Welcome to The Nightcrawler, a weekly collection of thought-provoking articles and analysis on technology, innovation, and long-term investing. The Nightcrawler is published every Friday evening by Eric Markowitz, Nightview Capital’s Director of Research.

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In this evening’s email… 

Quote of the week: “Doubt is not a pleasant condition, but certainty is absurd.” Voltaire

Embracing uncertainty as a competitive edge 

In a recent memo, the investor Howard Marks explores the “folly of certainty” across markets, politics, and life in general. The essay is a sound reminder to accept the inevitable unpredictability of all things. 

Quoting John Kenneth Galbraith, Marks emphasizes: “There are two kinds of forecasters: those who don’t know, and those who don’t know they don’t know.” As he has done in previous essays, Marks advocates for intellectual humility, recognizing our limitations in predicting the future. Ultimately, his idea is simple: embrace doubt and humility to make more careful, informed decisions. And avoid the pitfalls of overconfidence across markets and life.

• Key quote: “There simply is no place for certainty in fields that are influenced by psychological fluctuations, irrationality, and randomness. Politics and economics are two such fields, and investing is another. No one can predict reliably what the future holds in these fields, but many people overrate their ability and attempt to do so nevertheless. Eschewing certainty can keep you out of trouble. I strongly recommend doing so.”

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How humanity has benefitted from a technological renaissance 

As the progress of AI has accelerated recently, the debates between the techno-optimists and techno-doomsdayers have intensified. The trillion-dollar question, of course, is whether AI has the potential to transform civilization for the good of humanity—or destroy it. 

While this question may seem new—and indeed some elements are—the fact is that people throughout history have always grappled with (and resisted) the introduction of transformational new technologies.

In a smart essay for BigThink, Jason Crawford takes the longer-term view on how technology has shaped culture and society over the last several centuries. His major takeaway is clear: “Technology grants capabilities but also creates new hazards,” he writes. “But these hazards, too, we learn to control—and we are far better at this today than in the past.” He continues: 

• Key quote: “We have radical agency over our information diet as well—even though that is a contrarian position today. In the past, people heard what news happened to reach them, often via gossip and hearsay; now we have instant access to all the information in the world. Despite algorithmic feeds and social media bubbles, we have much more ability than at any time in history to escape our provincial worldview and adopt a more cosmopolitan one. Before printed books and libraries, fact-checking was near impossible; before the Internet, it was often prohibitively difficult; now it is almost trivial. Few people exercise these abilities as much as they should—but that has always been the case, and those who do exercise them have an outsized influence on the world. “

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The link between investing and investigative reporting

I recently had the pleasure of being interviewed by the investor and author Bogumil Baranowski on his podcast, “Talking Billions.” For those that don’t already follow Bogumil, I recommend his newsletter, available here, in which he writes about investing, family wealth, stock picking, and more.

Bogumil and I talked about a range of subjects, but my favorite topic is about the first leg of my career as a business journalist and how those skills do (and don’t) translate to long-term investing—a subject I’ve written about in the past. The episode is available on Spotify, YouTube, and Substack.

• Key quote: “Business is just a reflection of culture, society and the motivations of humans. Business tells the story of the world. Being a reporter gave me access to those people and to get to explore those stories.”

A few more links I enjoyed: 

Why Levittown Didn’t Revolutionize Homebuilding – via Brian Potter

• Key quote: “For decades, people have tried to bring mass production methods to housing: to build houses the way we build cars. While no one has succeeded, arguably the man that came closest to becoming ‘the Henry Ford of homebuilding; was William Levitt, with his company Levitt and Sons. Levitt is most famous for building ‘Levittowns,’ developments of thousands of homes built rapidly in the 1940s, ‘50s, and ‘60s. By optimizing the construction process with improvements like standardized products and reverse assembly line techniques, Levitt and Sons was able to complete dozens of homes a day at what it claimed was a far lower cost than its competitors.”

“Accelerating Wisdom” Episode 2: Revealing Attractors featuring Anne-Laure Le Cunff – via Tom Morgan / The Leading Edge

• Key quote: “Collecting stepping stones means making space for novel experiments in your life and business. Being open to attractors is essential to orienting us in the right direction in life. It shows you where to point your boat. Then we need to then take active steps to see if the wind fills our sails. This means conducting experiments. This episode’s expert is neuroscientist and curiosity expert Anne-Laure Le Cunff. She’s written some great pieces about the specifics of structuring experiments to facilitate curiosity. Our interview goes into much more detail on the specifics of curiosity and structuring personal experiments.”

From the archives:

Ken Burns Commencement Addresss – Stanford, 2016

• Key quote: “Free yourselves from the limitations of the binary world. It is just a tool. A means, not an end. Seek out – and have – mentors. Listen to them. The late theatrical director Tyrone Guthrie once said, ‘We are looking for ideas large enough to be afraid of again.’ Embrace those new ideas. Bite off more than you can chew.”