Inside the world’s most important company

In this recent Freethink interview, Chip War author Chris Miller offers a fascinating look inside the microchip industry, an often-overlooked (but critically important) backbone of the global economy. Microchips power everything from smartphones to cars to complex AI systems, making them essential to modern life.

As Chris points out, not only are chips so vital for our global infrastructure — they are effectively controlled by a tiny (and elite) syndicate of companies. TSMC alone produces nearly 90% of the world’s most advanced microchips. As Miller explains, this places the company at the heart of global supply chains — and in the middle of escalating U.S.-China competition for technological supremacy.

Key quote: “When I look at the surge of investment in AI chips right now, I see no reason to doubt that Moore’s Law won’t continue for a very long time. That means more advanced chips, which means more computing power that we can apply to all sorts of uses — [both] AI and all sorts of devices. And that means we’ll be using even more semiconductors because the trend has been that, as chips get better, they get cheaper, and we put them in more and more types of uses. Today, if your car has a thousand chips, I wouldn’t be surprised if it has 10X that number in a decade. And that basic trend is true of everything we rely on.”

The art of asking questions

Across business, investing — and even physics — asking the right question can be transformative. And yet, there are very few academic courses — or even mental frameworks that I’m aware of — that offer a roadmap to improve this essential skill.

In my latest Long Game column for Big Think, I set out to a simple roadmap. I explored how investors and executives — myself included — could refine the art of asking questions. Drawing from sources like Einstein and Musk, I created a basic heuristic to guide us in asking better questions across any context. I arrived at three key takeaways: (1) Ask open-ended questions, (2) Embrace a beginner’s mindset, and (3) Focus on long-term implications.

Key quote: “Often, we think we know the answers, or we rely on assumptions to guide us. But one of the most effective ways to ask good questions is to approach situations with a beginner’s mindset. Act as if you’re learning about the subject for the first time. It helps eliminate bias and opens the door to asking the ‘dumb’ questions — because those questions often lead to the most insightful answers. In business meetings or when researching investments, don’t be afraid to ask, ‘Why does this work this way?’ or ‘What if we approached this problem from a completely different angle?'”

Life lessons from the “blueberry billionaire”

In his interview with The Knowledge Project, John Bragg, the 84-year-old founder of Oxford Frozen Foods and Eastlink, shares a wealth of practical wisdom on resilience, focus, and long-term thinking as a both an entrepreneur and an investor.

Bragg began in 1968 with a small blueberry-picking business. Over the decades, he transformed the tiny operation into a billion-dollar empire, expanding into both carrots — and telecommunications (yes, really). Along the way, Bragg picked up hard-won insights on how to leverage debt strategically, the importance of being a low-cost producer, and building strong relationships with both suppliers and competitors.

Key quote: “Yeah, we’re big, big believers in looking at the horizon. There’s a famous quote by Dag Hammarskjöld, who said that “Only those who look at the horizon find the right road. If you look at your feet, you’ll stumble.” So we’re big lookers at the horizon, saying, “How can we do this?” And a private business allows you to do that.”

A few more links I enjoyed:

Elon Musk and The Early Days of SpaceX – via Founders

Key quote: “‍And this is something that comes up over and over again in the early days of SpaceX. The faster you can make your decisions, the more iterations that you can do; the more iterations you can do, the more you’re learning; the more you’re learning, the more success and capability SpaceX has. And so there’s just quote after quote after quote in the book of early SpaceX employees describing Elon this way: ‘He always made the most difficult decisions. He did not put off problems. He tackled the hardest problems first. He had a vision of how aerospace could be done faster and for less money.’ It was Elon’s ability to identify engineering talent and then motivate his employees to do extraordinary things.”

How to learn and evolve as an investor – via Treasure Hunting

Key quote: “Repetition without feedback is useless. Try to increase the amount of feedback in investing, while decreasing the time of feedback. Use a journal to track ALL your decisions, hold, sell, buy, pass. Follow as many stocks as you can, to see which stories tend to unfold positively and which ones not. Always try to find the right lessons in every situation. Talk to other investors, get feedback on your ideas. Write about your ideas. Read old pitches. Read new pitches. Reflect on your learnings. Share your reflections, see if other investors have had the same or different experiences.”

When Adding Is Subtracting – via Michael A. Ervolini

Key quote: “Investment choices are the outcome of what Daniel Kahneman describes as Dual Systems thinking. According to this model, System One is rapid fire, arriving at decisions automatically within the unconscious, highly dependent on heuristics, and is readily influenced by our emotional state. System Two, in contrast, is slower, involves conscious deliberation, and is more prone to focus on facts versus feelings. In environments where the data is noisy, the feedback weak, and uncertainty abounds decisions are much more apt to reflect System One thinking over that of System Two.”

Where’s all the Money in Personal Transformation? – via Tom Morgan

Key quote: “The highest purpose of wealth that I’ve encountered is as a container for personal experiments. It gives us the space and freedom to pursue what we love. And love, once again, is the key. Within your own body, the purpose isn’t to repress the pain you feel, it’s to find ways to love it. Love is the key ingredient in a therapeutic relationship. And in an organization, love between members keeps the group strong. In all three, love is the solvent that dissolves any shadow that manages to find its way into the container.”

What Could Be: Investing Takes Optimism – via Bogumil Baranowski

Key quote: “When envisioning a family fortune, I don’t just see it as it stands today but as what it might become over time. Compounding can transform financial wealth into a multiple of its current magnitude. However, while the potential opportunity is meaningful, so are the threats; time and inflation can erode the purchasing power of even the greatest financial legacy.”

From the archives:

The 80-hour Myth – via Naval Ravikant (2005)

Key quote: “Let’s get serious. Nobody works eighty hours a week. Not eighty real, productive hours. Look closely at workaholics (and I’ve been one, and worked with ones), and a lot of the time is spent idling, re-charging, cycling, switching gears, etc… In fact, your best work was probably done in tremendous, focused bursts, surrounded by long periods of dullness and inactivity. So, let’s try to figure out how to maximize the probability and productivity of such a burst, rather than try and force it to be predictable and prolonged.”