These are the ideas, thinkers, and questions that shape how I think and act. I don’t always agree with them — but they move me, challenge me, or stay in my head long after I’ve heard or read them.

(Some of the) People that Inspire Me (in no particular order) [add pics, links]

• Elon Musk – scale, courage, and urgency; building where other theorize
• Jeff Bezos - discipline, compounding strategy, and operational precision; EMPIRE 
• Barack Obama - narrative, composure, and the balancing act of leadership in complex systems
• Donald Trump - energy, instict, disruption, and the raw force of belief (even when imperfectly applied) - TENACITY
• Lee Kuan Yew - clarity, nation-building, and relentless pragmatism - LONG TERM VISION
• Winston Churchill - strategic endurance, rherotic, and moral courage under pressure - LIGHTNESS
• Camillo Benso di Cavour - political unification through negotiation (?), structure, and national vision
• Theodore Roosevelt - personal intensity, civic virtue, and the embodiment of energetic leadership
• Steve Schwarzman - high-level dealmaking, elite networks, and long-term capital thinking - SCHS/GLOBAL
• Ray Dalio - macro understanding, principle-based thinking, and the fusion of markets and systems
• Warren Buffett
• Bill Gates
• Charlie Munger
• Mario Draghi
• Michael Jordan

(Some) Books that Have Stayed with Me [add links]

• Pretty much anything by Ray Dalio, especially Principles and Changing World Order
• __ by Jeff Bezos
• Zero to One by Peter Thiel
• The Almanack of Naval Ravikant by ___
• The Snowball by ___ (on Warren Buffett's life)
• Never Split the Difference by Chris Voss

Some Ongoing Questions/Curiosities I Keep Thinking About

• Can the West be saved?

• Can we invert population decline?

• Can Europe successfully unite into the United States of Europe? If so, what would it look like? (I fear that it'd look like the Austro-Hungarian empire)

• If we could become immortal, should we do it?

Some of my Favorite Quotes

• Evolve or die (Ray Dalio)

• ___ (Winston Churchill)

• ___ 

Media/Content I Return to

• Podcasts I usually listen to: All-In Podcast, GoodFellows

• Podcasts I sometimes listen to: Huberman Lab, Lex Fridman, [English guy], Joe Rogan

Other [tbd]

• Some of my favorite comedy shows: Kill Tony, SNL, Bill Maher, Jon Stewart, John Oliver, Jimmy Kimmel, Jimmy Fallon, Seth Meyers, Seth Colbert, Roast Battle, Shane Gillis

• Some of my favorites movies: Saving Private Ryan, Sherlock Holmes, La grande bellezza (The Great Beauty), Inglorious Basterds, Youth

• Some of my favorite TV series: House of Cards, SAS Rogue Heroes, Parks and Recreation, Wednesday, Sherlock, Silicon Valley, Band of Brothers

• Some of my favorite rap songs: God Did by ___

• Some of my favorite songs other that rap: Renegades by ___, Whatever It Takes by Imagine Dragons, White Horse by ___, Bury My Bones by ____,