Matt MacInnis(@stanine):A tiny number of investors are capable of thinking about an investment opportunity from first principles. That's masked in peacetime by the (midwitted) investment checklists of those who can't. In a wartime market like this, where AI has invalidated every investing assumption, these checklists don't work. The result is an ocean of investors with (1) no framework for decision making, (2) no capacity for first-principles evaluation, and (3) extreme FOMO, which yields what Brett describes. This is why venture returns are a power law, and why the best investors are going to slay in this environment. And the midwits are going to get slayed.

2026.10.16 21:58

A tiny number of investors are capable of thinking about an investment opportunity from first principles. That's masked in peacetime by the (midwitted) investment checklists of those who can't. In a wartime market like this, where AI has invalidated every investing assumption, these checklists don't work. The result is an ocean of investors with (1) no framework for decision making, (2) no capacity for first-principles evaluation, and (3) extreme FOMO, which yields what Brett describes. This is why venture returns are a power law, and why the best investors are going to slay in this environment. And the midwits are going to get slayed.