Investing · AI · Self-improvement

One person. Three levers. Unlimited upside.

  • InvestingSee through the noise of prices to what value really is.
  • AIUnderstand the technology, industry, and applications shaping the frontier.
  • Self-improvementUnderstand how we think and act. Put that knowledge into practice.
Platinum and copper mountain sculpture with a winding path to the summit
Chasing pricesto
Understanding value
AI headlinesto
Understanding the forces
Going with the crowdto
Thinking independently
Acting on autopilotto
Changing with purpose

Three kinds of leverage

Capital, AI, and your own growth

Understand value, follow the forces shaping AI, and learn how people think and act. Three paths to clearer judgment and more deliberate action.

Investing

See value as it really is.

Start from first principles and understand what a business is really worth.

Thesis card

  1. BusinessWho pays, and for what?
  2. CounterargumentThe strongest case against it
  3. EvidenceWhat would change my mind
  4. ReviewWhen I check again
Four lines to write before buying anything.
Investing essays

AI

Understand where AI is heading.

Trace how technical advances reshape the AI industry and open up new applications. Examine the forces behind emerging trends, their significance, and their limits.

Three lenses on AI

  1. TechnologyCapabilities and limits
  2. IndustryCompetition and value chains
  3. ApplicationsAdoption and impact
Connect technical progress with industrial change and real-world use.
AI essays

Self-improvement

Know yourself. Shape how you live.

Explore human nature and the biology behind how we think and act. Use evidence and deliberate practice to refine your thinking, build lasting habits, and change how you behave.

Understand, test, refine

Understand Practice Observe Refine Growth
Ground change in human nature and biology; refine it through practice.
Self-improvement essays

Start here

Essays worth starting with

Newest first

  1. Self-improvement · 12 min read

    Understand the Darkness Without Becoming It

    Learning how manipulation works should make us harder to exploit, not eager to exploit others. A case for studying power, incentives, and the choices people are left with.

  2. Self-improvement · 14 min read

    A Finite Life Is Too Precious for Endless Envy

    Status is borrowed. Judgment has to be earned. What can we build that survives a change of fortune, and what is worth leaving to the next generation?

  3. Self-improvement · 11 min read

    Conviction Should Be a Hedge, Not Leverage

    A sense of purpose can help you withstand uncertainty. But only if it rests on what you value, rather than on a promise that things will go your way.

  4. Investing · 8 min read

    The Power of a Believable Story

    A story can change expectations, draw in resources, and help create the reality it describes. That gives its author power, but it doesn't exempt the story from being tested.

  5. Self-improvement · 12 min read

    Finding Your Way Out, One Step at a Time

    Protect your ability to keep going, recover your judgment, and rebuild your options. Getting out of a difficult situation takes more than betting everything on a comeback.

  6. AI · 10 min read

    What Counts as Knowledge?

    AI has made answers cheap. Sound judgment still depends on knowledge—and on whether you can use it when real constraints apply.

  7. Investing · 9 min read

    What Makes an Investment Bubble?

    What future does the price require, can new investment earn its cost of capital, and who is financing the expansion? Three questions for judging how fragile a boom has become.

  8. Self-improvement · 10 min read

    Peter Thiel on Substance over Status

    What Thiel's arguments about competition, credentials, and career choices can teach young people—and where his advice needs qualification.

  9. AI · 13 min read

    Li Lu on AI: The Risk of Treating a Machine as a God

    AI can transform the economy and still disappoint investors. Li Lu's Columbia discussion offers a way to think about price, China, geopolitics, and what compounds over a lifetime.

  10. Self-improvement · 14 min read

    Don't Waste Your Life Being Ordinary

    Time cannot be bought back. Use it to build judgment, useful work, trust, and health, so each year leaves you with more than a full calendar.

  11. Self-improvement · 9 min read

    At 69, Sequoia's Doug Leone still runs on fear

    Doug Leone describes fear as a reason to keep changing. His experience suggests how a specific worry can lead to action, and why living in constant fear is a different matter.

  12. Self-improvement · 12 min read

    Years From Now, You'll Wish You Had Given It Ten Years

    A long-term commitment changes more than how long you persist. It changes your measure of success, bringing future regret, compounding, and opportunity cost into today's choices.

  13. Investing · 9 min read

    The stock market is a wealth amplifier, not a money machine

    For a young person, investing in your ability to earn often matters most. Build that first, then let saving and long-term investing multiply what you have built.

  14. Investing · 11 min read

    Waiting Is Not Compounding

    Nike's turnaround tests a long-term investor's patience. What evidence would justify waiting, and when would the capital be better used elsewhere?

  15. AI · 7 min read

    Everyone wants GPUs. Why are CPUs running short?

    As AI moves from producing answers to completing tasks, its bottlenecks shift. Follow an agent's workflow to understand rising CPU demand—and what would make the shortage last.

  16. Investing · 1 min read

    Build a thesis you can challenge

    Understand how a business creates value, then identify the evidence that could change your mind.

  17. AI · 1 min read

    Give AI a job, not a wish list

    Evaluate a tool against a real task, including the time it takes to check and repair its output.

  18. Self-improvement · 9 min read

    The nature of consumption

    Change the label on the same bottle of wine, and it tastes different. For anyone who sells a service, everything before delivery is the evidence a client uses to judge you.

  19. Investing · 9 min read

    Investing requires thinking one level up

    The people who bought PetroChina in 2007 and Moutai in 2014 were not answering the same question when they placed their orders. Look one level higher at a time: time, probability, structure, where returns come from, and yourself.

  20. Self-improvement · 4 min read

    How a person's understanding of value grows

    Some judgments show how much you understand only after you have used them in your own life. A single choice of apartment shows how experience fills in the costs you left out.

  21. AI · 4 min read

    Respect the bubble

    Between judging that valuations are too high and judging when prices will fall lie shifts in capital, interests, and expectations. An industry that adjusts on its own makes short sellers pay for the wait.

All essays

I’m Dr. Solo Primus, Assistant Professor.

Solo Primus is my English pen name; I write as 凌霄 (Lingxiao) in Chinese. The mountain and winding path in my mark reflect how I approach life: choose my own direction, draw on tools and ideas that help me go further, and keep learning along the way. Each step matters, and there is always more to discover.

More about me

How I think

  • Frameworks before forecasts.
  • Write down what would change my mind.
  • Count the whole cost, not only the visible part.
  • Revise when the evidence changes.

Subscribe

One essay every Sunday, to keep you company on the way up.

Follow on Substack or add the RSS feed to your reader. Every essay is free to read.

Readers around the world

Different time zones. A shared space for thought.

Today’s visitors
…
All-time visitors
…

Visitors are counted by IP. The day resets at midnight in California, with daylight saving time applied automatically. City names are inferred from IPs and may reflect a proxy or network exit.

Rotating globe of IP-based visitor cities and regions
No visitor regions to display yet