NOAH
JACOBS

TABLE OF CONTENTS
2025.02.09-On-Overengineering
2025.02.02-On-Autocomplete
2025.01.26-On-The-Automated-Turkey-Problem
2025.01.19-On-Success-Metrics
2025.01.12-On-Being-the-Best
2025.01.05-On-2024
2024.12.29-On-Dragons-and-Lizards
2024.12.22-On-Being-a-Contrarian
2024.12.15-On-Sticky-Rules
2024.12.08-On-Scarcity-&-Abundance
2024.12.01-On-BirdDog
2024.11.24-On-Focus
2024.11.17-On-The-Curse-of-Dimensionality
2024.11.10-On-Skill-as-Efficiency
2024.11.03-On-Efficiency
2024.10.27-On-Binary-Goals
2024.10.20-On-Commitment
2024.10.13-On-Rules-Vs-Intuition
2024.10.06-On-Binding-Constraints
2024.09.29-On-Restrictive-Rules
2024.09.22-On-Conflicting-Ideas
2024.09.15-On-Vectors
2024.09.08-On-Perfection
2024.09.01-On-Signal-Density
2024.08.25-On-Yapping
2024.08.18-On-Wax-and-Feather-Assumptions
2024.08.11-On-Going-All-In
2024.08.04-On-Abstraction
2024.07.28-On-Naming-a-Company
2024.07.21-On-Coding-in-Tongues
2024.07.14-On-Sufficient-Precision
2024.07.07-On-Rewriting
2024.06.30-On-Hacker-Houses
2024.06.23-On-Knowledge-Graphs
2024.06.16-On-Authority-and-Responsibility
2024.06.09-On-Personal-Websites
2024.06.02-On-Reducing-Complexity
2024.05.26-On-Design-as-Information
2024.05.19-On-UI-UX
2024.05.12-On-Exponential-Learning
2024.05.05-On-School
2024.04.28-On-Product-Development
2024.04.21-On-Communication
2024.04.14-On-Money-Tree-Farming
2024.04.07-On-Capital-Allocation
2024.03.31-On-Optimization
2024.03.24-On-Habit-Trackers
2024.03.17-On-Push-Notifications
2024.03.10-On-Being-Yourself
2024.03.03-On-Biking
2024.02.25-On-Descoping-Uncertainty
2024.02.18-On-Surfing
2024.02.11-On-Risk-Takers
2024.02.04-On-San-Francisco
2024.01.28-On-Big-Numbers
2024.01.21-On-Envy
2024.01.14-On-Value-vs-Price
2024.01.07-On-Running
2023.12.31-On-Thriving-&-Proactivity
2023.12.24-On-Surviving-&-Reactivity
2023.12.17-On-Sacrifices
2023.12.10-On-Suffering
2023.12.03-On-Constraints
2023.11.26-On-Fear-Hope-&-Patience
2023.11.19-On-Being-Light
2023.11.12-On-Hard-work-vs-Entitlement
2023.11.05-On-Cognitive-Dissonance
2023.10.29-On-Poetry
2023.10.22-On-Gut-Instinct
2023.10.15-On-Optionality
2023.10.08-On-Walking
2023.10.01-On-Exceeding-Expectations
2023.09.24-On-Iterative-Hypothesis-Testing
2023.09.17-On-Knowledge-&-Understanding
2023.09.10-On-Selfishness
2023.09.03-On-Friendship
2023.08.27-On-Craftsmanship
2023.08.20-On-Discipline-&-Deep-Work
2023.08.13-On-Community-Building
2023.08.05-On-Decentralized-Bottom-Up-Leadership
2023.07.29-On-Frame-Breaks
2023.07.22-On-Shared-Struggle
2023.07.16-On-Self-Similarity
2023.07.05-On-Experts
2023.07.02-The-Beginning

WRITING

"if you have to wait for it to roar out of you, then wait patiently."

- Charles Bukowski

Writing is one of my oldest skills; I started when I was very young, and have not stopped since. 

Age 13-16 - My first recorded journal entry was at 13 | Continued journaling, on and off.

Ages 17-18 - Started writing a bit more poetry, influenced heavily by Charles Bukwoski | Shockingly, some of my rather lewd poetry was featured at a county wide youth arts type event | Self published my first poetry book .

Age 19 - Self published another poetry book | Self published a short story collection with a narrative woven through it | Wrote a novel in one month; after considerable edits, it was long listed for the DCI Novel Prize, although that’s not that big of a deal, I think that contest was discontinued.

Age 20 - Published the GameStop book I mention on the investing page | Self published an original poetry collection that was dynamically generated based on reader preferences | Also created a collection of public domain poems with some friend’s and I’s mixed in, was also going to publish it with the dynamic generation, but never did.

Age 21 - Started writing letters to our hedge fund investors, see investing.

Age 22 - Started a weekly personal blog | Letters to company Investors, unpublished. 

Age 23 - Coming up on one year anniversary of consecutive weekly blog publications  | Letters to investors, unpublished.

You can use the table of contents to the left or click here to check out my blog posts.

Last Updated 2024.06.10

Join my weekly blog to learn about learning

On Frame Breaks

2023.7.29

Shorter post this week. Today, we’ll talk about getting a 30,000 ft view of things… literally.

White Rectangles

I’ve been flying quite a lot this summer; however, this week was the first time I ended up in a window seat in a while. It was a short flight, Atlanta to Nashville, and I spent most of it staring out at the world, and part of it writing this.

Taking off from Atlanta, I noticed a LOT of manufacturing facilities and/or warehouses (I can’t tell the difference). They all had flat, white roofs. From the sky, it simply looked like a field of tiles stretching for miles on end.



Caption: I didn’t think to take a picture of the view I described above until it was too late, but this is a decent substitute; just imagine these white rectangles stretching on for as far as the eye can see.

A couple of these rectangles, though, had writing on the top. One such piece of writing was a logo for a real estate firm; another was the logo for Dick’s Sporting Goods.

Seeing those markings on the roofs, from high up in the sky, it seems like quite an obvious decision to put a logo on top of them… free advertising, an aerial billboard, which would be particularly beneficial if your warehouse or factory was near an airport.

Sure, from the sky, the decision seems obvious. But, if you were standing in front of one of these buildings, with your feet on the soil, it would probably be quite difficult to conceive of the idea to use your roof as a place to advertise your logo. From the terrestrial perspective, labeling the top of your building seems utterly absurd! Out of sight, out of mind. Who would ever look at it?

Somebody with a window seat on an airplane might.

I Used to Act

In highschool, I was in a number of musicals; even though I’m not musically inclined in the least, I do enjoy acting quite a lot. My favorite role was Joseph Pulitzer, the antagonist in the musical, newsies.



Caption: Me getting an in office hair cut as Joseph Pulitzer

Well, this weekend, I’m playing the role of an antagonist again — this time, in an original feature one of my very talented friends, Ed Shimborske, is putting together, called On Gallows Hill. It’s quite different than acting in a high school musical. Strangely enough, even though this film is about vampires, participating in it feels somehow more “real” than when I was playing a historical figure.

Pretending to be a vampire is an experience so far out of the realm of what I do on a day to day basis; it’s completely unrelated to my normal life. Maybe, it seems like a side quest or tangential adventure. While, in some ways it is, that’s not how I’m viewing it.

Frame Breaking

Much like the extensive fast I wrote about last week, or my jiu jitsu training, acting in a film is, for me, functioning as a frame brake, a chance to largely step away from everything I’m regularly thinking about. It’s a chance to walk out of the trenches for a moment.

It’s a reset button on business, if you will. It’s hard to think about AI or publicly traded equities when I’m convincing myself that I’m a 230 something year old vampire (the character has quite the aesthetic — think David Bowie meets Nosferatu).

You can think an issue to death. When you’re focused on one problem so very much, and you’re trying as many things as you can to solve it, it can be good to step away.

To be clear, I view starting a business as a problem to be solved. Doing something completely disjoint from what you’ve been obsessing about for the last few months could just be the best way to solve that problem, or, at the very least, to get a chance to observe it from a new vantage point.

“What you do is who you are.”

 -Ben Horowitz

We are the composite of each person we decide to be each day — a beautiful mosaic of all of our different choices and temperaments, a moving average of our decisions. So, I guess, in a way, I’m a 2 century year old vampire? Who knows… maybe…

Acting in a movie is the mental equivalent, in my mind, of jumping out of a plane or traveling to a country you’ve never been to. Or, better yet, it’s like looking at a field of white rectangles from 30,000 feet up. It’s a unique experience that’s going to make me, well, more me.

A new perspective can be helpful in ways that you can’t even begin to guess before you have the experience. And, even if I don’t have an earth shattering epiphany this weekend, I’m finding the acting to be quite fun.

And, sometimes, that’s enough.

Cheers,

Noah Jacobs.