Latest Posts

• ESG funds: Does what's inside count?

  I have been very pleased with the performance of my index ETFs. I tell myself it’s because of their low cost and the fact that they’re passive. But I’d like to make my portfolio more sustainable, more future-proof. So I’ve been looking at the ESG-labelled exchange-traded funds of some of the biggest fund managers, and I’ve noticed something about nearly all the funds I look at.

  10 min read

• Effective altruism and money

  The world has many very serious problems. Perhaps you care about the state of the world and fate of the people in it, as I do. And so you might think a lot about your impact and the consequences of your actions. I suppose you could call it worry. I certainly worry about making mistakes and causing harm to people and the environment on which we all depend.

  10 min read

• Sustainability and investing for impact

  I’m unusual in my circle of friends because I like to talk about saving money for the future. I like to talk about what I’m doing to save for the future, and I like asking them what they’re doing.

  7 min read

• We are screwed but you still have options

  Do you feel helpless when you think about the ecological crisis? Do you feel like nobody around you seems to care, or if they do, that they don’t know what to do? Do you feel like politicians talk a lot and do little? Do you feel like your vote doesn’t matter?

  7 min read

• Compensation is correlated with the level of abstraction

  I grew up in a family that placed a high value on professional qualifications. My mother was a teacher, my father an engineer, and after many years of resistance I eventually trained as an engineer myself.

  4 min read

• Attention determines outcomes

  How do some people manage to be so prolific? They focus, they establish routines, they work consistently, and they use all the time available to them to think about the right things.

  4 min read

• Debates worth having, people worth debating

  There are two kinds of debate. There’s debate that leaves all its participants better informed, rich with new insight and new questions. Then there’s “debate” that is in reality an exchange of provocations that leaves everybody angry and frustrated.

  9 min read

• When something is hard to do, it's a sign

  When we think about things that are hard, we should think about gradients.

  2 min read

• How to succeed even if you are a nobody.

  Here’s some bad news. You are a nobody.

  10 min read