world. Like, you are allowed to actually read into these anecdotes and stuff that actually happens in your world. Um, because otherwise, people always tell you, no, no, no, no, you have to have like 30 observations, otherwise, it's not statistically like uh useful, and and uh you cannot use a single example as like a proof of anything. Uh, and at the same time, we know from I'm not sure if it was the first or the second world war, when there landed like just one V2 rocket from Germany in in Britain, and just from the serial number, they calculated a probable amount of total number of V2 rockets that that the Germans had. Um, and that ties into the Lindy effect, which says that if you if you are waiting for the bus, if you have waited for 10 minutes, that does not mean that the probability of it turning up anytime soon is increasing. Rather, after waiting 10 minutes, it's like 50-50 that it will take 10 more minutes. After waiting for a full day, probably the probability that it will never appear increases rather than well, the the bus will eventually appear. So that's like the effects and the the V2 rocket effect and the signals and talking to her and reading signals. It's completely validated my view that no, no, no, I'm it's it's okay for me to take these minute signals in in the in the world and and turn them into at least um hypothesis. And then I use that hypothesis with other signals to see if they if they are correct, which is exactly how we start out as children. We don't even know from the get-go if we are separate from the world or not. We don't know if our thoughts control the environment or not. Um, we try it out, and sooner or later we realize that no, no, no, there are other people here, other consciousnesses. They have their agency, they do stuff. Um and and and uh well slight tangent. Dirk gently's holistic detective agency, it's written by the same guy who wrote um Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. Oh, yeah. And he and Dirk Gentless Holistic Detective Agency, there's a detective, and he has the idea that since everything uh affects everything, um when you're trying to solve a case, you can look anywhere. So if he if he gets like a murder case, he can go on a vacation to the Maldives, and it's like, well, everything is affecting everything anyway, so I can just as well be here. So it's an extreme extreme case of signals. Um and um uh there's also a parallel here to my idea of it could just as well be one step behind as one step ahead, since I think that everything is like fifty-fifty in a way, unless you have really, really good information. Then you start out as a good Bayesian that it is fifty-fifty, and then you get an anecdote, and it's tells you that maybe it's 60-40. So go go with that. And if you're if it turns out to be wrong, then you just cut your losses. But you have to be disciplined about it, you have to take every new signal as strongly as the last one. You cannot be biased in in the strength of the signals. Um so this is there is noise and there is signals, um, but you can't you you can't allow yourself to turn the signals into noise by weighting them differently. Um therefore I I appreciate that I don't really know that much. The only thing I know are the things that come into my perception. So uh I take them seriously, but only until I get the next signal. And this works in the market, it works very well in the market, um, not least because everybody else works this way. Uh and that's what creates momentum and trends. And momentum and trends are almost the only factor that works like consistently. The only other factor that works consistently is valuation, actual fundamental, accounting-based valuation, but that works over so long time periods. You have to wait like 10 years to be sure, at least like four years on on average to be to actually make fundamentals work for you. Uh and in between you have to go with momentum. So it's momentum, and then it's valuation, and all the other factors, they are just uh noise.

SPEAKER_00 2:31:57

What about an example for when signals drove your behavior?

SPEAKER_02 2:32:06

No, I don't I don't have an answer to that. I don't I really don't. Um maybe well let's let's let's get back to psychedelics. Okay. Um I was reading these books, and I had no idea what I was reading or what where this would take me. I had no con concept of me having any any troubles, um, anything to solve. So I was reading Fademann's Psychedelic Explorer, I was reading Stannister Groff, I was reading a lot of essays, and I thought that these have nothing to do with me really. Um but somewhere in there this was not not just this wasn't just this wasn't just like interesting stuff to read. I I thought in well in retrospect, I actually think that my subconscious said listen carefully now because this is I'm trying to tell you you need to go this route. So I think that my being open to reading these these books, my being open to the message in them um was a signal from my subconscious that said you have a serious issue, you need to take care of this or um you will not survive.

SPEAKER_00 2:33:33

Um maybe an extreme case of signal, but um yeah, I don't know if Pippa covered signals from the subconscious in the in the movie, but do you know what she does?

SPEAKER_02 2:33:44

She says she works 80%. She when people say, but you don't do anything, and she says, Well, I spend 20% of my working hours just laying on my back in my bed thinking. And that creates space for the mind to wonder for really thinking. If anything, I mean forget about the question about signals. I think if there's anything important to say to people is to don't don't that's don't just do stuff just lay there. Some some people say like uh don't just stand there, do something. But you're supposed to do the exact opposite. Just lay still 20% of the time. Do nothing. Allow yourself to think, to really let your mind wander. People don't people it hurts and they feel uncomfortable and bored. But boredom is boredom creates creativity. There's actually a TED talk about this. Um really inspiring TED talk, one of the most listened to of all. Obviously, like this this woman who got a child, and when she was out walking with a child uh in the in the stroller, she was so bored. And then creativity just exploded because she the the bored mind wants to create stuff. So if you dare to just lie silently, no music, no nothing, no people, five minutes. Actually, one of my most creative moments was five moments of silent five minutes of silence when I was thinking about I just made a like a word cloud in my mind about um perspective, insights, um, like relations, uh, and and um um if there if there's any advice I would want to give to anybody is just be silent, be silent for five minutes, or if you can fathom it, just for an hour, amazing stuff will happen.

SPEAKER_00 2:36:03

And now I'm not sure if you're aware of this, but there's so many echoes of Taleb in a lot of what you say. So I really think you would get a kick out of trying full by randomness again, at least full by randomness. Um, but he has this whole idea of him being a flannur, right? Where his days are unstructured. He wakes up when his body tells him to wake up, he goes for walks, he reads if he feels like reading, and then he writes if he feels like writing. And between all that space, anyone looking in from the outside would see him as a bit of a bum, doesn't do much. Yeah. Now he's got the freedom of financial um security because he made a lot of money for Citibank. But there uh it's cool for me to see you know, people I admire, Pippa, yourself, Nasim, come to these same conclusions about things that I instinctually also sort of latch onto and enjoy.

SPEAKER_02 2:36:58

It's so nice to be validated by somebody you admire when they they uh articulate something that you have thought about, but you you never really put the words on it, but you just instinctively feel like, but this is what I've been saying all along. It's like when I was thinking about this, how long is a piece of string, and then along comes Ian McGilchrist and says, coincidence of opposites. And I was like, oh, this is what I've been waiting for. Finally, I was right, uh, the universe is right, uh, and and now I know that somebody has put serious effort into this, and now I can pursue it even more. Uh, maybe not in a scientific way, but in an um intuitive way, which by the way is is what science is about. And and uh your own personal intuition is something to really rely on. Uh in in a way, it's the only thing you can rely on.

SPEAKER_00 2:38:00

Do you want to talk about your worldview when it comes to the origins of consciousness? Yeah, sure. Okay, because I thought that was very interesting. Um, and you were about to explain it off air, but I said, wait, well, let's do it on the podcast.

SPEAKER_02 2:38:13

So I I actually thought uh in a way that um that was the reason you contacted me.

SPEAKER_01 2:38:20

Okay.

SPEAKER_02 2:38:21

Um it felt that way, like you had um read my stuff for several years, listened to my my my podcast, but it was just like the last few months that things clicked into place and you contacted me. I thought that because that I I accelerated my postings about my worldview in the last couple of months.

SPEAKER_00 2:38:42

I think it's just a very convenient coincidence, and in fact, you want to talk about signals and you know, extremely unpredictable sort of walk, random, drunk walk of life. You know, I happen to be in a gym, I happen to be talking to this guy who happens to be a big fan of yours, and he's subscribed to your newsletter for years, and is the first person in Sweden that I'd spoken to who um had similar intellectual interests to me and as well, happened to know you. It's just like, okay, cool, you know, there's something here. And he said, you know, why haven't you interviewed him yet? And it's like, yeah, why haven't I interviewed him yet? And anyway, that that's kind of like how it came about, but it is this interesting coincidence um which maps onto you posting more, maybe you revealing more about your worldview meant this guy had more of a signal to attach me to you.

SPEAKER_02 2:39:34

Anyway, yeah, and I love that. Um, anyway, um, so I'm uh originally a super materialistic guy. I've been uh hedge fund manager for over 20 years. Um I'm like um financially successful, and I uh used to have this idea that the core uh theory of reality that we have this standard model of the forces and the elementary particles, that is it. Uh quantum mechanics uh makes it interesting, but it's still in a way deterministic, things are the way they are, and um there is no free will. I listen to a lot of scientists, everybody says if you're scientific enough, there is no free will. The elementary particles will not budge to your will, they whatever they orbit, they will keep orbiting. Um, your mind is an epiphenomenon, you just feel something, there is no really good reason why you feel feel it or why it would be there, because the elementary particles will still do what they will do, because there are laws and they are immutable. Um suddenly I stumbled upon this idea that we actually have free will. That is what we have, that is the the origin of it all. Um the consciousness we have, why would that appear in the between of particles? Like if you imagine particles being like billiard balls orbiting each other, uh it's not the correct view, but let's say that's what it is, but then it's more complicated, it's fields, but anyway, so they they orbit each other. Why would there be anything in between? If there is anything in between, then that between is forces or fields or something that was there all along. So that's actually where quantum field dynamics is going. So they they realized now it's not particles, everything is just fields, and particles they are a useful way of looking upon the fields. So when you observe a particular part of the field, if you ask a certain question, you get a certain answer, and that answer is the particle there, but it's really all just fields, anyway. In all of this, um there is no consciousness. Where would this otherness come from? This this is that that is not particles or fields that is not materialistic. Where would it come from? So this is the original dualistic conundrum, uh, the discart dualistic konundrum. What science did was say like that let's just let's not let's disregard this whole consciousness thing and just think about materialism the material world and how we can manipulate it and forecast it. So that's what we've been doing since the Renaissance, more or less, or yeah. Um and but it still just leaves this consciousness stuff, and the only thing that you and I can be completely sure of is that we are conscious. Are yeah, well, I am conscious. I'm not sure about you. I have no idea really. Actually, I do, but anyway, I am sure about my consciousness. I it is something to be me. That's really the only thing I know. I don't even know that this table here exists. I know that it has a resistance, but on the other hand, so do walls and stuff in computer games. It feels like you're bouncing against stuff and they make sounds, and you can't go through them. But you still you know when you look at a computer game, it's not there's nothing there. It's a line on the screen, it's just a useful icon that tells you the rules of interaction, but it it is not there. There is nothing there, uh, it's just a rule. So this this table here is a rule. But I I am conscious, I know that I am. I'm not really sure what being being is, but I at least I know I am. Um but I'm not sure about this table. All I know is it's it's a it's a um it's a placeholder, or it's it's a rule, it's something that you and I agree on that there is a table here. Um so so that that's um that formed the basis of the next step, which was that. So why start at particles and physicality if I don't know what that is? But I know consciousness. So why wouldn't consciousness be the start of it all? There was one consciousness, it just well, nobody knows how it appeared, but it did. It's no less strange than the Big Bang. I mean the Big Bang is that's the limit less limit of incredulity. Like hello. Um people people say like the atoms had to come from somewhere. Religion, no, that that's that's weird. There's a god, like like you can't you can't talk about that, that you're just weird. Uh but uh we think that billions and trillions of galaxies and stars exploded into being from nothingness. That's our uh idea. Like, like, yeah, are you stupid?

SPEAKER_00 2:45:53

I'm more comfortable just saying I have absolutely no idea rather than trying to defend the Big Bang or defend Darwin's evolution.

SPEAKER_02 2:46:02

But we know, uh more or less know that the Big Bang did happen, or at least it happened from like a uniform ball of plasma. One thing to consider there, by the way, is like why wasn't it a black hole? Like if you had all the matter in one place, that's that's exactly how black holes that's that defines black holes. You cannot have matter, too much matter at one place without it being a black hole. So why wasn't it a black hole? Because it was perfectly uniform and big enough before the actual explosion, before the inflation. But it's still a weird situation. So it's a situation that doesn't really rhyme with the laws that we base everything else on. So what we're saying is that the starting con the initial conditions they are not they do not conform with the the laws that we later apply. There is something weird with the start. Uh and the start itself is also very weird. Like, where did it all come from? It how how could matter and energy and 3D space just randomly fluctuate into existence? Well, from what there had to be something there, there had to be fluctuations or randomness. So where did that that came from? So so anyway, uh physicality, 3D space and big bang and all of that, it is just um weird and made up. So why not make up something else? Let's say it's all started with consciousness, and this first consciousness it said to itself, well, this is uh slightly boring. Maybe if I split into two, uh just to get to know myself. So it's kind of split into two in a way, like but what are you what is the consciousness? Um it's just an awareness of being of being. So something either there never was anything. Or there were.

SPEAKER_00 2:48:16

Or there was something.

SPEAKER_02 2:48:17

Yeah, so there is something, and this something, um, it was something to be that something. That is what consciousness is, to be aware of being. Well, or aware of anything. I mean uh an elementary particle might be aware of gravity. That is like proto-awareness.

SPEAKER_00 2:48:38

So I know this takes it a little bit away from what you're describing, but would you ascribe consciousness to then like a fish?

SPEAKER_02 2:48:46

Uh yes, definitely. Uh but um we we can we can jump ahead here. Yeah, um but we don't have to to go through the like atoms of everything.

SPEAKER_00 2:48:56

No, but I I would like to understand more that first step because Yeah, we will we we'll get back to that.

SPEAKER_02 2:49:01

But anyway, if there is like consciousness, um what I'm proposing is that uh this consciousness it's it's dimensionless, it has nothing to do with 3D space or energy or mass or anything. It's it it just is that's it it just appeared somehow, which is still just weird. How can anything appear if you really go back to it? Like, what the fuck? What what's what's all this doing here? No matter if you believe in the Big Bang or consciousness or whatever, it had to start somewhere, or did it? Our our concept of time and starting and causality is it's probably all wrong. Um, anyway, this is my current world view. We are consciousnesses, we created 3D space and matter to amuse ourselves. We wanted to know what it is to be conscious. So this original consciousness split into a multitude, and it wanted to interact with itself to see whatever that that is, because there is an infinite possibility of resonance. So we created 3D space and matter, and what's what's really going on now, you as a physical being, you have a very complex machinery in your skull, the brain. Like we said before, a hundred trillion synapses. What consciousness is like a flow, a stream that streams over your brain. Your brain is like a rock in a stream, kreating eddies and twirls and like whirls and vortices, but it's still just a physical object. So consciousness uses this complex rock to twirl around. And that makes it interesting for the consciousness. But the twirls are real. The twirls are who you are here on this world.

SPEAKER_00 2:51:26

So consciousness didn't latch on to me.

SPEAKER_02 2:51:28

No, consciousness just twirls around the rock that is your brain. But when it encounters your brain, it twirls and creates these interesting vortices, and that's that's who I am talking to, the vortices. But it's not it's not actually the consciousness that is the origin of you, it's just a part of you, it's the the manifestation in this physical reality.

SPEAKER_00 2:51:59

What about um where the consciousness sits? So it sounds like it is in the brain, according to that explanation. Because I'm sure you've done the the meditations where it's like, okay, now where are you? Yeah, it's like, oh, I'm in my fingertip, I'm not necessarily behind my eyes.

SPEAKER_02 2:52:16

No, no, no, you can be there because this flow flows through the entire physicality of it all. You are a nexus, um, and the brain is the most complex nexus of it all, but there is something in there's something to be in your finger as well, and and your consciousness, the the original one, the your the one that is actually is you, it flows through the finger as well, and you can direct your awareness to the flow through your finger as well. It's not as strong, it's not as complex, it's not really, really you, but it's actually not you in the brain either. It that is such a minute part of you, it's it's a very, very small part. And when you die, and your actual consciousness becomes aware of what you have done for this blink of an eye of living a life here for for like 90 years, uh, then it will it will it will be like you just dipped your fingertip in in a little bit of cold water, and it's like oh yeah, I'm a little cold here. That's what your life is. You were experiencing like 90 years on on Earth as a physical being, and then you will get back to it.

SPEAKER_00 2:53:30

But the consciousness lives on in another person.

SPEAKER_02 2:53:34

Yeah, no, consciousness consciousness cannot die.

SPEAKER_00 2:53:37

And that that's the that's the this is fundamental to your worldview if it started off with consciousness.

SPEAKER_02 2:53:42

Yeah, that's the that's the butt the what the problem and and the gift. Um this consciousness somehow it just appeared lonely in but so how do you go from consciousness, which is not material at all, to a material world? Yeah, well you just create rules. Yeah, like you program a computer game.

SPEAKER_00 2:54:08

So so okay, so this is more leaning towards it being a simulation versus this being physical, real material.

SPEAKER_02 2:54:18

Yeah, but when you talk about simulations, it sounds like intelligent beings creating a simulation. This is consciousness actually creating reality, creating 3D space in the world.

SPEAKER_00 2:54:31

I think I'm slowly uh coming around to understand.

SPEAKER_02 2:54:35

Um so I I so so what I think is that consciousness just like we have to have an interesting playing field, we have to have resistance, we have to have persistence, we have to have something that that is not so free-flowing that that our consciousness is. So let's let's create rules, and that's exactly what we people do when we create computer games. We do Minecraft and uh I don't know, Call of Duty. Um and in it there are boundaries, there are rules, and there are like like uh walls and people and stuff, and we relate to them, but everything is just rules of interaction, and this the table here, it's a rule of interaction.

SPEAKER_00 2:55:21

And so when you take the psychedelics, you think you are going beyond the rules?

SPEAKER_02 2:55:26

Certain psychedelics, yes. Um uh I wouldn't say that LSD actually qualifies.

SPEAKER_00 2:55:36

Um we're talking about the ayahuasca of the world.

SPEAKER_02 2:55:40

Uh yeah, exactly. So ayahuasca is a way of ingesting dimethyltryptamine, uh DMT. Um there are different there are other aspects of taking ayahuasca than just the molecule DMT. So you can take DMT in several different ways. You can take it intravenously, you can smoke it. it or you can drink this ayahuasca brew. When you drink the ayahuasca brew the um enzymes enzymes in the brew they make you vomit and the this this purging puts you in a in a certain state of mind that I think is well I haven't done ayahuasca so but I think what it what it does it it puts you in a certain state of mind which makes you resceptible to to uh to the DMT experience uh when you smoke DMT you just get instantly uh transported to a completely different space and I've read um there is this guy Andrew Gallimor who is a I think he's a brain scientist that maybe also a computer scientist and he has written this uh creating world views uh where he um he shows how we probably way way back here or on other planets uh used DMT as uh our the neuromodulator to to render the world so there is something going on here we don't really know what it is the actual base of reality there is something that there is the out there um this is what quantum physicists talk about when they say like either there is just the um the wave function or there's actually hidden variables between as Sean Carroll he talks about like something deeply hidden wonderful book by the way um there's something there's something underneath uh but for us as physical people um okay one one more book um the case against reality by don hoffman have you have you read it no um it shows um he has actually um made simulations of what would happen if you have competing entities and a reality how would they measure reality and each other and how would they uh interrelate and and what would what would come up out out in the other end and what comes out is these entities they would have no idea at all of the actual reality they would create fitness points and certain ways of of relating to uh layers of reality that you're suggesting that's us yeah that's completely devoid from the actual reality and that is us and and and we also evolved more specifically from using DMT as the the preferred neuromodulator to serotonin serotonin is the way we now render the world but the interesting thing is that if you smoke DMT it instantly replaces serotonin and creates a completely different worldview. You suddenly see something completely different and it's instantaneous it's clear it's a hundred percent effective and you're completely there and there is no time there is no Euclidean space there is no gravity there is nothing that we now relate to as as the as the world so it just it changes everything and when you get back it's like you um that was where you were at home but when you get back here it's like what the fuck I'm a meat bag and this is like the world what what what is this and it takes it takes a while and there this is fun cartoon which which uh shows like um uh a jellyfish on Pluto smoking a bong and he has this like thinking bubble about being a person on earth and his jellyfish friends on Pluto says uh did you feel it that's how it is to get back from 90 seconds of smoking DMT I've heard does the consciousness from the beginning have any type of agency is it intentionally doing things or is it just a consequence of randomness um these are extremely difficult and foundational questions in your opinion yeah my without without trying to justify or anything no my my view is we have free will and agency that is what we have that is what consciousness and therefore the original consciousness amoeba had agency himself. Yeah it wanted something this is this is a God figure then yes it is as some some uh Alan Watts calls it I think he I think what he refers to with the Godhead is this uh I'm not I'm not really sure what exactly what he means by but the godhead is the I kind of I think he uh there's uh like an echo here to the fountain head that something originates and it's starts there uh but I'm not sure and but yes you could say God the one qi tao all of these things are just uh attempts at naming what cannot be named uh and it's the the origin and we cannot understand the origin.

SPEAKER_00 3:01:59

And then therefore what meaning does this give you what what meaning does this worldview give you?

SPEAKER_02 3:02:09

Is it even important to have meaning well both uh on the one hand no you don't have to have meaning or purpose yeah unl unless you do I think purpose is different than meaning okay okay oh yeah yeah well um different strokes for different blokes uh to me a lot of these concepts are completely commingled I haven't well I don't know but I went through life my absolute best friend he used to say you're like perfection without purpose you just keep working out accumulating money career uh but you have no purpose you just you just keep doing it why um good question and it it it just well I hadn't I just put one foot in front of the other because I somebody told me to in the somebody had told me to oh I thought somebody had told me to so I just kept doing it until I suddenly realized oh no I actually have agency I am it's something to be me and I can make choices and and those choices are are real and important and then suddenly I had well I had the potential of meaning but I actually didn't have a meaning or a purpose and then suddenly this worldview comes along and what happens is that when I was never afraid of death never I mean I I have I was completely um non-religious atheistic like um I will just die just blood and bones yeah and then then it's then it's over with this was all a random fluctuation in in the universe um but the more I think about it now now I I cannot see how you can either create consciousness or destroy it. So it has to be infinite at least from our point of view whatever infinite means um and and the meaning I see is that the meaning here in physical life is to experience everything let's say you knew you were eternal and you got the choice like do you want to like for just a blink of an eye experience all the emotions of a physical person it's that's like an interesting it's like going on a roller coaster ride. Would you do it? 100% yeah of course but for us these 90 years they can be excruciating they're painful and it feels like a struggle and it's uphill and it's emotions everywhere and we we really more or less just want to be done with it. But given the perspective that you chose this and it's just for the blink of an eye then even the worst pain becomes almost enjoyable.

SPEAKER_00 3:05:15

So it it is a source of meaning for you this realization and this formulation of a worldview that's a good way to put it yeah well what more is there to say on this topic what do you think I do have more questions to round out but I want to make sure that we address this properly I admit I still am not understanding the origins of it just conceptually how you think about it. Obviously I'm not a physicist so I don't understand the Big Bang either but I at least understand as it's been explained.

SPEAKER_02 3:05:48

And I also like I said before I don't necessarily want to put any credence in the Big Bang but I I I take a lot of comfort out of the I don't know this to be true but how I believe it to be that we are just a random flutter like you said and therefore there is in the face of that realization you can take the nihilistic road uh and just become a you know an MPC right or or or Patrick Bateman right um or you can come to the same conclusion that you've come to which is we're here for a limited amount of time I want to experience absolutely everything this world has to give me and and and and in the realization for me that we are potentially just a random flutter it made me more keen there to experience life because there is a scarcity to it and in its finite nature that's where the beauty comes from you know scarcity creates value you know a piece of art on the wall could be objectively terrible but it's one of a kind and therefore how do you ascribe the value to it so anyway yeah I um uh find immense comfort in knowing that I changed my worldview and I can change it again uh given new information or new experiences I'm completely open to that I mean I was uh I I came to be like 47 48 years before I changed and then I found this completely new perspective and I think it's a much better perspective more more true uh but I'm definitely open to me being just being a human that a random fluctuation in in in chemicals here on earth uh what what the fuck do I know? Probably nothing. So and I can change again I just hope to live long enough to to actually to to change change again. Maybe what I'm thinking now is is kind of right but even if I am right then that right is so weird and strange that I cannot understand it. When I am like just drawn up from from this place. And if it would be so so strange with so different so I will change my perspective and that that that is why I'm here that is what I like I want new insights new perspectives I want to be jaw dropped.

SPEAKER_00 3:08:30

And if you and if we are simply the Jillionth generation of split consciousness would the one ever expect you to even understand what what it was or or or for you to get any sort of grip on its worldview? I think that is a really powerful message in all the religions that gives a lot of people comfort just putting faith in the idea that you cannot understand God's plan.

SPEAKER_02 3:08:58

I mean let's say you are the one and your cells are the consciousnesses there is no relation there is no one-to-one relation you the you um composed of cells is so different from from the cells that you cannot relate do the cells think that you have a plan do the do the cells in my fingertip could they ever understand my plan for for moving around and suddenly I touch a glass and maybe is wet like what what the fuck what do the cells understand about my plan? Was that a plan? But it's all the same consciousness well um the the cells have their plans their plans are based on their neighbors and their chemo internal chemicals chemical exposure like composure um but there is no way for a cell in my finger to understand my plan my central nervous system plan here in the physical universe it's so different and maybe the one God the the totality of it all maybe it has a plan or a protoconsciousness or like I it's trying to do something maybe what it what what it wants to do is understand what consciousness is there there there that's why it's split but we as cells of this superconsciousness we're so far apart that there is no there is no relationship at all. Maybe interestingly how do people typically I mean do you try to talk to your friends and family about this like hey guys I think I might have stumbled across you know the answer here um and do they sit through it and do they try to listen and well I've I've I've I've started a little bit uh but it's like when when Patrick Bateman says um I I've I've tried cooking a little it doesn't really land well and it's it well it kind of interesting looks but they they uh they are happy that I have something to think about and something I believe in or are exploring but it's uh really not something people generally yeah adhere to but it's such a challenging idea because it it does draw into question so many fundamental questions that people just take for granted it says that the entire scientific paradigm is wrong. Yes yeah exactly and that all these guys talking about religion are nonsense and all these people talking about no religion are also nonsense um yeah uh does it give you sympathy for religious people um yes definitely uh I finally understand why people gather why they chant why they pray faith there's yeah why they have faith they have faith in something they have no idea about they just say have faith and um I definitely have a bone to pick with everybody who talks about a personal God that there is like this person that takes an interest and that like creates stone tablets and whatever have you I think well they are they are well but I'm I'm not mad about on mad anymore. I just see them as children. They are trying I mean they are we are here alone in the world and they they want to make sense of of why why why are we here and how how did it all happen and so why not believe in a in a personal God? Because there there is something it's not just atoms. Atoms is but you can't be sure about that no but I can kind of be sure that after just a hundred years of science in a five billion year old or 13 14 billion year old universe those hundred years have not scratched the surface has not found the answer.

SPEAKER_00 3:13:22

The answer is not billiard balls orbiting each other okay we just finished talking about or you just finished talking about how you now have sympathy for for religious people.

SPEAKER_02 3:13:34

Yes so I um if there are a few a few uh advice I would like to give to people it's um in in the context of religion it's to just meet with people socialize that is uh the physical beings that we are we are tribe members we want to belong we want to be in a context of other consciousnesses it does tie into the idea of the con the the original one splitting to to know it itself um but in in a more biological context it's just like like we grew up on the savannah we are tribes of about 150 people and we we want to uh fit into that tribe we want to have people around and that is what it's absolutely most wrong with modern society is that we sit alone in our apartments and do not socialize and what we do is like we exchange texts on social media. What we should do is we should use technology to maximize the time we can spend with other people with other consciousnesses dogs are people too so you can but you should be with other consciousnesses be with like friends is the ultimate gift you cannot buy a friend you have to create a friend you have to be a friend or a good dog owner um but that is that is what is really going on here so that is that's one thing the the other the other advice I had was like do just one more for example like but that's a a practical tool and the just one more tool it um what what it what it uh aims to create is a platform for you to to be with other people and that is what religion is like my my my friend Alexander Bard he talks about uh relegare that is where religion comes from it means uh to be together more or less and um alexander bard is is like a classic christian or catholic right hard to exactly he's uh he's a Zoroastrian oh is he okay that's a a nice uh um what's the word and like it's an unusual it's an eclectic uh it was before all uh all the monotheistic religions and the Zoroastrians and that that's where it all all originated.

SPEAKER_00 3:16:19

Well look Mikhail we've been speaking for like three hours or something I've got a final questions here for you that I try to ask every single guest. The first I will tee up via a quote from the end of the book which I was very happy to see because I asked this question genuinely in all hundred and fifty interviews that I've done and this quote was perfectly for it.

SPEAKER_02 3:16:43

So you said it took a lot of luck as well but then again serendipity is there for whoever gives it a chance so talk about the role of serendipity in your life if you put in the work if you're a good person if you constantly strive to um be ready be strong be healthy be read up be well if if you're if you're interested in reality then that creates a platform for whenever thing happen things happen things happen all the time there are I mean like if you're a stock investor there are tens of thousands of stocks there there's always one that will perform incredibly but for you to encounter it and for seeing it identifying it being sure that you can actually take advantage of it then you you have to have this readiness so that is what serendipity is serendipity it's everywhere it's like serendipitons are like they striking you all the time but to to um actually feel them and use them you you have to be ready you have to be this water Tank big enough to just make a bigger, bigger water water tank to capture these serendipitons.

SPEAKER_00 3:18:08

And do you have an example, a tangible example, of where serendipity struck?

SPEAKER_02 3:18:15

Well, there's so many variants of this. I mean, I I actually think that in in retrospect, um my brother drowning was the biggest serendipiton of it all, of everything that that that created who I am through hardship. But uh I got to to um to the stars through that hardship. Um that is the the biggest serendipity serendipiton of of all. But then there are a lot of small ones, like I've um happened to read this science fiction story or or this likes uh uh I happen to understand a few things about certain science areas, and and that means that I I at least thought that I understood a certain company. Like why um like when um what are they called? Hmm corn corn corn yeah corn uh whatever whatever anyway? Yeah, no, no, uh it's kind of like that, but it it's it's actually um the one company that creates the the special glass that uh is used in in in um fiber optic fibers. I don't know, yeah, optic fibers. Anyway, um I just happened to read up on how it works and how they use different spectrums, different wavelengths, different colors, and how they split it in time and in and in colors and and and uh and and just the the feeling that I understand and know meant that I could uh invest in this company. Um but in retrospect I actually didn't understand. So the serendipitousness of it all was that uh I was curious in a lot of ways, and I learned about stuff that had nothing to do with finance or or or my or my profession, but I I did have the knowledge and then it created the feeling that that I I um that I know and and that that this is recurring because I constantly learn that I didn't know anything. So this is like like the opposite of the hubris cycle. The hubris cycle, it's still there, it's very potent. Um but I have the the opposite as well, where I constantly this reinforced that you don't you know nothing.

SPEAKER_00 3:20:46

Nice, amazing, John Snow. This is a question I've reframed uh for you specifically, um, because you know we've been speaking for a long time. You know, most people seek you out, I assume, because they want you to tell them how to play the markets, right? Yes. Um, and although I am as well extremely interested in that sort of stuff, I think once you uh consume enough Taleb, or like I said, there's a lot of echoes in in your writing as well, it kind of gets to the point where it's just you know read more and become a better risk manager, is kind of like the the bottom line. Anyway, but there's also lots of content where people can find you speaking about that specifically. Um hence why there hasn't been much of that in this interview. But there is a question at the end uh that Lex Friedman asks all these guests in his interviews, and while I think it's a very basic question, nonetheless, I really look forward to hearing his different guests how they answer it. Um, and the question is simply what advice would you give to young people.

SPEAKER_02 3:21:56

I've um heard this question a lot, and I've heard the answers a lot. Um I always think that it's uh an impossible question to answer because on the one hand, I would want to say, like full of your your like inner voice, your your consciousness, you you you are something that just be silent for an for an hour a day and and listen to who you are. But on the other hand, you cannot do that unless you have actual real world experience. You do you don't you don't know, you don't know here, here in in the physical world who you are. Uh and so the the opposite answer is um do what's what's expected of you, what what's kind of the world and society tells you to do, like uh at least just go through the emotions that you're supposed to do, uh long enough to not fuck up. So in the end, you will still have the optionality of choosing. So um, on the one hand, I I would say, and I do say in my podcasts, do not go to school. Do not go to at least not to college. Uh um it's a waste of time, they will pollute your mind, you will get old knowledge, and it's better if you are ambitious to just look it up online, but you don't know what to look up online, you don't know what to what to do unless you actually do know what to do. So some say follow your passion, other others say do absolutely not follow your passion. Both are right. Coincidence of opposites again. Um follow your passion if it is your passion, but then you cannot choose. The ones that follow their passion, if it's a real passion, they they can't choose. They are artists, or they they they paint or they sing or they do what or they explore. They cannot choose because it's their passion. But if you don't have that passion, then you probably just need to get like the same kind of platform as everybody else by just doing what you're supposed to do. Go to school, answer the math questions, like take take college classes, like make sure you get a degree. It's not that hard, it's just a few years. That's exactly how I thought. Like, just get a few years, and and then you make money, and then you can choose. It wasn't maybe that articulated, uh, but I still think it's uh it's good advice for like 80-90% of the people. Just walk uphill. Do like just make a little effort. It's just like three, four years. And then then you can choose, then you can listen to Weird Post Podcasts.

SPEAKER_00 3:24:53

And there's like maybe the hard thing, but just one more, one more day, one more hour, one more task, uh, in the direction of wherever it might be you're trying to go. Also, you I just noticed my note under the question, you said exactly the same thing. Um, but in the end of the book, you write uh anybody can be a mediocre finance slave making quite a lot of money. Very few, however, will be happy doing it. Find your particular leverage, your unique combination of skills that will set you apart through lateral living, i.e., exploring extremes without risking permanent damage. That's a very Telebian sentence there, really. There are so much uh similarities between the two of you.

SPEAKER_02 3:25:39

Yeah. Well, um, we can all be miserable um having pretty good careers. Uh let's try not to do that. Nice. Uh there's too many people doing that anyway.

SPEAKER_00 3:25:54

What is a country you're particularly bullish on? Oh, in in what what what does that mean? It it is actually uh left to your interpretation, um however you define bullish, it doesn't necessarily have to be from a money in money out perspective.

SPEAKER_02 3:26:09

Well, I I would like to go to New Zealand. I think they are like uh like the Switzerlands and and and Swedens of the world, but but better. More interesting nature. Okay. Uh they are more apart, they don't seem to be too tied up with wor world politics and geopolitics.

SPEAKER_00 3:26:30

Definitely not.

SPEAKER_02 3:26:32

Um it's um very diverse geographical place. You can do a lot of stuff, you can ski and you can go swimming. Uh I'm not sure why they are not more uh like um successful or profitable because New Zealand's because they're tiny. Yeah, and maybe also so far away, they maybe are happy. Um well I'm uh hard to say. Maybe that's uh my um uh instinctive idea about New Zealand probably is wrong, and uh I probably should look elsewhere. And if I'm I'm trying to be if I'm looking for a country to maybe to be bullish on, I'm trying to like picture the the entire globe. Uh where could you find the raw materials that's that uh push us into like an uh electrificate uh electricate electrical future? Um like Africa has always been the backwaters, but they have tremendous natural resources, and that's where we all came from. It should be like the cradle of everything. Why are they not prosperous? Probably they will be sooner or later. Um but in the meantime, for the coming century, it's probably China or India. Um they are they have the people, uh at least China has the resolve. Um China has the technology, um, they have a certain type of uh like philosophy uh or uh leadership at least. Um if if you if you want to know who's going to rule the world in the in the uh in the coming hundred years, it's probably China. Um India is a completely dark horse. Uh you never know. But I mean Sweden was like in 1867 during the famine, we we were like completely ruled out. And then a hundred years later, we were the richest country on earth in 1967. That's completely unpredictable.

SPEAKER_00 3:28:43

Yeah, that is crazy, isn't it?

SPEAKER_02 3:28:45

We had rotten potatoes in 1867.

SPEAKER_00 3:28:48

There is what do you make of Swedish exceptionalism? If you look at multiple now, your face is squirming, so I get a sense that it may not be uh something you're you want to acknowledge or talk about or anything. I have an idea. Okay, good. Uh then I don't even need to tee it up. Tell me.

SPEAKER_02 3:29:07

Oh, so um it's uh cold and harsh up here. We had to cooperate, we had to fight against the elements. Uh that made us um structured, hierarchical, uh reliable. Uh it if you if you live on the like like the African plains, um you have all the warmth and you can eat whatever passes your way. Of course, you can also get killed but what by whatever comes comes along. But in Sweden, you know you will die if you have not uh stored food for six months over over winter. Uh that I think all the people living up north, Canadian, Sweden, Swedish people, like um uh it creates something. Why Sweden was more successful than maybe Canada or or Greenland or something like that, uh I don't know. Uh but I think we had uh we were one of the ones having a really good shot at exceptionalism just because we lived in such a harsh environment.

SPEAKER_00 3:30:21

Interesting. And how do you think the modern Swedish society holds on to those three tenets that you said uh structural, hierarchical, and reliable?

SPEAKER_02 3:30:32

I think we are at the complete opposite end of the spectrum now, because of the welfare state, uh the cradle to the grave. You don't have to do anything. Actually, when I was in middle school, I was thinking explicitly I will never have to work in my life. I will live on welfare. That is my plan. That was my plan, because I knew I am in Sweden.

SPEAKER_00 3:30:58

What a drastic change of uh approach to it. I mean, obviously you didn't go down that path, but surely that can't be the almost default thinking that most middle schools are having today.

SPEAKER_02 3:31:16

Uh I I guess not. I have no idea what they what they think, but I th um they probably are pretty pampered. They know that they are safe and secure and they really don't have to do anything. Uh but they probably also know that the state will not pay for everything. Uh so they will have to do something, but it's impossible for me to put myself in the shoes of a middle schooler today. I have no idea. Uh but but whatever comfort I take from all of this is that I keep changing. I was something completely different as a seven-year-old compared to when I was nine, and when I was twelve compared to when I was nineteen, because I went from being a complete like socialist communist to uh uh libertarian, like Atlas Schwright libertarian. That's so funny. And and then I went from materialist to whatever I am now, like a complete like airhead.

SPEAKER_00 3:32:16

Nice, yeah. What would Ayn Rand make of your uh your worldview these days? I don't think she would um like it at all. Um no. Um well I'm sorry to the good people of New Zealand for talking you out of it. You should definitely obviously still go. I I don't know what I'm talking about. I'm just a random guy, but it's amazingly drop dead beautiful, and New Zealanders are probably after like Irish people, the funniest people in the world. They have a great sense of humor. I love New Zealand.

SPEAKER_02 3:32:50

Yeah, I've been to the city Gold Coast twice. Okay. So I mean it's time to the time I I went to it's some something's that's really beautiful.

SPEAKER_00 3:33:00

Yes, I think so, definitely. Um, final question Yes, Mr. Soothing. If you could witness a conversation between any two people of history that are alive, no language barrier, so listen to a podcast. Who are you listening to?

SPEAKER_02 3:33:16

I I really would like to hear Ian McGillchrist uh speak to um Terence McKenna. Ian McGillchrist, the brain scientist who formulated this left brain brain hemisphere divide, and Terence McKenna, uh psychonaut extraordinaire who has been like instrumental in portraying whatever går in the psychedelics sphere. And it's it's it still amaces me that Ian McGilchrist that he never even like he never even touchs the idea of psychedelics because that that should be front and center of whatever he's talking about. There is research showing how the brain shuts off completely on ketamine. That means that the the the rock that we talked about, the that the consciousness interacts with it's it's shut off. So it's only consciousness left. And this has not been done in people, but it's done in sheep, and it shows that the brain is turned off. Um I will love to hear Ayan and uh Terence McKenna talk about this.

SPEAKER_00 3:34:30

Amazing. Have you ever had a correspondence with Ian?

SPEAKER_02 3:34:33

Uh I've tried, but he's uh he's uh too occupied. He doesn't answer.

SPEAKER_00 3:34:38

Oh, shame. Well, um he's uh he's on my list for uh podcast guests. So maybe one day I can I can uh hook you up, wouldn't that be something? Yeah. Well, Mikhail, uh thank you so much. Uh real pleasure and for being so generous with your time, but then as well generous with your answers.

SPEAKER_02 3:34:59

Thank you. It's it's been a pleasure.

SPEAKER_00 3:35:01

Cheers.