What I Am Reading:

AI can restore the middle-class jobs lost to automation
AI is indeed changing the labor market, see the flood of news articles on layoffs happening in part due to companies’ priorities shifting to AI. Now a new working paper from Massachusetts Institute of Technology economist David Autor says that the shift presents a unique opportunity: AI could enable more workers to perform higher-stakes, decision-making tasks that are currently relegated to highly-educated workers such as doctors and lawyers.

How LVMH Helped Turn an Abandoned Miami Warehouse District Into a Luxury Hot Spot

When Miami developer Craig Robins welcomed LVMH Chief Executive Bernard Arnault to his office in the city’s Design District, there was little about the gritty neighborhood to suggest it would ever become a mecca for luxury goods. 

The dozen blocks consisted of squat, single-story concrete warehouses, furniture showrooms, and empty lots. But the two men shared a vision that the area could evolve into a SoHo of the south. By the end of the meeting, Arnault agreed to form a new company with Robins that would buy properties in the district and transform them into stores featuring posh brands from the French company and others.

How to think about time
We’re stuck with the past. But you can dress it up in different ways. Often, what happened in the past is affected in the future because ‘what happened’ depends on how things turn out. Whether some past purchase was a lucrative investment decision depends on what happens to the investment after the decision.

Even if you reasoned really well, if your prediction didn’t pan out, you lose the money. If you met someone for a coffee and it turns out that this was the first meeting of the relationship that defines your life, then the coffee was a different kind of event than of a coffee meeting that leads nowhere and has no later significance.

Scientists Find an ‘Alphabet’ in Whale Songs
Sperm whales rattle off pulses of clicks while swimming together, raising the possibility that they’re communicating in a complex language.

Are animals conscious? Some scientists now think they are
Charles Darwin enjoys a near god-like status among scientists for his theory of evolution. But his ideas that animals are conscious in the same way humans are have long been shunned. Until now. "There is no fundamental difference between man and animals in their ability to feel pleasure and pain, happiness, and misery," Darwin wrote.

But his suggestion that animals think and feel was seen as scientific heresy among many, if not most animal behaviour experts. Attributing consciousness to animals based on their responses was seen as a cardinal sin. The argument went that projecting human traits, feelings, and behaviours onto animals had no scientific basis and there was no way of testing what goes on in animals’ minds. But if new evidence emerges of animals’ abilities to feel and process what is going on around them, could that mean they are, in fact, conscious?

Giving Before You Get: Understanding the Psychology of Family Office Investing
The Family Office sector, representing an estimated $10 trillion in assets, is poised for an extraordinary wealth transfer estimated at $84.4 trillion over the next few decades. This massive shift of wealth, primarily driven by aging baby boomers passing on their fortunes to the next generation, is reshaping the landscape of Family Offices and presenting unique opportunities and challenges for investors.

Chimpanzees ‘self-medicate’ with healing plants
Wild chimpanzees eat plants that have pain-relieving and anti-bacterial properties to heal themselves, according to scientists. They described their “detective work” in the forests of Uganda - observing animals that appeared injured or sick to work out whether they were self-medicating with plants.

When an injured animal sought out something specific from the forest to eat, the researchers collected samples of that plant and had it analyzed. Most of the plants tested turned out to have antibacterial properties.

What I am Watching:

A.I. Revolution
Can we harness the power of artificial intelligence to solve the world’s most challenging problems without creating an uncontrollable force that ultimately destroys us? ChatGPT and other new A.I. tools can now answer complex questions, write essays, and generate realistic-looking images in a matter of seconds. They can even pass a lawyer’s bar exam. Should we celebrate? Or worry? Or both? Correspondent Miles O’Brien investigates how researchers are trying to transform the world using A.I., hunting for big solutions in fields from medicine to climate change.

Marc Rowan at the 2024 Investment Conference
Marc Rowan is co-founder and CEO of Apollo Global Management, Inc. He currently serves on the boards of directors of Apollo Global Management, Inc., Athene Holding Ltd. and Athora Holding Ltd. Currently, Mr. Rowan is Chair of the Board of Advisors of the Wharton School of Business at the University of Pennsylvania. In addition, he is involved in public policy and is an initial funder and contributor to the development of the Penn Wharton Budget Model, a nonpartisan research initiative which provides analysis of public policy’s fiscal impact.

What I am Listening To:

Howard Morgan: Insights from an Uber Successful Tech and VC Legend
Howard Morgan’s inimitable career began with his early and prescient interest in computers. In fact, Howard has been on email for 51 years! He is currently the Chair and General Partner of B Capital. He is considered one of the pioneers of early-stage investing, having co-founded First Round Capital alongside Josh Kopelman, which was the first professional seed stage fund and the first institutional investor in Uber.

Prior to First Round, Howard helped found Idealab with Bill Gross, and served as President of Renaissance Technologies, which he co-founded with Jim Simons. Renaissance Technologies is the best performing investment firm of all time, and its mysterious and famous Medallion Fund is considered to be the most successful fund ever.