The Profile: The $60-billion woman & the best investor you’ve never heard of
My grandmother's neighbor taught me a lot about finding joy in the mundane.
When the pandemic first hit, we thought our lives would get more simple. We no longer had to worry about our outfits. We no longer had to figure out the logistics for getting to work, dropping the kids off, and making plans with friends. Our calendars were wiped clean.
But even though everything was stripped to its most bare-boned form, we still found things to worry about.
We started getting on Zoom calls, and suddenly, we began obsessing over our pixelated appearance. This has led to "perceptual distortion," which occurs when we “highlight a fault, then focus disproportionately on it until it becomes magnified” in our perception. Our smartphones can further alter body image, due to the angles at which we hold them. As a result, the plastic surgery industry has exploded in popularity over recent months.
“Celebrities have to look good in front of people,” says Gordon Lee, a plastic and reconstructive surgeon. And now, for many who are living through the Zoom Boom, “so do regular people”.
One of life’s great ironies is that simplicity has become pretty complicated. Technology was supposed to make our lives easier — and it has, in many ways — except it hasn’t made them simpler.
There’s always a notification here, an email that needs responding there. Things compete for your attention at all hours in the night. In turn, this “easy” world has made us reactive, defensive, worried, and distracted.
As a result of the pandemic, we now live online. We've begun to over-identify with our virtual selves more so than with our un-filtered regular selves.
Happiness has never felt more elusive. That's because we think happiness stems from success and appearance and money and stuff. That's not happiness; that's excess.
I’ve written about minimalism before, and noted that the worst form of excess is to achieve everything you’ve ever dreamed of and realize that somehow you’re still not happy and that something is still missing. And that, my friends, sucks.
There’s this famous passage from Matt Haig’s memoir Reasons to Stay Alive:
"The world is increasingly designed to depress us. Happiness isn’t very good for the economy. If we were happy with what we had, why would we need more?
"How do you sell an anti-aging moisturizer? You make someone worry about aging. How do you get people to vote for a political party? You make them worry about immigration. How do you get them to buy insurance? By making them worry about everything. How do you get them to have plastic surgery? By highlighting their physical flaws. How do you get them to watch a TV show? By making them worry about missing out. How do you get them to buy a new smartphone? By making them feel like they are being left behind.
"To be calm becomes a kind of revolutionary act. To be happy with your own non-upgraded existence. To be comfortable with our messy, human selves, would not be good for business."
So this leads me to my grandmother’s neighbor Ivan. He lives in a small town near the Rila mountains in Bulgaria where it’s not uncommon to see sheep, chickens, and cows just casually wandering around.
Ivan has animals, he does a ton of physical work every day, and he seems genuinely happy. His biggest worry the last time I saw him was how horrible airplanes are for the environment and how he sees them in the sky every day now.
He couldn’t care less about anti-aging moisturizer, plastic surgery, or smartphones. He may lead a simple life, according to our standards, but it’s not in any way less busy or fulfilling.
It's not that Ivan doesn't have problems in his life, it's that he's learned how to find beauty in the mundane. For example, he loved this picture so much, he asked my grandmother to get it printed so he could frame it. He had never had a picture with his sheep before. It's a life of minimalism, but it's also a life of deliberately finding small, daily moments of joy.
So here's one thing we can all take away: Rather than obsessing over what we perceive as flaws, maybe for once we could appreciate the wrinkle or the gray hair that we see on our Zoom screens. It's a revolutionary act to notice those tiny moments of beauty so we can stop stuffing the pockets of beauty brands and plastic surgeons.
As Haig writes, “Wherever you are, at any moment, try and find something beautiful. A face, a line out of a poem, the clouds out of a window, some graffiti, a wind farm. Beauty cleans the mind."
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THE PROFILE DOSSIER: On Wednesday, premium members received The Profile Dossier, a comprehensive deep-dive on a prominent individual. It featured Tyler Perry, the Hollywood reject who built a billion-dollar empire. Become a premium member and read it here.
PODCAST: I recently chatted with Eric Satz for his new podcast The Altogether Show. We talk about moving to the U.S, the teacher who influenced me the most, the importance of perspective, and so much more. Check it out here.
PROFILES.
— The mysterious $60-billion woman [**HIGHLY RECOMMEND**]
— Wall Street's favorite writer
— The best investor you’ve never heard of
— The CEO building a creative empire
— The entrepreneur who built a company of smoke and mirrors
— Banking's sole Black CEO
— The actor who despises Silicon Valley
— The billion-dollar testing monopoly
— The video app trying to defeat TikTok
PEOPLE TO KNOW.
The mysterious $60-billion woman: Following her divorce from Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, MacKenzie Scott became one of the richest women in the world overnight. And almost immediately she started working to give the money away, and in a way that could change philanthropy. This is a fascinating profile on Scott, who has quietly given away $1.7 billion to a wide swath of nonprofits, from historically Black colleges to a crisis text line. This is a must-read. (Marker)
“To put it really crudely, technocratic philanthropy is philanthropy that is done to people rather than with people.”
Wall Street's favorite writer: If you're on Wall Street, you probably subscribe to the popular financial markets newsletter Money Stuff. The author, Matt Levine, loves boring subjects like insider trading statutes, bond-market liquidity and the ubiquity of securities fraud, but his columns are never boring. In fact, they're so entertaining, I sometime find myself laughing out loud. Here's the origin story of how Levine quit Goldman Sachs to take a $50,000-a-year job as a financial blogger. (The New York Times)
“Matt is one of the best writers today chronicling the ironies, paradoxes and absurdities of modern business and finance."
The best investor you’ve never heard of: Cathie Wood may be Tesla's biggest bull. The newest superstar investor has leveraged a zealous belief in innovation into a $29 billion-in-assets firm and a $250 million net worth. Among her predictions: Elon Musk's car company is vastly undervalued. But of course, such bold statements attract the boldest critics. She doesn't mind them, saying: “It almost makes me feel comfortable, to be honest, because it means if we’re right, then the rewards will be pretty enormous.” (Forbes)
“Coronavirus has catapulted our innovative platforms into high gear because they solve problems. Innovation solves problems.”
The CEO building a creative empire: Spotify's Daniel Ek is not your typical CEO. He likes to go on long walks that help him sharpen his thinking. He looks to Beyoncé for ideas on the creative process. He refuses to schedule more than three meetings per day. Ek, who is personally reserved but professionally ruthless, reveals his fresh approach to creativity and leadership. (The Observer Effect)
"Many people make big decisions early on in the day, I make them later in the day."
The entrepreneur who built a company of smoke and mirrors: Trevor Milton resigned as executive chairman of his latest startup, electric-truck maker Nikola, after a short seller’s report said he made misleading claims about the company’s technology. He had persuaded well-known auto-industry figures to back Nikola, which at its peak was valued at $30 billion. It was one of the most talked-about companies trying to build an electric vehicle future. And then things took a turn for the worse. Here's how Nikola became Milton’s highest-profile blowup. (WSJ; reply to this email if you can't access this story)
“As this company went public, it was migrating from a vision story to an execution story.”
Banking's sole Black CEO: Tidjane Thiam was at the top of the financial world. As the CEO of Credit Suisse for the last five years, he was the only Black chief executive in the top tier of banking. Thiam did the job he was hired to do: He made Credit Suisse profitable again after a long decline. But he never had to stop fighting for acceptance and respect, both within the bank and in Switzerland generally. Here's how a sudden scandal took him down. (The New York Times)
“I am who I am. I cannot change who I am.”
The actor who despises Silicon Valley: In the early 2000s, actor John Cusack flew on Bill Clinton's plane as part of a celebrity delegation to Africa. It was on that flight that he met Elon Musk, Larry Page, and Sergey Brin. "You see these people saying, ‘Don’t be evil! We’re not evil!’ A nice catchy phrase," he says. "But then you see that their business becomes data-mining." Here's how his strong political views evolved from that trip. (The Guardian)
“I would love to think about other things. Poetry. Love. Anything else. But that’s just not the times we’re in."
COMPANIES TO WATCH.
The billion-dollar testing monopoly: The College Board, the New York City-based organization that offers the SAT and Advanced Placement tests, is a nonprofit that operates as a near monopoly. It's been the Board's inability to safely adapt its operations to the pandemic that has prompted customers to opt out in droves. More than 1,600 four-year schools will not require scores for admission in 2021, and a growing number are becoming “test blind,” meaning they won’t consider scores at all. Take a look at how the SAT failed America. (Forbes)
“Such incompetence and recklessness!”
The video app trying to defeat TikTok: When talk of a possible TikTok ban began in July, the leaders of a small social video app called Triller saw a growth opportunity. To attract users, the company began wooing some of TikTok's biggest influencers. And it's willing to do whatever it takes, including giving out expensive cars, black cards to Saddle Ranch, weekly dinners at Nobu, rent-free mansions, and so much more. This one's a doozy. (The New York Times)
"There’s instant fame and instant content, and we think this is how the future of the world is going to be.”
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AUDIO TO HEAR.
Annie Duke on improving the quality of our decisions: An average person makes thousands of decisions per day, and Annie Duke has mastered the art of reducing the uncertainty in that process. Duke, one of the top poker players in the world, wants to help people make rational decisions in irrational situations. In this podcast episode, she discusses specific tools we can use to sharpen our thinking and avoid knee-jerk biases. (Link available to premium members.)
Elon Musk on putting a chip in your brain: Elon Musk says, “AI does not need to hate us to destroy us." For instance, he says, we don't have to hate ants to destroy an anthill — but we would roll over it in a heartbeat if we wanted to place a highway there. Musk believes AI will treat humans the same way. Here's what Neuralink, his brain-machine interface company, is working on right now. (Link available to premium members.)
David Goggins on developing true confidence: Doing hard things and choosing the path of most resistance is what builds authentic confidence. Many of us, David Goggins says, want the results without the process. We often forget that pain is necessary to make progress. "You’ve got to start diving into those things that you are afraid of," he says. "You don’t gain confidence by going to the spot that makes you feel good.” (Link available to premium members.)
VIDEOS TO SEE.
Ramon Van Meer on getting up after failure: Serial entrepreneur Ramon Van Meer knows a thing or two about grit. As a kid, his life took a turn for the worse when his mom became sick. He ended up a homeless teen in the Netherlands, and he clawed his way out. "I like being the underdog," he says. He tried his hand at entrepreneurship several times with little success. And then one day, he built a business worth $9 million in three years. In this mini-documentary, he explains how. (Link available to premium members.)
Tara Westover on the virtual self: We spend so much time curating our online lives that we risk over-identifying with the virtual personas we create. But author Tara Westover says that the most meaningful things you achieve in your life will not be done by your "avatar," the perfect version of you posted online. "All of the most substantive experiences that you will have in your life will be had by the boorish slob you are trying to edit out of existence," she says. (Link available to premium members.)
Rob Walker on controlling your attention: In a world of endless distractions, few of us take the time to really notice. Rob Walker believes that noticing is the spark of creativity. In this talk, he gives us tangible exercises we can implement in our everyday lives to become more present and aware. The world becomes much more interesting, he says, once you become an interested participant in it. (Link available to premium members.)
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