The first part I'm reminded of a story from Stephen King's novel, with a very similar premise. The father can teleport From one location to the other - but the son is horrible terrified and scarred by the experience. Having to endure multiple consequential lifetimes is a physician LARP equivalent of a scientific research hypothesis, HOWWÉVÉR | the end result is interesting.
I actually don't use the Aeropress much anymore. My wife makes her coffee with it daily, but ever since I bought the espresso machine, I pretty much only drink sencha (green tea) + espresso. Rarely regular coffee anymore ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
I have always wondered about one possible long term downside of the CSU model that does not get discussed much.
Because the whole playbook revolves around deploying more capital every year, that almost by definition means the sourcing and M&A team has to keep growing, with more people to find leads, take calls, negotiate LOIs, and integrate deals. At some point it gets harder to maintain the same quality bar. You inevitably start bringing in more hires who see this as just another job, with no deep loyalty to the culture or the mission.
Over time that can make the company feel more corporate and less entrepreneurial compared to smaller players with tight knit teams of true believers. Those smaller teams can sometimes connect better with founders, spark more appetite to sell, and run the process with more passion.
I have heard several times from founders who say dozens of random CSU employees contacted them, and whenever a call took place they had no idea what their company actually did.
Nothing that truly negates their performance at this time, but I wonder how eroding staff quality compounds over the long term.
It is part of the challenge. There are pros and cons to being highly decentralized. Sometimes one hand doesn't know what the other hand is doing.
But it also means that they have hundreds of entrepreneurs that built their own VMS, and are probably well-positioned in their verticals to know the landscape and competition and know who would be a good acquisition. It's not a centralized team that is hired to do M&A, most of the scaling up has been coming from the business units. And as these people prove themselves with succesful acquisitions, they can become portfolio managers of multiple businesses.
Part of the scaling is also going to be doing more large deals once in a while. They didn't use to do them, but now that they said they were ready to use debt on a per deal basis and lower hurdles a bit on them, I suspect we'll see more. They may not all be home runs, but so far, they have a pretty good track record on those.
I've known it existed forever, but never actually checked it out, assumed it wouldn't be for me.. but you're making me reconsider that. I'll have a listen, thanks!
The similarities with Hamilton: based on historic events not just a made up story, great music, great production.
If you liked Hamilton, it is hard to believe you wouldn't like Les Miserables.
The fact that it has been around since the 1980s is testament to its enduring quality.
Go see it, you won't be disappointed. The music comes to life with the stage production. Listening to the music in isolation won't do it justice. And bear in mind that it is a 40+ year old show, so the music isn't as contemporary as Hamilton - but that doesn't mean it isn't as good.
Now they're already floating doing more export taxes. Who knew that calling taxes something else would make them popular with the "we hate taxes" crew ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
So weird, I've been thinking about the teleporting question recently, too (perhaps from watching Star Trek / reading Iain Banks' Culture novels). From everyone else's perspective, "you" are still you. But from your perspective, I think it's the end of the line; you're gone. Separating the "download" (atomization) from the "upload", if it were a copy operatio,n you'd be left with two of you so clearly the second one isn't the real you. If you then 'disappear' the first you, clearly you are no longer there. So my reasoning leaves me to believe the first you dies or is otherwise snuffed out.
That part, yes, but the discontinuity in consciousness is analogous, IMO.
One way to think about it: if you replaced someone's atoms one by one (really rapidly so that it doesn't take forever) but they never had a discontinuity (eg. ship of theseus), that would be ok to me and no like the teleportation.
But if you kept all the same atoms, shut down consciousness, maybe even moved the atoms around and then brought them back in the exact same configuration/pattern, then turned consciousness back on, that raises those questions.
I mean, not that there's anything we can do about sleep!
Ugh! Haha. I suppose it raises the question of where consciousness originates / "lives". Is it in the configuration of atoms / electrical impulses or a 4th dimension / quantum state? Another question that's related. I believe (I could be wrong) that our bodies do undergo a ship of theseus type of replacement over time, or at least most of our atoms. So clearly, our memories are re-encoding themselves over time into/with new atoms / electrical fields.
Exactly, this ship of theseus argues that it is the pattern that matters, not the specific atoms. And it happens slowly enough that there's no subjective consciousness discontinuity caused by that process.
I would tend to think that consciousness arises from pattern of matter because if you damage someone’s brain, you can see the impact on their personality and even consciousness, depending on the location and extent of damage, and we can see how people born with various diseases, mutations, and malformations may be affected. There’s an interesting book about interesting conditions called ’The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat’.
I always learn way too much from your posts;) I wish dirigisme would die, but state sponsored capitalism in China means no one can have nice things. The CCP learned a ton from the death of the USSR. Its attempt to use capitalism to destroy democratic states through Western companies' optimism and greed would make Lenin proud. Lenin and Stalin should have tried this approach instead of inviting Western firms in and then brutalizing them ("Coming in from the Ice" is an amazing book that documents this) while also brutalizing their own people by keeping the whole country as a militarized hell-hole for decades after WWI and WWII.
The Decouple episode with Mark Nelson that you mention is great, but the Decouple this week with the Russian nuclear icebreaker captain is even better. There are so many smart Russians that love a challenge. It is such a shame we can't work with a lot of them to make the world a better place. How Russia ended up with isolated resource colonies out in the most austere places in the Arctic is truly a horrific feat that continues to push it to dominate and exploit the Arctic today. The icebreaker captain in that interview only alludes to this at the end of the interview. Millions of people died in Arctic gulags to put these settlements in place.
The first part I'm reminded of a story from Stephen King's novel, with a very similar premise. The father can teleport From one location to the other - but the son is horrible terrified and scarred by the experience. Having to endure multiple consequential lifetimes is a physician LARP equivalent of a scientific research hypothesis, HOWWÉVÉR | the end result is interesting.
Give it a read!
Never heard of that one! Do you remember the title?
The Aeropress is making you some 🔥🔥🔥 if you're randomly thinking about the continuity of consciousness!
Haha!
I actually don't use the Aeropress much anymore. My wife makes her coffee with it daily, but ever since I bought the espresso machine, I pretty much only drink sencha (green tea) + espresso. Rarely regular coffee anymore ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
I have always wondered about one possible long term downside of the CSU model that does not get discussed much.
Because the whole playbook revolves around deploying more capital every year, that almost by definition means the sourcing and M&A team has to keep growing, with more people to find leads, take calls, negotiate LOIs, and integrate deals. At some point it gets harder to maintain the same quality bar. You inevitably start bringing in more hires who see this as just another job, with no deep loyalty to the culture or the mission.
Over time that can make the company feel more corporate and less entrepreneurial compared to smaller players with tight knit teams of true believers. Those smaller teams can sometimes connect better with founders, spark more appetite to sell, and run the process with more passion.
I have heard several times from founders who say dozens of random CSU employees contacted them, and whenever a call took place they had no idea what their company actually did.
Nothing that truly negates their performance at this time, but I wonder how eroding staff quality compounds over the long term.
It is part of the challenge. There are pros and cons to being highly decentralized. Sometimes one hand doesn't know what the other hand is doing.
But it also means that they have hundreds of entrepreneurs that built their own VMS, and are probably well-positioned in their verticals to know the landscape and competition and know who would be a good acquisition. It's not a centralized team that is hired to do M&A, most of the scaling up has been coming from the business units. And as these people prove themselves with succesful acquisitions, they can become portfolio managers of multiple businesses.
Part of the scaling is also going to be doing more large deals once in a while. They didn't use to do them, but now that they said they were ready to use debt on a per deal basis and lower hurdles a bit on them, I suspect we'll see more. They may not all be home runs, but so far, they have a pretty good track record on those.
If you liked Hamilton and have not done so already, check out Les Miserables. Another master piece.
I've known it existed forever, but never actually checked it out, assumed it wouldn't be for me.. but you're making me reconsider that. I'll have a listen, thanks!
The similarities with Hamilton: based on historic events not just a made up story, great music, great production.
If you liked Hamilton, it is hard to believe you wouldn't like Les Miserables.
The fact that it has been around since the 1980s is testament to its enduring quality.
Go see it, you won't be disappointed. The music comes to life with the stage production. Listening to the music in isolation won't do it justice. And bear in mind that it is a 40+ year old show, so the music isn't as contemporary as Hamilton - but that doesn't mean it isn't as good.
You sell it well! 💚 🥃
Love the comparison of Dirigisme to Trumpism.
Thanks. It felt appropriate.
Now they're already floating doing more export taxes. Who knew that calling taxes something else would make them popular with the "we hate taxes" crew ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
So weird, I've been thinking about the teleporting question recently, too (perhaps from watching Star Trek / reading Iain Banks' Culture novels). From everyone else's perspective, "you" are still you. But from your perspective, I think it's the end of the line; you're gone. Separating the "download" (atomization) from the "upload", if it were a copy operatio,n you'd be left with two of you so clearly the second one isn't the real you. If you then 'disappear' the first you, clearly you are no longer there. So my reasoning leaves me to believe the first you dies or is otherwise snuffed out.
That's my conclusion too on teleportation. But things get weirder when you start thinking about sleep!
With sleep, the original configuration of atoms remains intact. Not so with the teleported version. That to me is the difference.
That part, yes, but the discontinuity in consciousness is analogous, IMO.
One way to think about it: if you replaced someone's atoms one by one (really rapidly so that it doesn't take forever) but they never had a discontinuity (eg. ship of theseus), that would be ok to me and no like the teleportation.
But if you kept all the same atoms, shut down consciousness, maybe even moved the atoms around and then brought them back in the exact same configuration/pattern, then turned consciousness back on, that raises those questions.
I mean, not that there's anything we can do about sleep!
Ugh! Haha. I suppose it raises the question of where consciousness originates / "lives". Is it in the configuration of atoms / electrical impulses or a 4th dimension / quantum state? Another question that's related. I believe (I could be wrong) that our bodies do undergo a ship of theseus type of replacement over time, or at least most of our atoms. So clearly, our memories are re-encoding themselves over time into/with new atoms / electrical fields.
Exactly, this ship of theseus argues that it is the pattern that matters, not the specific atoms. And it happens slowly enough that there's no subjective consciousness discontinuity caused by that process.
I would tend to think that consciousness arises from pattern of matter because if you damage someone’s brain, you can see the impact on their personality and even consciousness, depending on the location and extent of damage, and we can see how people born with various diseases, mutations, and malformations may be affected. There’s an interesting book about interesting conditions called ’The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat’.
I always learn way too much from your posts;) I wish dirigisme would die, but state sponsored capitalism in China means no one can have nice things. The CCP learned a ton from the death of the USSR. Its attempt to use capitalism to destroy democratic states through Western companies' optimism and greed would make Lenin proud. Lenin and Stalin should have tried this approach instead of inviting Western firms in and then brutalizing them ("Coming in from the Ice" is an amazing book that documents this) while also brutalizing their own people by keeping the whole country as a militarized hell-hole for decades after WWI and WWII.
The Decouple episode with Mark Nelson that you mention is great, but the Decouple this week with the Russian nuclear icebreaker captain is even better. There are so many smart Russians that love a challenge. It is such a shame we can't work with a lot of them to make the world a better place. How Russia ended up with isolated resource colonies out in the most austere places in the Arctic is truly a horrific feat that continues to push it to dominate and exploit the Arctic today. The icebreaker captain in that interview only alludes to this at the end of the interview. Millions of people died in Arctic gulags to put these settlements in place.