Decoupling X.Y

We’ve…

…had many conversations…

…on the topic of decoupling.

So much so, that I’ve lost count.

The only difference, this time around…

…is the approach.

This time around, we’re handling from centre-point.

Meaning…

…that we are the ones…

…learning how to…

…decouple.

This time it’s not about economies decoupling from other economies…

…or markets decoupling from other markets.

We don’t even care anymore whether that is a myth or…

…whatever.

What economies do to or with each other is not our concern in this discussion.

Here, we are devising methodologies to reconfigure our nervous system, …

…actually, our very DNA, …

…so that we can decouple from market forces, at will, for however long we want to.

Without feeling pangs.

Two questions – How? Why?

Regarding the why, it’s imperative to allow our nerves rest.

Long-term survival. We’re not going to implode, or explode.

It’s about building patterns. This is the how we are addressing. Patterns. Many times. Patterns that take us away from markets, temporarily.

Slowly the pattern comes on auto. We devise a mental and a physical macro for the pattern.

An activity hiatus.

A terminal kill switch activation, with reactivation date.

Family.

Book.

Holiday.

Hobby.

Different…

…work.

Anything that’s not market related. At will, till wilful reactivation.

Again and again, whenever we feel the need, and / or whenever the situation demands.

Over many years, we now have an ingrained reflex. A muscle memory. Allowing us at will, to…

…decouple.

Welcome to Decoupling X.Y.

Define your X and Y. Incorporate into your system. And then…

…decouple at will.

Life at Frontier Minus One

Sanity prevails…

…at frontier minus one.

Rat race is within the underlying’s…

control.

Virtual / quasi / substantial / semi debt-free-ness…

exists.

Free cash-flow generation on the balance sheet is…

…common.

At frontier minus one, the narrative is …

…under control…

…as proven by self-determination of speed of change…

…and by exhibition of substantial growth.

Not at breakneck speeds.

Not by borrowing to the hilt.

Not by greedy behaviour.

Not by indigestible trajectory.

Not by a reckless ‘not giving a damn too bad if you’re not so fast’ attitude.

Life at frontier minus one…

…is somewhat balanced, with a flow.

Innovation at frontier minus one is achieved much faster

…than at frontier minus two, but much slower than at…

…frontier zero zero.

No tech company that wishes to thrive well into the future is currently functioning at…

…frontier minus two.

Either the transition to minus one has been made, or, it’s in the process.

Why not go for the jugular? Straight to zero zero.

Everyone has their role in this puzzle.

Imagine an older civilization going into battle.

There was a front line, paving the way, at immense cost.

There was a reserve support line, with artillery, first-aid, communication, and what have you.

There was a third line with supply, reinforcements, semi-trainees doing other stuff normally, etc.

There was aerial support, naval support, intelligence, research and analysis staff etc.

All combined to create an ensemble of actions.

Cut to now.

Warfare has changed.

Immense cost is still there, but immense cost to the front line, as in cost of life, has been reduced greatly, speak drone and missile warfare, supported by AI backed intelligence and analysis.

Point is, innovation, a different way of thinking, disruption and all their cousins will find a way to make things affordable, implementable.

That’s the way civilizations move forward.

Not for you or me to change. It’s the way of the world.

And that is what frontier minus one banks upon.

Meaning, to keep functioning at sustainable levels, slowly, painstakingly, in the process, simultaneously, finding a way, a connect, to frontier zero zero.

The connect can be of co-work. Amicable. Win-Win. You earn, we earn.

At frontier minus one, the world view is not to annihilate, but to…

…accommodate.

To win…

…together…

…in…

symbiosis.

Symbiosis

Imagine…

…the most value you can imagine.

That’s what this word is worth.

Especially now.

What’s the truth?

Existential question.

First we had everyone and their aunties proclaim the death of core Tech companies.

Hmmm.

Core Tech companies, and their chief protagonists, thought otherwise.

Number of believers kept waning though.

Until recently.

Something started to reverse in belief systems.

AI was behaving fantastically utilitarian with a human holding the reins.

Meaning, there needed to be a human there, for practical purposes.

Frontier AI deployed engineers to be the human face. Or so one was told.

Came the trust issue.

Do we double up on our trust in this no track record magician who just showed up out of nowhere?

Do we entrust privileged client data to the unknown?

Do we strip ourselves naked, TWICE?

NO.

Everyone and their uncles have answered with an emphatic NO.

Who is the human handler – the go-between – the trusted face – the rein holder?

Someone with a track record.

Proven.

Tried, and…

trusted.

Self-propelling.

With no liabilities. Spell ZERO DEBT.

With copious FREE CASH FLOW to INNOVATE FREELY…

…to navigate the reins successfully and as per the requirements of an enterprise.

Who is this entity?

None other than…

…our own very well known…

CORE TECH.

Leaner.

Hungry to prove its point.

To have its raison d’être acknowledged, and paid for.

To earn and compound steadily.

Forget about dying. Let’s talk about long term thriving.

Then, we had the captains of frontier AI admitting, that yes, ‘we do need core tech handholding to be implemented successfully’.

Gone was the initial hubris, that ‘we had come to wipe out old thought patterns, and all old systems’.

Reality had dawned, and these captains at least had the decency to admit it.

Actually, they had realized that their existence now depended upon how much their infrastructure would seep through. And…

…that no one was trusting them enough to hand over the job of seeping through to them, but much rather, to trusted old compatriots, to Core Tech.

So they came forward to shake hands.

Good.

Symbiosis.

We want to move forward on the back of this symbiosis.

There will be gigantic and fast development on the back of this symbiosis.

We are looking at space travel, space colonization, disease control, climate change, cheap solar, cheap desalination, perhaps even alien integration and partnership – unimaginable perhaps a few months ago, but possibly conceivable on the back of this symbiosis.

There’s new talk which has recently emerged, from the other extreme, and needs to be discarded, like its mirror image on the opposite side of the bell curve. This is the talk of frontier AI dying out because of becoming unaffordable.

Well, in whatever shape it exists currently, frontier AI does have tremendous capacity to solve problems.

Let it do just that on the back of this symbiosis, and earnings will start to flow.

Core Tech won’t let it wither, frontier AI has now become their raison d’être too.

Don’t you see it?

Two universes are converging, each needing the other to survive.

In the end, they become one universe.

Companies will merge. Synergies will multiply. Mega projects will be achieved, faster, more bombastically.

Earnings will flow.

Where do you want to be?

Remaining a doomsdayer will not help you.

Get into the flow.

Invest into debt-free, free cash-flow generating core tech as value deepens.

Look for debt-free, frontier minus one, free cash-flow generating semi AI companies, research these thoroughly for any red flags, and if those found are manageable, put in some funds.

If you find a frontier tech with manageable debt and a reasonable balance sheet, with a PEG ratio (price to earnings ratio divided by earnings per share growth percentage for the fiscal) somewhat under control. ok, put in some money there too.

Get out of the doomsday mindset.

Put your money to work, and then lock it in for another twenty years. Leave the compounded proceeds to your children.

Now.

Let the crashes come. There will be compounding post crashes too. Just look at the monthly chart of an IT index from 1995 to today. Dot-com peak looks miniscule and low compared to the levels of the monthly chart today.

Enough talking. Do the recce and then let’s talk.

Mantra

Hey.

Writing became a breeze.

Posting a blog from inside Claude, keeping the originality of the post, whilst assigning to AI all mechanical tasks like feeding in categories and tags – I’ll admit, this does make life a lot easier, and blogging a lot more enjoyable.

Which keeps the admissions coming in continuation, perhaps repeatedly.

From being the leading AI skeptic, towards gravitating to some kind of a chief protagonist – people who know me would probably say, “There he goes again.”

So what’s this going to do?

The number of blog posts is going to increase. Hopefully, the quality too. Primarily, the enjoyment while blogging.

Beneficial. We thereby move towards the realm of Planet 2.0.

Wunderkind AI needs to benefit mankind to the max.

What about the risk?

Opening up to the Wunderkind, allowances, permissions, sometimes an odd password shared.

Does the AI take these towards Planet 3.0?

Yeah, that’s the one on which mankind is harmed.

Skeptics are still on 1.0, exactly where I was 11 days ago.

Idea is to make a conscious effort to gravitate towards 2.0, every time there’s a drift towards 3.0.

Remember, we will tend to drift.

Drifting got us here in the first place. One can use fancy words for it, like disruption.

There’s a quick trick which makes us aware from where we are functioning, 2.0 or 3.0?

Greed. Hubris. Exuberance. Ego burgeons. 3.0 functionality.

Feeling of benevolence while functioning, well-being and / or goodness emerging – 2.0 domain.

Natural human drift towards 3.0.

Bring back consciously towards 2.0.

That’s the Mantra, going forward.

Check

Hey.

Facing some basic issues on the other side.

Life has changed.

Race became more intense.

There’s greed in the equation, the desire to achieve as much as possible in as little time as possible.

Everything’s moving…

…faster.

As if…

…from one day to the next…

one just…

…shifted.

It’s clear to me that we don’t shift till we are ready.

Was a hard nut to crack.

Had to be literally goaded into the AI trajectory, several coaxings required. Hard skepticism took its time to be broken down.

Not happy about the greed.

Speed of coasting is also very high.

Need attunement.

Unable to slow down easily.

Need to be careful about a ‘now I’ve got this and to hell with you attitude’. Can develop unchecked.

Addiction. Need to stay de-addicted.

All non-electronic activities in the day go up immensely in value.

Reading – books. Check.

Chanting. Check.

Basic verbal conversations. Check.

Human interactions. Check.

Helping someone. Charity. Check.

Non-distracted eating. Check.

Bringing down multi-tasking levels. Check.

Whole detox days. Day travel. StayCation. AutoCut the system. Check.

Evening chanting session. Lengthen. It’s not electronic. Check.

Anything not connected to a device and creates value. Check.

Not going to fall sick in this hyperactive space.

Check.

Incorporating before proceeding further.

Check.

2050?

Yes.

Why?

Why what?

Why 2050?

Growth trajectory.

Whose?

India’s.

What about it?

Spurts with bottlenecks. Not linear.

So?

Will take 2050 till fruition.

Meaning, for you?

Quest for multibagger accumulation will be successfully achieved.

By 2050?

Yeah.

Anything else?

My own trajectory.

Will you be around?

Not relevant.

Why?

I’ll leave the assets as my legacy.

To whom?

Family. Country. Charity.

Striving and then leaving it?

Doesn’t cause me any reaction.

Why?

It’s cost-free.

Meaning?

My principal is not invested. Pulled it out in profit. What remains in the markets is cost-free. I live and enjoy my life on my income, simultaneously creating a cost-free legacy. The cost-free-ness tricks my mind into an eternal hold. I stop jumping. Vicissitudes of price path have no meaning for me once something has become cost-free.

And why stop in 2050?

Growth culmination. India enters first-world territory. It becomes difficult to create multiples fast. Life is far more efficient, and so is price, then. Loopholes are filled in by artificial intelligence before an EoD chap like me can react. Info-flow is so fast and transparent, that everybody knows. Everyone is smart because they use the appropriate tools. Since all money is smart, there’s no edge anymore. But that’s 2050. Today, oh, there are edges. Inefficiency lasting longer than EoD. Sometimes lasting months. Loopholes. Pattern related. Operator related. Price related. AI is not fully there yet. Most market players are not smart, I think the official statistic reads 88%. Almost all tools look at the wrong stuff. By the time one reacts to indicators, which are a function of price, most of the edge is gone. Information-flow is not fast enough, and if you can read it in the numbers or the chart before it happens, the edge is huge. And, forget about transparency. It’s just not there. We’re sitting of big edges currently.

So, 2050, stop, and then what?

No idea. Let’s go with the flow. Right now the flow is leading up to 2050.

And what if there are world-shattering events before that?

We buy. We are almost always highly liquid. When we’re not, we start creating liquidity. We are never illiquid. 2050 is just a number. We have numbers to go on, like lamp-posts. It’s another lamp-post, like 1984, or Y2k, or what have you.

Do you want to be the person remembered for 2050?

That’s not even a question for me. I’m flowing with 2050 because that works for me. I don’t care about the rest. If you wish to think with that mindset, that’s on you.

Why rude?

Nothing rude or not rude about it. 2050 is part of my framework. Nothing more, nothing less.

I see.

Holding the Line

Your systems are in place.

They’re implemented. 

Basics are going. Life basics. Family basics.

Then you’ve got your income basics. They’re safe. They generate income. This income goes towards comfortable upkeep of your family. Some of it is saved. 

Your investment portfolios are firing. Savings have built these up. You don’t touch these, but keep adding to them upon opportunity. 

You’ve just finished implementing all your trading systems. 

Some of these are on auto-pilot. 

The other ones demand a little of your time each day. 

They keep you sharp and all there. 

Nothing much. 

Just fifteen to twenty minutes each. 

Skin off your teeth. 

You tackle them with your bed-tea. 

In other words, you are set as far as being income plus plus plus. 

Good. 

Now what?

Now you need to hold the line. 

What does that mean?

It means everything. 

It means no blow-ups…

…no crazy decisions that impact folios and family…

…basically nothing insane coming from you that will threaten your hard-earned situation or worse. 

Holding the line means making sure basics stay intact…

…folios keep growing…

…and new systems keep developing that add to these. 

It’s really that simple. 

When you hold the line, your next step either maintains status quo or adds to you. Preferably, it adds to you.

However, the simpler something is, the more difficult it is to follow. 

What are the demons that can slay you?

Over-confidence.

Over-ambition.

Hubris.

Greed.

Showmanship. 

Debt.

One-up-on-the-Joneses-ideology. 

This stuff looks pretty harmless at first, but is enough to give rise to cracks. 

Cracks grow… 

…till you’ve either come back to your senses and filled and sealed them…

…or till they’ve destroyed you right down to beyond your basics. 

Yeah, a full blow-up is never really far away, once cracks start to appear. 

Therefore…

…while holding the line…

… you keep reminding yourself about what you’re doing…

…why you’re doing it…

…and that you’re never going to blow up, come what may…

…and that you’re going to keep holding the line, come what may…

…and that your next step is always going to add to you.

Happy Holding!

🙂

The Art of Addressing

Address your goals.

Daily.

Make that part of your basics.

It’s easy to sit back, when a few fundamentals are sorted.

There could be bread and butter on the table.

Family could be in their groove.

Are you quite there yet?

No.

Don’t rest on the laurels of the few fundamentals you might have achieved.

An RJ might light a cigar and open a bottle of single in the evening, but only after his goals have been addressed for the day.

A WB might invite his poker buddies and kick off a game after a round of hamburgers… after his goals for the day have been addressed.

When does BG nip into his chocolates? At bedtime. After you know what. After addressing his goals for the day.

Yeah.

Now it’s your turn.

Have a few simple goals.

What?

Don’t have such goals?

Well, make them.

Then address them.

Break down your goals to their prime number form. For example :

– Research a stock

– Trade some forex.

– Write a piece.

– Learn something new.

See. As simple as possible.

It’s convenient to address simplicity.

Laziness and complacency are enemies, though.

Fight them.

🙂