The global information space has gotten increasingly noisier and noisier with the proliferation of online publishing, independent journalism, blog posts, and marketing blasts via media sharing platforms.
The introduction of AI NLP to the consumer market will only add fuel to this raging fire as marketers strive for dominance over the attention space. (Speaking of As a business leader in any field, finding high value information that pairs today's context with tried and tested expert insights is a difficult task. Here I share the thought leaders, concepts and contextual works that are in my head today and forming the basis of my strategic planning to help folks execute with competitive advantage. Only by continually striving to improve our knowledge will the leaders of tomorrow achieve that status - by succeeding consistently throughout this challenging economic period via sustained advantages.
Thought Leader - Peter Zeihan
Peter's insights are obvious and built upon more than a decade's worth of data and geopolitical research insight across the demographic, food, energy, and technology spaces. Better still, Peter regularly shares his insights both with government and private sector leadership, as well as with keen investors in the public hunting for guidance on the next 10 years of geopolitical developments and macroeconomic context. Peter's book - The End of the World is Just the Beginning is a prediction set for the global reconfiguration of supply chains towards reshoring/friendshoring; Localization over globalization as liberal democracies come to see that business ties alone don't mold other cultures/civilizations/governments into cooperative players. Peter's entertaining (if slightly bombastic) voice makes digesting and absorbing his guiding concepts easily memorable. I recommend viewing the global events of today through his lens to give the main sense of direction in the long term as to where there will be: conditions for economic growth, and a sense of where global supply and demand will land en masse.
Peter has a helpful Youtube channel as well where he short form shares his insight on current events and chops up his thesis into pieces (thesis pieces?) making it even easier to explore his worldview.
Concept/Context/Reading - Family Offices
For business leaders of the next decade operating in a capital constrained environment anathema to the ZIRP of the last nearly 2 decades - the ability to expertly find and raise capital in alignment with your mission will be a skill in high demand. Going away are the days of 'free capital' as the global central banks raise (and ultimately maintain) interest rates in an effort to undo the largest fiscal stimuli in history in response to the (temporary!) global economic shutdowns caused by the Covid-19 Pandemic. As global debt bubbles collapse and assets collateralized to risky borrowing are marked down, wealth will be rebalanced towards more 'traditional' commodities/assets in markets not prone to manipulation or as affected by financialization through derivatives. Food, Energy, Precious Metals/Minerals/Materials and their associated real estate will be highly sought after.
Where will investable capital lie in these generational changing regimes? In the place where wealth preservation across generations has continued to lie - family offices and their network of businesses/trusts and philanthropies. To understand this complex structure - I recommend insights like can be found in "The Family Office: A Comprehensive Guide for Advisers, Practitioners, and Students" by Woodson and Marshall. Understanding the incentives, considerations, and structure by which generational wealth allocates their capital and invests for returns + preservation is the decisive context needed to enable raising serious capital for growing ventures.
Quantitative Contexts and Perspectives
Lastly 2 additional recommended readings that synthesize years of experience and perspective about what has been and what is to come alongside expertly curated data:
1. Bill Gates - How to Avoid a Climate Disaster
This book is Bill Gate's climate investment memorandum written out in novel format - For a majority of folks, climate issues and investing in ways to balance Humanity's relationship with the environment are a top priority, even number 1. I recommend that this book be a jumping off point for the readers to begin their own, continuing research into climate solutions as we see new, systemic ways of thinking about how we produce our buildings, food, energy, and nearly every other facet of our livelihoods.
2. Vaclav Smil - GROWTH
Vaclav Smil gives deep insights into our quantitative understanding of technology adoption. How do we find and understand the products that will have outsized impacts on humanity in the years to come? We need to understand the history of exponential growth in technologies. The How, the Why, and the path - mechanistically.
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