A conversation with Erik Torenberg on all things narrative and the The Narrative Monopoly

Bio

Erik Torenberg is co-Founder and co-CEO of OnDeck, which is on a mission to organize the world's ambition. Co-Founder and Partner of Village Global, an early stage venture fund. Erik was the first employee and on the founding team of Product Hunt. He's also a writer and podcast host. 

Times

• 0:15 - Intro to Erik & breaking into tech
• 6:00 - Status Theory of Narratives
• 9:45 - Meta Narratives & Identity
• 16:00 - Martin Gurri’s Crisis of Authority
• 18:45 - Authenticity & Elon
• 24:30 - The Narrative Monopoly
• 43:15 - Truth & Narratives
• 54:30 - The Current Thing
• 1:00:30 - Lack of meaning
• 1:05:15 - LARPs
• 1:07:30 - Rethinking Higher-Ed

Links

Erik's blog

Erik's twitter

beondeck.com

villageglobal.vc

narrativemonopoly.com

A conversation about free speech with UCLA law professor Eugene Volokh

Topics 

• Computer engineering vs law
• SCOTUS Leak
• Background of free speech
• Twitter and free speech
• Are platforms utilities?
• The Ministry of Truth Disinformation Board
• And more!

Bio (from UCLA Law)

Eugene Volokh teaches First Amendment law and a First Amendment amicus brief clinic at UCLA School of Law, where he has also often taught copyright law, criminal law, tort law, and a seminar on firearms regulation policy.

Before coming to UCLA, he clerked for Justice Sandra Day O'Connor on the U.S. Supreme Court and for Judge Alex Kozinski on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit.

Volokh is the author of the textbooks The First Amendment and Related Statutes (6th ed. 2016), and Academic Legal Writing (5th ed. 2013), as well as over 90 law review articles. He is a member of The American Law Institute, a member of the American Heritage Dictionary Usage Panel, and the founder and coauthor of The Volokh Conspiracy, a leading legal blog. His law review articles have been cited by opinions in eight Supreme Court cases and several hundred court opinions in total, as well as several thousand scholarly articles.

Volokh worked for 12 years as a computer programmer. He graduated from UCLA with a B.S. in math-computer science at age 15, and has written many articles on computer software. Volokh was born in the USSR; his family emigrated to the U.S. when he was seven years old.

Links

The Volokh Conspiracy,

Free speech videos

narrativemonopoly.com

twitter

A conversation with Michael S. Malone, author of The Big Score, on the history of the semiconductor industry and silicon valley

Topics include (but not limited to): Fred Terman, Hewlett-Packard, Stanford, Vacuum Tubes, Varian Brothers, Fairchild, Intel, AMD, National Semiconductor, Bob Noyce, Gordon Moore, Arthur Rock, Andy Grove, Jerry Sanders, Charlie Sporck, Bob Widlar, Transistor, Microprocessor, Ted Hoff, Planar Manufacturing Process, Venture Capital, Eugene Kleiner, Nolan Bushnell, and More!

Bio (from Big Score)

Michael S. Malone has covered Silicon Valley and tech for over 30 years. His articles and editorials have appeared in the San Jose Mercury-News, Wall Street Journal, Economist, Fortune, and New York Times. He has written or co-authored more than 25 award-winning books, including Bill and Dave and The Intel Trinity, and co-produced The New Heroes, an Emmy-nominated miniseries on social entrepreneurs. He lives in Palo Alto, California.

Links

Buy The Big Score

Michael's podcast  — Silicon Insider

narrativemonopoly.com

twitter

A conversation with Michael Fritzell, author of Asian Century Stocks, on Asian markets and geopolitics

Bio

Michael Fritzell is a Singapore-based analyst and the author of Asian Century Stocks. He's worked as an analyst and co-portfolio manager in Asia for well over a decade.

Times

• 0:15 - Intro
• 0:55 - What is Asian Century Stocks & intro to Michael
• 4:15 - Chinese politics
• 8:15 - Michael’s media diet (east vs west)
• 10:45 - Parsing out the truth in media
• 13:15 - Evergrande
• 19:15 - Which sectors in the Asian-Pacific is Michael bullish on?
• 21:45 - Covid recovery in Asia
• 27:15 - Specific equites
• 32:15 - The Chinese sphere of influence & Taiwan
• 39:15 - What’s going on with Hong Kong?
• 43:45 - China
• 49:45 - How to sift through and find truth in Chinese “official” reports and data
• 53:45 - Is the 21st century the Asian century?
• 56:15 Sections of Asian Century Stocks

Links

Asian Century Stocks

Michael's Twitter

Jeff's Twitter

narrativemonopoly.com

A second conversation with economist John Cochrane

Bio

John Cochrane is the Rose-Marie and Jack Anderson Senior Fellow of the Hoover Institution at Stanford University and the author of The Grumpy Economist Blog. Before that John was a Distinguished Senior Fellow of the University of Chicago Booth School of Business, he’s taught both MBA and PhD programs. And a fellow of the Becker-Friedman Institute, a Research Associate of the National Bureau of Economic Research. He is a past President and Fellow of the American Finance Association, and a Fellow of the Econometric Society. He’s served as the editor of numerous economics journals. He earned a Bachelor’s degree in Physics at MIT, and earned his Ph.D. in Economics at the University of California at Berkeley.

Times

• 0:00 - Intro
• 1:15 - Inflation, supply chain crisis & labor market shortages
• 16:15 - Weird economic signals, looming recession?
• 20:30 - Administrative state + government competence
• 28:30 - Climate change
• 37:30 - The media & censorship
• 43:45 - Bitcoin
• 50:00 - Central banks digital currencies
• 1:00:30 - Government’s role in money
• 1:07:00 - The relationship between debt & inflation
• 1:19:00 - Stanford Free Speech / University of Austin
• 1:33:00 - Nobel prize / institutional failure — rebuild or build anew?

Links

The Grumpy Economist blog

GoodFellows podcast 

narrativemonopoly.com

A conversation with James Poulos on his new book Human Forever

Bio

James Poulos is the Executive Editor of The American Mind and author of the books The Art of Being Free: How Alexis de Tocqueville Can Save Us from Ourselves and now Human Forever.

Dr. Poulos graduated from Duke University with distinction in Political Science and received his Ph.D. in Government from Georgetown University. He is also the contributing editor of American Affairs and a fellow at the Center for the Study of Digital Life.

Links

humanforever.us

Get the book at: CANONIC .XYZ

James' twitter

narrativemonopoly.com

This episode was recorded on Callin, a new social podcasting app

Bio

David Sacks is co-founder and general partner at Craft Ventures, founder of Callin, and co-host of the All-In Podcast. He has been a successful founder, investor, and operator for over two decades, including as member of the PayPal mafia and founder of Yammer. Some of his early stage investments include AirBnB, Bird, Eventbrite, Facebook, Lyft, OpenDoor, Palantir, Reddit, Slack, SpaceX, Twitter, and Uber. He also writes “Bottom Up SaaS,” a bible for SaaS companies. 
 

Times

• 1:45 - Origin story of The All-In Podcast
• 4:45 - Philosophical underpinnings & features of Callin
• 9:15 - Changing Red Pills to Purple Pills
• 14:30 - Proposed tax on unrealized gains
• 23:30 - Nuances of the two party system
• 34:00 - The US debt & deficit
• 46:00 - Who makes up the MOD squad today / Social media addiction narrative
• 55:15 - The US’s relationship with China

Links

Callin

Bottom Up SaaS

All-In Podcast

David's twitter

Jeff's twitter

narrativemonopoly.com

Bio

Jamie Catherwood is the publisher and author of Investor Amnesia ("The goal of Investor Amnesia is to provide investors with key insights and lessons from our past in order to avoid repeating the same mistakes.”). He majored in History at King’s College London, and entered the financial services industry after graduating. He started writing about financial history in 2018 and writes the Financial History: Sunday Reads newsletter, which goes out to over 14,000 people. 

He's guest lectured at the Yale School of Management, and his work has featured in the Wall Street Journal, Bloomberg News, Financial Times, CNBC and more. 

Times

• 0:15 - Intro to Jamie & Investor Amnesia
• 3:45 - What got Jamie into financial history
• 6:30 - Old financial illustrations
• 10:15 - How the government could harness speculation for productive uses
• 20:30 - Detour on Cleveland, OH
• 24:40 - Access to public and private companies and SPACs
• 31:30 - Imperial finance
• 42:45 - Busting the Tulip Bubble narrative
• 45:30 - Importance of history
• 50:45 - Jamie’s closing thoughts on how to apply financial history

Links

Investor Amnesia (articles, courses, etc)

IPO and SPAC article mentioned

Jamie's twitter

Jeff's twitter

narrativemonopoly.com