Tremendous

An angel investor's take on life and business

  • Bitcoin Is Worth More than the GDP of Switzerland

    Ah, Switzerland. Home of fine chocolate, discreet bankers and pharma giants. It’s one of the richest countries on earth per capita, and home to world-leading companies like Nestle and Novartis.

    But this entire nation of nearly 9 million people with a history going back to the year 1300 has a GDP smaller than the total value of bitcoin, which has existed for just 13 years. The IMF pegs Swiss GDP at $824 billion, versus $921 billion for bitcoin.

    The total value of all cryptocurrencies is over $2 trillion, comparable to the GDP of Italy, the number 8 economy worldwide.

    These stats show just how accepted cryptocurrencies have become. They’ve gone from a fringe technology to a size comparable to the entire economy of major countries.

    Will they someday pass the biggest GDP heavyweight, the United States?

    Dig into these posts for more on bitcoin:

    Photo: “Switzerland” by T@H!R – طاھر is licensed under CC BY-NC-ND 2.0

    If you found this post interesting, please share it on Twitter/Reddit/etc. using the buttons at the bottom of the page. This helps more people find the blog! 

    Save Money on Stuff I Use:

    Fundrise

    This platform lets me diversify my real estate investments so I’m not too exposed to any one market. I’ve invested since 2018 and returns have been good so far. More on Fundrise in this post.

    If you decide to invest in Fundrise, you can use this link to get your management fees waived for 90 days. With their 1% management fee, this could save you $250 on a $100,000 account. I will also get a fee waiver for 90-365 days, depending on what type of account you open.

    iHerb

    The only place I buy vitamins and supplements. I recently placed an order and received it in less than 48 hours with free shipping! I compared the prices and they were lower than Amazon. I also love how they test a lot of the vitamins so that you know you’re getting what the label says. This isn’t always the case with supplements.

    Use this link to save 5%! I’ll also get 5% of however much you spend, at no cost to you.

    Misfits Market

    My wife and I have gotten organic produce shipped to our house by Misfits for over a year. It’s never once disappointed me. Every fruit and vegetable is super fresh and packed with flavor. I thought radishes were cold, tasteless little lumps at salad bars until I tried theirs! They’re peppery, colorful and crunchy! I wrote a detailed review of Misfits here.

    Use this link to sign up and you’ll save $10 on your first order. I’ll also get $10.

  • The Real Groundhogs of New Jersey

    You look out onto a small grassy area in a nearby park. Surrounding you are tall brick buildings and in the distance, the New York City skyline. Wait…is that something moving?

    A few days ago in West New York

    This is how I discovered the adorable groundhogs of Auf der Heide Park in West New York, NJ two years ago. I’ve seen as few as one and as many as five or six, and they can be found reliably spring through fall every year. In winter, they hibernate deep in their holes, the way we sometimes wish we could!

    Last summer

    My favorite groundhog was an older gentleman I met last spring. It was early April, during the worst part of the COVID crisis. There wasn’t much to do really, besides walk. One day, I figured I’d bring up a few snacks for the little guys. They love fruits and veggies but don’t care for carbs. Perhaps they’re on the Atkins?

    That’s when I came across an adorable Grandpa Groundhog. I fed him a few veggie snacks, and as he ate, I noticed his back right foot was severely injured and barely attached. I later spoke with staff from the Animal Medical Center in New York as well as animal control, but they recommended against trying to trap a wild animal for treatment. So I just kept visiting him.

    He soon became so tame he would sit on my foot and eat like a dog. Then, after a week or so, I stopped seeing him. The other groundhogs weren’t very nice to him and tried to steal his food, probably knowing he was weak. But not too weak to give them a penetrating stare that had them backing off in a hurry.

    Here’s a video of him:

    I don’t know what happened to him, but I assume he may have passed away. I’m happy he had at least one friend in his last days, and I’m honored I got to be that friend. At that time, I needed a friend too.

    Dig into these posts for more on the outdoors:

    If you found this post interesting, please share it on Twitter/Reddit/etc. using the buttons at the bottom of the page. This helps more people find the blog! 

    Save Money on Stuff I Use:

    Fundrise

    This platform lets me diversify my real estate investments so I’m not too exposed to any one market. I’ve invested since 2018 and returns have been good so far. More on Fundrise in this post.

    If you decide to invest in Fundrise, you can use this link to get your management fees waived for 90 days. With their 1% management fee, this could save you $250 on a $100,000 account. I will also get a fee waiver for 90-365 days, depending on what type of account you open.

    iHerb

    The only place I buy vitamins and supplements. I recently placed an order and received it in less than 48 hours with free shipping! I compared the prices and they were lower than Amazon. I also love how they test a lot of the vitamins so that you know you’re getting what the label says. This isn’t always the case with supplements.

    Use this link to save 5%! I’ll also get 5% of however much you spend, at no cost to you.

    Misfits Market

    My wife and I have gotten organic produce shipped to our house by Misfits for over a year. It’s never once disappointed me. Every fruit and vegetable is super fresh and packed with flavor. I thought radishes were cold, tasteless little lumps at salad bars until I tried theirs! They’re peppery, colorful and crunchy! I wrote a detailed review of Misfits here.

    Use this link to sign up and you’ll save $10 on your first order. I’ll also get $10.

  • Palantir’s $100 Million Loss

    Palantir released its earnings for the first quarter of 2021 today, and it’s not looking good. This 18 year old company that has never made a profit turned in a net loss of $123 million, versus $54 million in the first quarter of 2020.

    This is actually a little better than the full year results in 2020, where losses reached nearly $100 million per month. But quarter on quarter, the picture is significantly worse. I’ll be curious to see if last year’s pattern of escalating losses through the year holds again in 2021.

    Selling and general/administrative expenses held Palantir’s results down. I saw a similar picture in 2020, and one factor may be the extensive free trials they give customers. I question whether this business model can produce profits, especially given its long history of burning cash. Amazon and Google invested for the future and delayed profits, but not into nonexistence. Google was profitable in 3 years and Amazon in 7.

    These poor results don’t seem to trouble CEO Alexander Karp, though. He took home $1 billion in compensation last year while the company lost a similar amount. Hey Alex, how about returning that so the shareholders can at least break even?

    Dig into these posts for more on Palantir:

    If you found this post interesting, please share it on Twitter/Reddit/etc. using the buttons at the bottom of the page. This helps more people find the blog! 

    Save Money on Stuff I Use:

    Fundrise

    This platform lets me diversify my real estate investments so I’m not too exposed to any one market. I’ve invested since 2018 and returns have been good so far. More on Fundrise in this post.

    If you decide to invest in Fundrise, you can use this link to get your management fees waived for 90 days. With their 1% management fee, this could save you $250 on a $100,000 account. I will also get a fee waiver for 90-365 days, depending on what type of account you open.

    iHerb

    The only place I buy vitamins and supplements. I recently placed an order and received it in less than 48 hours with free shipping! I compared the prices and they were lower than Amazon. I also love how they test a lot of the vitamins so that you know you’re getting what the label says. This isn’t always the case with supplements.

    Use this link to save 5%! I’ll also get 5% of however much you spend, at no cost to you.

    Misfits Market

    My wife and I have gotten organic produce shipped to our house by Misfits for over a year. It’s never once disappointed me. Every fruit and vegetable is super fresh and packed with flavor. I thought radishes were cold, tasteless little lumps at salad bars until I tried theirs! They’re peppery, colorful and crunchy! I wrote a detailed review of Misfits here.

    Use this link to sign up and you’ll save $10 on your first order. I’ll also get $10.

  • Welcome to Sal “Big Pussy” Bonpensiero’s House from The Sopranos

    Birds call in a cemetery in the early hours. Two men appear on a balcony. One hands the other a newspaper. Their faces are grave.

    This is the backdrop for a classic scene of The Sopranos. Salvatore “Big Pussy” Bonpensiero brings FBI Special Agent Skip Lipari onto his balcony, where Lipari questions him about a high profile murder. Both suddenly clam up when Pussy’s wife comes out with the trash.

    The lonely calling of the birds and Pussy looking out over a graveyard make a haunting image. The headstones, so close to Bonpensiero, subtly foreshadow his murder later in the season, when Tony Soprano finds out he’s an informant.

    Big Pussy’s house is in Jersey City, NJ and I had the opportunity to visit yesterday. While we don’t see it from the outside in the series, when Tony visits in season 1 you can clearly see the same metal door and brick pillar as above.

    The street is a dead end and Pussy’s house borders the vast Holy Name Cemetery. The house is upscale…evidently Pussy’s heroin business paid well! The cemetery itself seems like something out of The Sopranos, with the profusion of Italian names on the markers.

    On the way home, I stopped by another Sopranos filming location, this one from season 6. Tony and Paulie are on the run as the FBI investigates a decades-old murder. On Kennedy Boulevard near Pussy’s house, Silvio Dante breaks the bad news to Tony that the FBI has found the body.

    The liquor store has had a facelift since then, but the streetscape is still quite recognizable.

    It was quite the thrill to see where these great scenes really happened!

    Dig into these posts for more on The Sopranos:

    If you found this post interesting, please share it on Twitter/Reddit/etc. using the buttons at the bottom of the page. This helps more people find the blog! 

    Save Money on Stuff I Use:

    Fundrise

    This platform lets me diversify my real estate investments so I’m not too exposed to any one market. I’ve invested since 2018 and returns have been good so far. More on Fundrise in this post.

    If you decide to invest in Fundrise, you can use this link to get your management fees waived for 90 days. With their 1% management fee, this could save you $250 on a $100,000 account. I will also get a fee waiver for 90-365 days, depending on what type of account you open.

    iHerb

    The only place I buy vitamins and supplements. I recently placed an order and received it in less than 48 hours with free shipping! I compared the prices and they were lower than Amazon. I also love how they test a lot of the vitamins so that you know you’re getting what the label says. This isn’t always the case with supplements.

    Use this link to save 5%! I’ll also get 5% of however much you spend, at no cost to you.

    Misfits Market

    My wife and I have gotten organic produce shipped to our house by Misfits for over a year. It’s never once disappointed me. Every fruit and vegetable is super fresh and packed with flavor. I thought radishes were cold, tasteless little lumps at salad bars until I tried theirs! They’re peppery, colorful and crunchy! I wrote a detailed review of Misfits here.

    Use this link to sign up and you’ll save $10 on your first order. I’ll also get $10.

  • Palantir CEO Paid $1 Billion to Lose Money

    Palantir CEO Alex Karp earned compensation worth about $1.1 billion in 2020, primarily through equity awards granted shortly before his software company went public.

    More here.

    This company is losing $100 million a month and has never turned a profit in 18 years of existence. I know, I know, Amazon. But Amazon and Google turned a profit in 3-7 years. In my work investing in early stage tech startups, I routinely see even young companies that have reached the breakeven point. Why can’t Palantir?

    Palantir is losing $100 million a month and has never turned a profit in 18 years of existence. #palantir #stocks

    It’s no wonder that the CEO is able to pay himself so well. He and a couple other co-founders control the voting shares in the company even if they sell their shares. The votes each of their shares has rises whenever they sell, so they maintain control. This arrangement is so controversial they’re actually being sued for it as we speak.

    Palantir reminds me a lot of WeWork. Charismatic founder, heavily hyped tech company, nonexistent earnings, ironclad founder control, and excessive CEO pay. And we know how that turned out.

    Indeed, Karp seems to be cashing in as fast as he can while things are good:

    At the time of the New York Stock Exchange listing, Karp owned about $1 billion worth of Palantir stock. He’s since sold about $350 million worth at share prices ranging from $9.10 to $31.59, according to SEC filings.

    Dig into these posts for more on Palantir:

    If you found this post interesting, please share it on Twitter/Reddit/etc. using the buttons below. This helps more people find the blog! And please leave a comment at the bottom of the page letting me know what you think and what other information you’re interested in!

    Check out the Stuff I Use page for some great deals on products and services I use to improve my health and productivity. They just might help you too!

  • This is Where New York Ambushed Tony Soprano’s Right Hand Man

    “Gerry warned you Eli!”

    Dim streetlights reflect off wet pavement. In the background, a red neon sign flickers out. “Kay’s Spring Garden.” As Hesh Rabkin and his son-in-law Eli prepare to head home, a black Lexus suddenly pulls in front of them. In an instant, they’re surrounded by thugs banging on the car. Finally, a burning rag inserted into the fuel tank gets them out of the car, desperate to save their own lives.

    This classic scene in season 6 of The Sopranos ended with Eli in the hospital with severe injuries and after Gerry Torciano’s men attacked him for poaching Torciano’s loansharking customers. Even Hesh, Tony’s long-time confidant and business partner, got roughed up.

    This scene was filmed on Congress Street just off Central Avenue in Jersey City’s Heights neighborhood. I actually lived just 4 blocks away for two years. So what is this location like in real life?

    Kay’s Spring Garden is a real Chinese restaurant. I actually went past a couple of weeks ago, and it still looked exactly the same as it did in this Sopranos episode from 2006. It sits on Central Avenue, the main commercial street of Jersey City Heights. The stores on either side are different now: the flower shop has become a realtor, and Goehrig’s Bakery, long vacant, has become a high end cupcake shop.

    The Heights has historically been a neighborhood of immigrants. First the Germans, then Jews and Italians, and now Hispanic people, often from the Dominican Republic or Puerto Rico. When I moved there in 2015, it was just beginning to gentrify. Today, it’s a mix of immigrants and young professionals.

    Central Avenue is a charming street that I still love to walk down, even though I no longer live in the neighborhood. The bustle, the cute, family-run stores selling delicious food, the ambience, it can’t be beat!

    The way the neighborhood looks at night in The Sopranos is very accurate to reality. It’s dark, quiet, and deserted. You don’t see many people around. Until a black Lexus pulls in front of you…

    For more on The Sopranos and entertainment, check out these posts:

    If you found this post interesting, please share it on Twitter/Reddit/etc. using the buttons below. This helps more people find the blog! And please leave a comment at the bottom of the page letting me know what you think and what other information you’re interested in!

    Check out the Stuff I Use page for some great deals on products and services I use to improve my health and productivity. They just might help you too!

  • Urban Combat: Lessons from Chechnya

    At its widest point, Russia spans nearly 5,000 miles from the Vistula Spit in the west to the Kuril Islands in the east. In 1994, its military numbered 1.4 million. It had a massive air force and heavily armed infantry, along with the latest technologies like guided missiles.

    Chechnya is a small, impoverished region about the size of Connecticut. It has been inhabited for over 40,000 years and been a part of many empires, from Persian to Russian to Soviet.

    In 1991, Chechnya declared independence from Russia. Reports of mistreatment of the Russian minority inflamed tensions with Russia, and Russia began to bomb the tiny breakaway republic on December 1st, 1994. (This same casus belli was used by Putin against Ukraine.)

    For 12 years over two separate wars, this tiny country held off the Russian colossus. How did they do it? As former Navy SEAL Commander Jocko Willink details in his excellent podcast, superior leadership and infantry tactics outweighed Russia’s seeming advantages.

    Russian soldiers encountered unexpectedly heavy resistance as the fighting moved to Grozny, the capital. The Russian soldiers had major air power behind them, while the Chechen air force had been quickly destroyed at the beginning of the war.

    But the Chechens neutralized Russia’s key advantage with a simple tactic: move closer. The air force couldn’t bomb the Chechens without bombing their own comrades as well. They bombed away anyhow, and many Russian soldiers died of friendly fire.

    Their air superiority neutralized, the Russian military’s shortcomings in more basic areas became evident. They didn’t have ladders to get into buildings, an essential urban combat tool. Their leaders micromanaged and worked at cross purposes.

    Chechens terrorized the Russians whenever they could. They put the heads of Russian soldiers on pikes for the survivors to see. Booby traps were everywhere (an echo of America’s experience in Vietnam and Iraq). Many Russian soldiers began to suffer mentally, and either became unable to fight or indiscriminate in their aggression, attacking civilians and driving the population to the insurgents.

    Maybe it all started when the Russian soldiers stopped shaving. This was the first breakdown in discipline. It was small, but noticeable. Later, soldiers stopped following rules about boiling drinking water, leading to massive outbreaks of illness.

    Eventually, Russian food supplies fell short. These tired soldiers, many of them teenagers, faced illness and hunger. The attacks from the Chechen rebels, many seasoned veterans of the USSR’s war against Afghanistan, were relentless.

    Facing a grim situation in Chechnya and declining support for the war at home, Russia declared a ceasefire in 1996 and soon signed a peace treaty. Chechnya would ultimately fall after a second, and much longer, war. But this band of ill equipped rebels held off Russia for years, an incredible feat.

    What did the Russian military learn from this, and what are the lessons for us? Here are a few key points:

    • Don’t count on airpower. Determined infantry wins wars.
    • Maintain discipline, even in small things.
    • Urban warfare is manpower intensive with high attrition. Be sure to have fresh troops available and an extensive mental health staff to deal with the psychological stresses of urban combat.
    • Get the civilian population on your side. Don’t hurt them. Respect their leaders and give your orders through them.

    This is a fascinating history lesson that can inform US policy and even our daily lives. Where are we letting our own discipline slip?

    Dig into these posts for more on history and the military:

    If you found this post interesting, please share it on Twitter/Reddit/etc. using the buttons below. This helps more people find the blog! And please leave a comment at the bottom of the page letting me know what you think and what other information you’re interested in!

    Check out the Stuff I Use page for some great deals on products and services I use to improve my health and productivity. They just might help you too!

    Photo: “Chechnya/Чече́нская” by LOreBoNoSi is licensed under CC BY-NC-SA 2.0

  • Bitcoin Is Now Bigger Than Facebook

    As you cruise down the tree-lined road, the first thing you see is a giant thumbs up. You pull into the winding driveway and an endless panorama of multicolor buildings appears. This is the headquarters of the one of the most powerful companies on earth: Facebook, Inc.

    1.8 billion people use Facebook every day, and its profits last year totaled nearly $30 billion. It controls news and social relations across the globe.

    But all this is worth over $100 billion less than bitcoin. The total value of all bitcoin is $1 trillion. The total value of all Facebook stock trails far behind at $892 billion.

    Mark Zuckerberg invented Facebook, but no one really knows who invented bitcoin. Its creator called himself Satoshi Nakamoto, but he has never appeared in public and may not exist. “He” could even be several people working together.

    I find it interesting that despite all his entrepreneurial genius, what Zuckerberg has built is worth less than what was built by an extremely obscure man who may not even exist. There is no monument like the palatial Facebook headquarters to mark bitcoin’s ascendance, but ascended it has.

    I don’t invest in cryptocurrencies. Still, I can’t help but be impressed at what bitcoin has achieved. It reminds me of a quote from Godfather II:

    “Michael, we’re bigger than US Steel.”

    Hyman Roth

    Dig into these posts for more on bitcoin:

    If you found this post interesting, please share it on Twitter/Reddit/Facebook/etc. using the buttons below. This helps more people find the blog! And please leave a comment at the bottom of the page letting me know what you think and what other information you’re interested in!

    Check out the Stuff I Use page for some great deals on products and services I use to improve my health and productivity. They just might help you too!

  • Is this NJ’s Most Beautiful Spot?

    Our car wound into the hills along deserted roads. The scenery went from small towns to vast woods. We crunched down a gravel path to a secluded camp site along a lake. This was Stokes State Forest.

    This weekend, I went camping with some friends in this beautiful spot in northwestern New Jersey. I can heartily recommend it for its varied scenery and peaceful ambience. Here’s a quick rundown of what to expect if you visit:

    Location: About 70 miles northwest of New York City in the beautfiul Delaware Water Gap, just a few miles from the Pennsylvania border. If you’re in the NYC area, this is one of the more convenient campgrounds to visit.

    Scenery: The most varied I’ve seen yet, after having been to Harriman State Park and the Catskills in New York and the Pine Barrens in South Jersey. We saw small mountains, ponds, lakes, marshes, and plains all within a 5 mile hike!

    Wildlife: We saw squirrels, a beaver dam, and even a bald eagle circling above us! You’ll see a lot of signs warning about bears. Be sure not only food but anything aromatic like lotion, toothpaste etc. is inside your car or in a bear bag when you go to sleep. Don’t take chances.

    Amenities: There are water spigots with fresh, cold H2O everywhere. The nearest was about 50 feet from our camp site. There were also nice, clean bathrooms just a couple hundred feet away. The only available showers, however, were in the Lake Ocquittunk area, which was so far from our campsite we had to drive. This was a definitive negative, but at least the water was hot when we got there! The fire rings and the campsites in general are beat up from heavy use, but functional.

    Cost: $40 for two nights. Split between the three of us, it was negligible.

    Unexpected benefit: Compared to the Pine Barrens, where we often camp, Stokes State Forest has fewer ticks, which makes it a good summer camping spot.

    Watch out for: Fire bans. Because it had been windy the day we arrived, there was a fire ban that lasted most of the trip. This is a real problem: you don’t have a heat source or a way to cook. I’d strongly recommend bringing a butane camp stove. Ours is a Coleman and it’s great. It cost about $30.

    We sat around the fire (once the fire ban expired) and gobbled up pork chops, sausages, and s’mores. When nature called in the morning, I enjoyed a beautiful sunrise over the nearby lake.

    This is a beautiful spot! If you’re in the area, I encourage you to check it out!

    For more on camping and the outdoors, check out these posts:

    If you found this post interesting, please share it on Twitter/Reddit/Facebook/etc. using the buttons below. This helps more people find the blog! And please leave a comment at the bottom of the page letting me know what you think and what other information you’re interested in!

    Check out the Stuff I Use page for some great deals on products and services I use to improve my health and productivity. They just might help you too!

  • The New Black Wall Street: Young Black Investors are Piling Into Stocks

    A new survey finds that young black Americans now invest in stocks at the same rate as whites:

    In a year like no other, however, there is also evidence of growing engagement in the stock market by younger Black Americans, with 63 percent under the age of 40 now participating in the stock market, equal to their white counterparts. The closing of this gap among younger investors is being driven by new investors: three times as many Black investors as white investors (15% vs. 5%) report having invested in the market for the first time in 2020.

    Stocks are a major vehicle for wealth creation, and black Americans have long been less involved in the stock market than whites:

    A majority (61%) of non-Hispanic white households own some stock, compared with 31% of non-Hispanic black and 28% of Hispanic households. Median investments vary here as well: Among whites the median is about $51,000. By comparison, the median for black families is $12,000, and for Hispanic families it is just under $11,000.

    Behind this growth is a huge increase in the use of stock trading apps like Robinhood and Webull. Downloads in the last year are up 157% and 371% respectively. For all their faults in enabling speculation, these apps also seem to be opening up opportunity. The minimum investment in Vanguard’s S&P 500 index fund is $3,000, for example. This is far out of reach for many young people, particularly minorities. Meanwhile, Robinhood allows users to buy fractions of a share of stock for as little as $1. Webull has no minimum at all.

    I’m happy to see more people get an opportunity to be a part of this amazing capitalist wealth creation system of ours. More people benefiting from our system helps preserve it. And more people getting rich makes me smile.

    Have a great weekend everyone!

    Dig into these posts for more on markets:

    If you found this post interesting, please share it on Twitter/Reddit/Facebook/etc. using the buttons below. This helps more people find the blog! And please leave a comment at the bottom of the page letting me know what you think and what other information you’re interested in!

    Check out the Stuff I Use page for some great deals on products and services I use to improve my health and productivity. They just might help you too!

    Photo: Black Wall Street Durham, NC