2025 May Digest

Some of the best content I came across in May was from YouTube, with a particular focus on personal finance.

YouTube Videos

Interview with Morgan Housel

The Psychology of Money: Timeless Lessons on Wealth, Greed, and Happiness by Morgan Housel is one of the best books on personal finance I’ve read in recent years. Naturally, I was excited about watching this interview. Housel asserts that understanding personal behavior and mindset towards money is more crucial than knowing how to pick stocks or manage accounts.

• Rich is having enough money to buy desired things and cover expenses ("you have money in the bank"). This is often about spending. Wealth is unspent money which gives you Independence and autonomy and just the ability to wake up every morning and do whatever you want with your with your life.
• Much of consumer spending is driven by the desire to impress others. Housel argues that realizing people are more interested in themselves than in your possessions is a profoundly valuable financial skill. "Nobody is thinking about you as much as you are, nobody cares about your stuff as much as you do, nobody cares about your car or your house or your clothes or your jewelry as much as you do".
• Buying a House is Primarily a Lifestyle Decision, Not Necessarily a Good Financial Investment: Housel argues against buying a house solely for financial gain, particularly for young people who may need mobility. Historically, adjusted for inflation, housing prices have often remained relatively flat, and recent surges are an anomaly.
• Saving Money is the Core Strategy for Building Wealth and Gaining Independence: For someone starting with limited income, the most important action is to save. This saving directly translates into future independence and control. When it comes to investment - consistent, long-term investing (like dollar-cost averaging into index funds) is far more effective than trying to time the market or pick individual stocks. The power lies in compounding over decades.
• Compounding Applies Negatively as Well: While compounding is celebrated for building wealth, it also applies to negative habits and outcomes (like smoking, poor sleep, stress), slowly accumulating significant negative consequences over time.
• Making Money and Keeping Money Require Different Skills: Gaining wealth often involves optimism and taking risks. Preserving wealth requires conservatism, awareness of unknown risks, and financial flexibility to endure unpredictable events.
• Managing Expectations is Crucial for Happiness. Happiness is not solely determined by absolute income or net worth, but by the gap between circumstances and expectations. Rising expectations faster than income leads to dissatisfaction. Comparison is the "thief of joy" because it constantly raises our expectations.

Interview with Scott Galloway

• When you’re young, leverage your greatest advantages—flexibility and time. Take uncomfortable risks, because at this stage in life, you can afford to. Focus on discovering your talent rather than chasing passion. Start saving and investing early, and use forced savings mechanisms to build wealth over time. Consider moving to a “super city” where opportunities are abundant. Develop a strong work ethic, and learn to ask for what you want.
• As you get older, prioritize alignment with your partner in your relationship. By this point, you’ll have a better sense of your earning power and the amount you need to retire—use that to work backwards and create a plan. Diversify your accumulated capital to preserve wealth. Learn strategic tax management, and leverage the relationships and network you’ve built. Begin the transition from earner to owner.
• Nothing truly wonderful—or offering outsized returns—happens without taking risks. That means building the resilience to tolerate risk and rejection. Slow down when making big decisions. Seek diverse perspectives from experts. Quickly screen out and decide on low-impact matters. Stay open to changing your mind.
• Economic certainty reduces anxiety. Remember: money is a means to a fulfilling life—not the end itself. Ultimately, fulfillment comes from deep, meaningful relationships. Spend money to create memorable experiences with your loved ones. Define your “enough,” work because you want to—not because you have to—and give money away.

Scaling the Tech Career Ladder: Philip Su's Journey

Philip Su, a distinguished engineer (IC9) who has worked at Microsoft, Meta (Facebook), and OpenAI. The discussion covers his career trajectory, lessons learned from working with prominent figures like Mark Zuckerberg and John Carmack, perspectives on management versus individual contribution, and his views on the future of technology.

• Philip Su identifies a combination of luck, talent, and hard work as the primary contributors to rapid career advancement. While acknowledging that talent has natural limitations, he strongly emphasizes the impact of being willing to "outwork everybody" of equal talent and luck. However, he also cautions that this often comes at the expense of work-life balance and health.
• While acknowledging diminishing returns on productivity per hour beyond a certain point, Su argues that working significantly longer hours early in a career can provide a disproportionate amount of experience and accelerate learning. He draws an analogy to surgical residencies, where long hours are seen as a way to gain vast experience quickly. However, he explicitly states he doesn't recommend this approach due to its impact on other aspects of life.
• Su has fluctuated between individual contributor (IC) and management roles throughout his career, driven by his preference for IC work but also a willingness to step into management when needed or when a team is poorly managed. He views this as a "two-way door" that he has intentionally kept open, which is not common for many people. He advises those considering management to be sensitive to the risk of entering a "one-way door" that makes returning to an IC role difficult.
• Su's key framework for determining readiness for leadership is to ask: "Would you want to work for you?" He believes effective managers need people to genuinely want to work for them, and this requires self-improvement and demonstrating qualities that inspire others.
• A significant point is Su's experience requesting a demotion from E9 (Distinguished Engineer) to E7 (Senior Staff Engineer) when transitioning from a site director role to an IC role on the Oculus team. He emphasizes the importance of being leveled appropriately for one's contributions and the feeling of "impostor syndrome" when over-leveled. He notes that many people are unwilling or unable to do this due to ego or lifestyle constraints tied to compensation.
• Su describes increasing seniority levels (E5/6, E7, E8/9 at Meta) not just by the number of people influenced, but significantly by the qualitative nature of their impact. Higher levels involve guaranteeing the delivery of larger and longer-term projects, driving technical direction for larger teams, and being consulted on key strategic decisions. At the highest levels (E8/9), qualitative differences become paramount – being irreplaceable, being a "force multiplier" for teams, and possessing vision and strategic understanding that cannot be replicated by simply adding more junior people.
• Su highlights that promotions to the highest IC levels (E8/9) are less about ticking off a bulleted list of requirements and more about a qualitative judgment by those already at those levels. He likens it to becoming a university professor, where it's the judgment of peers that ultimately determines readiness, and the reasons for success vary greatly across individuals.
• Su identifies himself as a generalist and believes that generalists are often more valuable in smaller companies and startups due to the need for individuals to handle a wider variety of tasks before a company is large enough to hire full-time specialists for each function. Specialists, on the other hand, may have an edge in larger organizations where deep expertise is required. He cautions against specializing too early in a career, especially given the potential for certain specialties to become irrelevant (e.g., due to AI).
• Looking back, Su advises his younger self to spend more time clarifying his values and what he truly wants before pursuing goals aggressively. He speaks to the potential for depression after achieving a major career goal and the importance of having a mental model for what comes next. He also reflects on the personal cost of extreme work hours, acknowledging that while it can accelerate career growth, it can also damage relationships and other aspects of life.

Slope Over Intercept

Exploring the intersections of data, engineering, and product management

Slope Over InterceptRobert Chang