Temporal Pincers & Two Thoughts
Updates!
Monthly Rewind: Your guide to insider news and opportunities across the O'Shaughnessy Ventures ecosystem.
1. Two Thoughts: Pre-order Now!
Two Thoughts: a Timeless Collection of Infinite Wisdom is now available for pre-order (with exclusive bonus goodies!)
This lovingly made book, co-authored by Jim and OSV teammate Vatsal Kaushik, captures the essence of human thought and experience, presenting 500 insights from 250 of the world's most influential minds.
In a self-help market full of empty-calorie listicles and one-size-fits-all prescriptions, Two Thoughts offers something better: hard-earned, timeless wisdom.
Plus… it’s so pretty!
If you pre-order from our website right now (yes, now!), you will get some exclusive bonuses:
📚A vibrant hardcover featuring a cloth spine, elegant stamping, premium 100 GSM paper, UV spot cover, debossing, ribbon bookmark, and durable sewn binding.
🎧[Bonus] Audiobook featuring exclusive interviews with Morgan Housel, Anna Gát, and Rory Sutherland
📱[Bonus] E-book in PDF and EPUB formats
🎁[Bonus] Beautiful vinyl stickers and an Infinite Books bookmark
All of that for $34.95 USD.
2. On Linguistic Reshuffles, Stubborn Beliefs, Defiant Physicians & Getting Shit Done
unleashed his theory of The Great (Linguistic) Reshuffle, which posits that we may be on the precipice of a new epoch for human exploration, fuelled by the dissolving of language barriers. Rahul brought some of his
calling cards to this essay, namely insanely deep research and a cornucopia of historical references. Guaranteed to get you thinking!We still have a lot to learn from the sad story of Dr. Semmelweis.
What links an Australian physician, an American quantum scientist, and a legendary French impressionist? This does!
Having trouble getting shit done? This may help.
3. Temporal-Pincer Time
A rogues gallery of OSV friends and teammates jumped on ’s podcast to deconstruct Tenet, Christopher Nolan’s time-bending, brain-boggling, nerve-jattering action-thriller. Very fun!
4. Fellowship Corner
The O’Shaughnessy Fellowship is here to back your boldest, most eye-wateringly ambitious idea. And we’re ready to drop $100k into your lap to make it happen. Applications for our next cohort open on January 1, 2025.
Here’s what some of our current Fellows and Grantees have been up to:
The trailer for software engineer and linguist Jack Connor’s Endangered Voices doc is live. It looks awesome.
Product design engineer Ian Davis is building an affordable, user-assembled prosthetic hand device. His story is remarkable.
Filmmaker Jason Carman has been busy. As well as spinning up a “historic” format of his S3 documentary series to deep dive into the lore and inventions of Bell Labs, he has released multiple S3 episodes, including on the company leading the photonic revolution (which has since crossed 1.4M views on YouTube). Oh, and his YouTube hit 100k subscribers 🚀🚀
Musician Justh has casually racked up 2.1 BILLION views across YouTube’s platforms for his song “Chor.” Listen to the song here.
Podcast host, progress blogger, and high-school dropout Arjun Khemani interviewed David Deutsch.
Miyoba Hamuhuma was featured in a Facebook post by the U.S. embassy in Zambia. Miyoba is the founder of Enlight Abilities, a Zambian organization that empowers people with disabilities by linking them with government social security programs.
PhD researcher and prize-winning science communicator Maria Violaris’ Quantum Foundations podcast crossed 1k subscribers. Maria is also joining a podcast with our Fellow, Curt Jaimungal, on quantum “no-go” theories.
Author, novelist, playwright, poet, top ten Irish musician, and upcoming Infinite Loops guest published this article for the Irish Times, digging into the “invisible problem with children’s books” - the gap between picture and young fiction books.
5 Jim on Advik Kapoor’s podcast
Jim visited the Revamped Founder podcast, hosted by 16-year-old Advik Kapoor. Advik has since launched a micro-crowdfunding platform for young builders.
6. The Prolific Alex Petkas
Friend & media partner of OSV, Alex Petkas, host of the Cost of Glory podcast, keeps shipping:
Julian the Apostate’s lessons on how (not) to revive a religion;
His episode on the notoriously stubborn, principled, Caesar-hating politician/stoic Cato the Younger is live.
7. Interintellect + Vatsal Kaushik: The Story of Civilization
Our in-house Mr-Meeseeks, Vatsal Kaushik, will be hosting an Interintellect Salon on March 15, 2025, on the first volume of Will and Ariel Durant’s magisterial The Story of Civilization (included on our Infinite Loops Canon list).
“In this salon, we will aim to discuss:
The nature and elements of civilizations: Economic, political, morality, religion, science, arts
Big picture history of ancient civilizations in Egypt, India, China, Japan, and the commonalities across them
Will Durant’s “integral” writing style which makes history a literary experience instead of academic
Comparing Our Oriental Heritage with other volumes in the series
The reception of Our Oriental Heritage in 1935, and its legacy and relevance today
This salon is for anyone who is primarily interested in the viewing history from a philosophical and big picture angle, as this book does. This is the only book in the Story of Civilization series that focuses on non-European regions, so interest and insights into Eastern regions will make the conversation richer as well.”
8. Infinite Loops
Exploring Indus Valley: Sajith Pai is a GP at Blume Ventures, one of India’s largest homegrown VC firms. He's known for his prolific writing and sharp frameworks, which have become part of Indian startup canon over the past decade. He provides us with a crash course to understanding India in the 21st century.
How to Live an Extraordinary Life: Investor, entrepreneur, and media powerhouse Anthony Pompliano digs into some of the hard-earned insights he’s accumulated from investing in circa 200 companies, serving in Iraq with the U.S. Army, building & selling multiple businesses, and creating one of the world’s largest independent media platforms.
On Mathematical Beethovens, Decentralized Education & the Voyage to the Human Brain: Mathematician, educator, and investor Professor Luis Seco joins us to discuss how maths resembles Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony, the future of the ‘metaversity,’ the most important lesson Luis gives his students and why investing isn’t what it used to be.
How to Think About Biology: Parmita Mishra, a computational biologist and the founder & CEO of Precigenetics, joins us for a deep dive into cutting-edge biology.
Max Meyer Launched a Print Magazine in 2024. Here’s Why.: Arena Magazine proprietor Max Meyer explains why he launched a print magazine in 2024, WTF happened to legacy media, the wisdom of Ratatouille, and more.
Playing the (Mind) Jazz: Michael Garfield, a paleontologist/futurist/writer/podcast host/strategic advisor, explores how we can live curious, collaborative, and fulfilling lives in our deeply weird, complex, probabilistic world.
Making A Point: Pointhound CEO and founder Jay Reno digs into his advice for first-time founders, his learnings from building Pointhound (a credit card points optimization platform), the whimsical world of credit card point programs, his thoughts on consumer psychology, and much more.
As ever, for root access to your humanOS, you can dig into our back catalog of 247 episodes (and counting).
In the meantime, Jim’s Two Thoughts series continues to deliver doses of wisdom straight into your inbox every Sunday. *Be warned: these quotes have been known to trigger insatiable curiosity.*
Ad Astra, Ex Libris 📚🚀
I hope you enjoy the podcast, it was so much fun to record! 💚 🥃