The Behavioral Economics Guide 2021
Stripe Atlas: the first five years and 20,000 startups
It is something I don’t talk about very often but I love science, biology , biotech and in I try to stay up to date on these topics so from time to time I try to read scientific divulgation books.
I had some pending books on my “to-read list” so in November I bought three of those books (birthday present to myself) and spent the Christmas holidays reading them. I’ll share some notes in this post.
1. The emperor of all Maladies: This has become a classic book on the subject of cancer and has received extensive media coverage (it even became a PBS documentary). The books tells the story of cancer, how the first treatments were developed and why it is so complex and hard to cure. Some Insights and facts that caught my attention reading this book:
2 . I Contain Multitudes: We have always perceived microbes and parasites as something to avoid at all costs, they are to blame for terrible diseases. Ed Yong’s book take us on a tour to the latest research about microbes and gives a more nuanced and balanced view about these very special creatures that live inside and among us.
With the use of Metagenomics we are now able to detect at a very precise degree, what combination of microbes exist in a biological sample. The latests research shows that microbes are very relevant to our general well-being, so we shouldn’t try to avoid them,and instead we should strive to get a balanced mix of microbes. They not only influence how we digest food. They play a major role in our complete immune system, our mental well being and are related to diseases as Autism, IBD, Depression and Obesity to name a few. The immune system isn’t just a means of controlling microbes. It is at least partly controlled by microbes.
It has been shown that the use of Probiotics doesn’t really make a big difference in our gut microbiome balance, but when we eat certain foods, we feed our microbes and indirectly promote the growth of some microbes over the other, this is called Prebiotics.
Just as genetic sequencing gave birth to companies like 23andMe offering sequencing as a commercial product to end users. There are a few companies now that can give you personalized health recommendations based on your gut biome and also early success stories in therapeutic use.
It is worth noting that, as a Science Journalist, Ed Yong made a terrific job covering Covid-19 during 2020 in the Atlantic. I also recommend taking a look at his TED talk.
3. Editing Humanity: This is the most recent of the three books. It covers the story of how the new CRISPR gene editing techniques developed. The scientists and labs behind them (also the patent disputes). The breakthroughs and innovation in disease treatment currently being developed and the inevitable arrival of the possibility of human genomic editing and the implications to us as a society.
CRISPR is part of the bacteria inmune system, it is a mechanism that allow bacteria to defend against viruses by cutting their DNA ( viruses are some of the bacterias fiercest enemies).
This book, tells the story of how the mechanism was first discovered by a Spanish scientist and confirmed by some researchers from a Danish dairy company, then it describes how this mechanism was engineered (taking advantage of the latest mRNA research) , so that we could tell the enzymes the exact piece of DNA to cut and replace it with a new sequence.
The book also explains how error prone the first experiments where with the basic CRISPR Cas9 mechanism and how the technology is evolving to become a precise “molecular editor” capable of replacing single bases without cutting DNA.
One major difference in the approach to gene editing is whether it used to edit someone cell to repair an unwanted mutation that causes a disease (somatic gene editing) versus editing a single reproductive cell or gamete, just before the fertilization takes places.
The first approach involves fixing DNA in millions of cells and is error prone, the second approach involves just editing one single cell but it makes the change heritable, so it basically implies the potential ability to alter human evolution. This has triggered a lot of debate in the scientific community, specially because most of the tools and supplies to perform have a very low barrier to entry.
Final Thoughts
Since I read Ray Kurzweil’s book The Singularity Is Near: When Humans Transcend Biology (back in 2005) I have tried to follow up on the promise of Genetics, Nanotechnology and Robotics. Of the three , I guess Nanotechnology really has not delivered on Kurzweil expectations (who by the way , works at Google since 2012), but Robotics has continued to evolve to a very impressive degree, you can check the Boston Dynamics Christmas christmas robot dance.
But of the three, I think nothing has evolved as fast, as genetics and biotech in general.
We have been hearing that software is eating the world, but now we also now that bio is eating the world. Advances in Biotechnology are evolving at neck breaking speed. Just a few years ago this all sounded like science fiction but just as I was finished reading these books DeepMind announced the Protein Folding problem has practically been solved.
Like the Silicon Valley Startup ecosystem, there is a whole ecosystem of biotech startups. This is also leading to a whole new wave of investment opportunities.
Having the ability to edit genes in a precise way while also solving the folding problem are two major achievements, I wonder why they receive so little attention.
I am sure in the following years (months?) we will be hearing a lot of new discoveries and breakthroughs.
Mexico’s President Is Spoiling for a Fight With Washington.
Managing Your Investments Late in the Cycle: Nobody knows for sure whether equities will keep rising or for how long, but knowing a little market history can help ease the anxiety.
The Rise and Fall of Bitcoin Billionaire Arthur Hayes.
On Attitudes to Risk: GameStop, Covid and how we perceive Risk.
Worrisome New Coronavirus Strains Are Emerging. Why Now? (Wired)
The problem with prediction: Cognitive scientists and corporations alike see human minds as predictive machines. Right or wrong, they will change how we think
What to Know About Music’s Copyright Gold Rush.
Virgin Hyperloop Releases Concept Video of Future We Want to Become Reality (Gizmondo):
Currencies, Commodities, Collectibles and Cryptos (from NYU’s Prof. Aswath Damodaran)
The Bit Short: Inside Crypto’s Doomsday Machine
Both Michael Lewis (The Big Short” , “Moneyball”) and Malcolm Gladwell (“Outliers”, “The Tipping Point”) have new books.
Superforecasting: The Art & Science of Prediction (Book Summary from Richard Hughes Jones)
The Unauthorized Story of Andreessen Horowitz
Ten computer codes that transformed science: From Fortran to arXiv.org, these advances in programming and platforms sent biology, climate science and physics into warp speed.
Two interesting profiles on the Reddit Gamestop craze in NYT and WSJ ( via Matt Levine’s Money Stuff).
So You Turned $300k Into $3 Million. Now What?
The 2020 Jazz Critics Poll: It’s After The End Of The World
In 2018 Morgan Housel (ex-WSJ columnist and Collaborative Fund partner) wrote a report outlining the most important flaws, biases, and causes of “Bad Behaviour” affecting people’s dealing with their money, the report became very popular, so he decided to write a book and deep dive into those topics. These are some notes from the book:
The book ends with two additional chapters , chapter 19 summarizes the previous points. And chapter 20 gives an account of how the author manages his finances when it comes to savings and investing.
At the end of the book there is one additional Chapter that gives an account of why the average us consumer think the way they do (from an Historical Perspective).
I enjoyed the book, it does a good work summarizing some of the most common cognitive bias applied to finance and money.
On Chess and Concentration: Unless we can learn to concentrate better, we have no chance of perceiving, thinking, talking and deciding in the ways required of us in the 21st century.
How Claude Shannon Invented the Future
This Year’s Underground Sensation: Modern Monetary Theory
Notes on technology in the 2020s
A little better all the time in 2021