Byrne Hobart: Connection Machine, Universal Drink, Toxic Byproduct, Scarcity Truthers
Our curator this week is Byrne Hobart (@ByrneHobart). Byrne writes The Diff, a daily newsletter tracking inflections in finance and tech. His readers include hedge fund managers, tech founders, venture capitalists, and 1.5% of the Forbes 400. Before writing full-time, he worked at SAC Capital/Point72. He also co-hosts The Riff podcast with Erik Torenberg.
Please enjoy these words that have mattered to Byrne.
Byrne's Picks
A blog post is a very long and complex search query to find fascinating people and make them route interesting stuff to your inbox
Henrik Karlsson has the canonical piece on why to write online, even if you're initially writing to a tiny audience: your writing is a way for the people who share your interests to find you.
Richard Feynman and The Connection Machine
What's it like to hire Richard Feynman as your startup's summer intern? Danny Hillis found out!
Mother Earth, Mother Board
In the golden age of tech journalism, Wired was willing to pay a sci-fi novelist to travel the world looking at the physical hardware the Internet actually ran on.
The Universal Drink
The longest and most successful campaign of total world domination has been waged by the United States, with an unusual arsenal—multinational corporations with globally-recognized brand names.
The Bench Burner
Richard Posner is a prolific writer and thinker who also served as a Federal judge. His big contribution to legal theory was taking the idea of Coasian economics seriously.
Wealth: The Toxic Byproduct | Melting Asphalt
We start with a thought experiment about making money from the zero-sum task of commodities trading, and move on to the question of where wealth comes from and why we have such odd ideas about it.
Scarcity Truthers - by Philo - MD&A
Economic scarcity exists, but in rich countries it's often introduced artificially.
Spotlight on Byrne's Work
The Riff
Byrne launched a new podcast with Erik Torenberg just this week!
The Diff
"In case there are any other laggards like me who haven't properly noticed: @ByrneHobart's newsletter is very good." –Patrick Collison
How I Got Hired at SAC Capital Without a College Degree
The fascinating story of how Byrne landed his first job in finance.