The paradox of survival: Learning to live from the extinct

This week’s TIME cover story is a wild one: Romulus, Remus and Khaleesi, three grey wolves genetically engineered to resemble dire wolves, could pass for the first of their kind to walk the Earth in more than 10,000 years. Created by Colossal Biosciences — a $10B startup aiming to “de-extinct” species like the mammoth and the dodo — the beasts appear to have escaped from sci-fi, but they actually exist.

The story resonates with me because it flips survival on its head: by studying extinction, these scientists are trying to engineer longevity. What struck me most is how Colossal’s work reframes the future — not as something we inherit, but something we edit.

Their bet is that genetic resurrection can not only bring back lost species but help prevent the next wave of extinctions. It’s controversial and full of unknowns. But if you want to understand how survival may depend on engaging with death, not avoiding it, this is the story to read.

Key quote: “If all this seems to smack of a P.T. Barnum, the company has a reply. Colossal claims that the same techniques it uses to summon back species from the dead could prevent existing but endangered animals from slipping into extinction themselves. What they learn restoring the mammoth, they say, could help them engineer more robust elephants that can better survive the climatic ravages of a warming world. Bring back the thylacine and you might help preserve the related marsupial known as the quoll. Techniques learned restoring the dire wolf can similarly be used to support the endangered red wolf.”

10 things you should know about bear markets

This week, my friend Christopher Tsai — founder of Tsai Capital released a smart, punchy breakdown on bear markets, reminding investors that downturns are both normal — and usually short-lived.

As Christopher writes, bear markets hit every 3.5 years on average and last about 9 months. But here’s the twist: many of the market’s best days happen during these rough patches. Christopher’s philosophy is simple — ride out the storms, ignore the noise, and let time (and compounding) do the heavy lifting.

Key quote: “Just as a sailor embarking on a lengthy voyage expects occasional turbulent seas, a long-term investor […] should anticipate — and prepare for — periods of market turbulence. Yet, there’s reassurance in recognizing that even the steepest market downturns, though emotionally taxing, have historically proven to be fleeting.”

In the media:

Tech, tariffs, and long-term bets: My colleague Daniel Crowley, CFA, went on Schwab TV this week, to give the latest Nightview Capital house thoughts on the market. In short: we aren’t flinching as tariff fears rattle the markets. We’re staying the course — confident that the long-term upside far outweighs the noise in the handful of companies we own. Watch here.

A few more links I enjoyed:

AI 2027 – via Daniel Kokotajlo, Scott Alexander, Thomas Larsen, Eli Lifland, Romeo Dean

Key quote: “‍We predict that the impact of superhuman AI over the next decade will be enormous, exceeding that of the Industrial Revolution. We wrote a scenario that represents our best guess about what that might look like. It’s informed by trend extrapolations, wargames, expert feedback, experience at OpenAI, and previous forecasting successes.”

Be Superman – via Ian Cassel

Key quote: “You get one or two big opportunities per decade. You never know when the big corrections are coming because it’s the surprise factor that breaks the market. This is when the big money is made. The greatest opportunity is always at the depths of uncertainty. I’m old enough to have invested through three 30%+ drawdowns — the DOT COM Crash, Global Financial Crisis, and COVID Pandemic. I’m lucky in that I’m still young enough to take advantage of the lessons learned. Whenever you experience a drawdown, it feels like an outlier event when in reality the outlier is not having one every couple of years. When you haven’t had a correction in a few years investors forget what they feel like and overreact when the next one occurs.”

Paradigm Shifts – via Colossus

Key quote: “[Matt Huang] wrote a check into ByteDance at $20 million and $30 million valuations, marking his largest personal investment at the time. With ByteDance now worth $300 billion, his investment has multiplied roughly 10,000x — turning an illustrative $50,000 into $500 million. He still holds most of his position, and while he’s “increasingly zen about it,” he admits “it definitely messes with your head that it’s probably the best investment I’ll ever make.” That same year, in San Francisco, he made seed investments in YC companies Instacart, Benchling, PlanGrid, and Amplitude — all now billion-dollar companies.”

From the archives:

The Case for a Maintenance Mindset – via Stewart Brand

Key quote: “To this day, Brand continues to think about tools, and what they can do, in their broadest sense. That focus brought him to his latest writing project — a book, which he is drafting publicly, online, called “Maintenance: Of Everything.” As the title implies, Brand argues that if people can develop a kind of enlightened “maintenance mind,” we can improve our lot in many of our endeavors — ranging from how we work and play to how we care for the planet, or even wage war. As he continues to refine the book, Brand is inviting comments from readers (and it looks like, so far, he has managed to reply to most if not all of them).”