Half-time commentary

"How do we stay in the room and hear things that are difficult? How do we make sure the parameters around conversation are ones that are open to conversations?" - Rabbi Charley Baginsky

Apparently as you get older time speeds. I have felt the exact opposite so far this year and it seems from conversations with friends and family that I’m not the only one. When I remember to, just before summer holidays and / or at Christmas I tend to review what has happened. This has included more recently what I have written (Home | Deciders | for mental fitness | change your mind) and for the first time the podcast I co-host with Sean Thompson (The CIO Chair - Podcast - Apple Podcasts). Being involved in the podcast has been a huge privilege and I am grateful for to the guests for sharing their perspectives so generously.

Big lesson for the year to date

It is said you are what you eat, is it true you are also what information you consume? I have been able to directly feel the difference between what I take in and how I feel about the world. I think right now we have uncontrolled optimism in the tech-bro world (AI, Space etc etc) and uncontrolled pessimism on social media (other people are more beautiful, others are having a better time, takeover by foreign cultures, institutional corruption etc). If you do not curate what goes in, very intentionally, you will get completely swept up in the unanchored messaging you receive.

What I have been trying to get more exposure to

1. One of the key opportunities I have seized is being able to interview superb CIOs. If there is one take-away, it is that great CIOs take lot of people, process and framework decisions but rarely make big investment decisions. This was initially surprising, but after having heard the message so many times, I think the highest ROI a CIO can do is curate a high-performance culture. Great performance is downstream of a great culture more often than CIO brilliance.

2. I have tried to avoid newer books in favour of older books (with a few exceptions). I have a high conviction that through the abundance of the post-war years the Western world has created structures and norms that are not sustainable. There is no culture that has thrived on i) spend more than you earn, ii) disincentivise working or becoming parents and iii) make decisions for the short-term. It is not obvious how we ended up here, but there is huge reluctance to take our medicine.

3. Although this might sound counter-intuitive I have sought out political fringe podcasts. These have been sourced intentionally for their more populist nature e.g. Triggernometry, Gary Stevenson, Tucker Carlson. Their communication styles are very engaging and they sound so confident about things that are highly debated or plain wrong. It is always interesting to see them on their home turf when they do not need to moderate the message for a broader audience.

With a diet of the above three my writing has centred on three topics:

1. The world of investing: CIO Chair insights, early career tips, private markets, building winning investment teams and lessons from the 1929 crash and storytelling

2. The world of politics: Straight talking, is the system rigged, society and the state, the bill of responsibilities, fundamental disagreement

3. Broader skills: Valuable traits in an AI world, the uncertainty trap, feeling then reasoning

They bring out very common lessons.

• Curiosity: being truth-seeking by asking difficult and uncomfortable questions of compelling stories. Stories are ever-increasingly being constructed to make unknown answers well understood.

• The focus on good judgment: I know my view is at odds with many smart people who have come before me, but I still think that all analysis might help decisions, but it is no substitute for good judgment. Analytical people can have poor judgment.

• Responsibility/Trust: No system works unless people are selected for and held accountable to being responsible and trustworthy. I have found that responsibility and trust are more character-based than skills based and are not things that come across easily in a CV or interview.

We cannot know it all

The most difficult but in hindsight enjoyable part of the reflection is being able to honestly say where my views are changing and identify areas of doubt that feel to me impossible to answer cleanly and confidently. Some of it is because the facts have changed, but in some cases, it is because my perspective has broadened by listening more openly to people described as extreme.

I am less certain about many questions now than 6 months ago:

1. Do we trust democratic institutions to make long-term decisions with short-term incentives? What are the “constitution”-type guardrails that would mean that policies are discussed with real trade-offs? Would we vote for taking pain today, to enjoy benefits in 20 years’ time?

2. Where can we create more informed disagreement? Neither traditional nor alternative media has improved upon this. How much would people pay for a great “brain” diet of balanced informed relevant stories?

3. If intelligence is going up, why does it feel like wisdom is going down? Where are the calls for more responsible stewardship of our planet (debt, demographics, environment)? When will we realise that subjecting everyone (especially children) to a bombardment of tempting but ultimately unsatisfying products (e.g. sweets, vapes, porn, smartphones) is making it harder for people to experience real life?

4. Who are “we”? This is such an important question and one that is context dependent. The reason it has piqued my interest recently, is because I have heard “we” posed in different ways recently. When it comes to Ukraine, I have heard “we” being used in the sense of a “European” we. When it comes to the US/China AI race I have heard many Brits express “we” in solidarity with the US models in a more “Western Civilisation” and sense. This is completely at odds with the “we” spoken about during the Brexit debate which was a narrower “we” based on Britain nationality.

What is coming next

We are wasting a lot of time on politics in a time of very poor policy. The podcast has reminded me that remarkable people rarely possess magical answers. They possess ways of getting excellent information to their team and having them work through the trade-offs.

I'm thinking about what would take me from writing and towards ideas that might be implemented. Earlier I asked where we might create more informed disagreement. I am leaning towards trying something like this: a competition for university students on society's hardest practical questions.

The questions need to appeal to our national interest rather than national debate. Not "is capitalism broken?" or "should we care about climate change?" Those debates are abstract. I am thinking more "What should the UK's energy mix be in ten years?" or "Which policies would expand the workforce without immigration".

The rules would be simple. Pick a question. Make an actual recommendation as an individual or team. Show the numbers. Understand the possible opposition and cost.

Analysis is cheap and with AI getting cheaper. Judgment I think is even more valuable in a world of infinite analysis. The students, our nation's future, will run our institutions in twenty years and are the ones who will live with the trade-offs we keep deferring. Let us help them wrestle honestly with the hard questions rather than listening to Zac Polanski or Nigel Farage performing like it's all really obvious.

If you work in a university, run something similar, or think this is a bad idea for reasons I haven't considered, I would love to hear from you.

After holidays, will be "Things we think of as opposites but are the same". As always get the blog delivered directly to your inbox on Home | Deciders | for mental fitness | change your mind.