perspective

1. 10 January 2025

   More people should blog

   I went to a wedding recently where several people there had an online presence. Reading their ideas beforehand made for much better conversations – and potentially longer-term friendships. I suspect t…

2. 15 July 2022

   “Market cap” can be misleading

   In late 2021 Tesla peaked at a $1.23 trillion market cap; Bitcoin at $1.26 trillion. From a narrow view their subsequent drops "destroyed" hundreds of billions in wealth. I think that framing misses s…

3. 6 May 2022

   The right ragrets

   The secret isn't living without regrets — it's having the right ones. Most important decisions come down to shades of right, not right versus wrong. Embrace the ragrets.

4. 30 October 2020

   Every hour wounds, the last one kills

   In honour of the Day of the Dead: a moving passage about the three deaths in Mexican tradition — bodily, burial, and being forgotten. We'd benefit, as a culture, from healthier rituals for the dead. S…

5. 21 August 2020

   People are interesting (and what is right for one person may not be right for the next person)

   Everyone is different. Even identical twins raised in the same household are pretty different once you get to know them. When you meet someone new, you have NO IDEA about who they are. Two takeaways:…

6. 14 August 2020

   Knife skills and investing

   I've watched loads of videos on knife skills. Turns out, advanced knife skills only really matter if you're a professional chopping the same things over and over. For the rest of us, paying attention…

7. 10 July 2020

   Money and time travel

   What is money? Textbooks call it a medium of exchange and a store of value. Both are true — but money is also a time travel device. Borrowing brings future income into the present. Investing and savin…

8. 28 April 2020

   The unmitigated joy of watching movies at 7x speed

   Try watching movies at 7x speed. You heard that right — a two-hour movie in under 20 minutes. Yes, you lose the audio and the pacing. But you gain structure, thematic clarity, and guaranteed flow. Lik…

9. 6 March 2020

   The magic’s not in the numbers (or: Why this blog is squishy)

   I rarely talk numbers on this blog, which might be surprising since it's mainly about money — and I LOVE spreadsheets. Numbers change, past performance isn't future performance, and precision can make…

10. 13 December 2019

    What price a dream

    A personal allegory. On the surface it's about my long-running desire to own a Porsche Cayman. Underneath it's about having a clear-eyed perspective on your goals — the real, annualised cost of the th…

11. 3 September 2018

    The median is not the message

    A friend's cancer diagnosis sent me back to Stephen Jay Gould's essay on being told his own disease had a median survival of eight months. Most people would read that as "I'll be dead in eight months"…

12. 20 February 2016

    Good luck = the absence of bad luck

    One of the best forms of good luck is the absence of bad luck. I've been lucky in that sense — no major health issues, no tragedies. The defensive side of managing luck is every bit as important as co…

13. 26 August 2014

    “How to be polite”

    Paul Ford’s essay “How to be polite” is a charming read. My favourite lessons: it pays to withhold judgement even when the other person isn’t; politeness lets you draw a protective circle around yours…