Updates

  1. Person pages list letters, writing, profiles and links as sortable tables with filters, and show each person's companies as links; Fund letters show each letter's description in its own column.
  2. Experts show a checked job title and a short description of each person; 30 more people have photographs.
  3. Every company, fund, university and publication the experts work for has a page listing the people there.
  4. Fund letters show each letter's thesis and filter by it; 225 person pages list the essays, columns and newsletter issues the person wrote.
  5. Person pages list every essay and newsletter issue a person wrote, and their own books as a table in List view.
  6. Recommends shows the five largest kinds of book and the rest under More; browse pictures load sooner.
  7. Podcasts and talks link the original episode, filter by Audio and video or Press, and list each publisher once.
  8. Pages are wider, Recommends has List and Grid, and a filter clicked again turns off.
  9. Book cards sit in a ruled grid with Open Library and Goodreads links and each book's one-line note.
  10. Funds is now Investors; each investor's styles are buttons that filter the table.
  11. Podcasts and talks on a person's page filter by year and publisher and show as a list or a grid of pictures.
  12. Quotes show only people's own words: 472 summaries written by list sites are gone.
  13. Country pages open from Browse again, and every link on the shelf lands on a page.
  14. Subject and person pages show their sections as tabs, and each book appears once on a person's page.
  15. Book cards show the quote, who said it and the source; grids show five cards to a row.
  16. On a phone, a menu holds the sections, search, Updates, Feedback and dark mode.
  17. Feedback takes a screenshot of the page with no browser prompt, opens a screenshot full size when you click it, and clears itself once sent.
  18. Book cards are centred, search names the topic each book sits in, and any text cut short shows whole on hover.
  19. Search groups its results by kind: people, companies, geographies, subjects, topics, books, funds, fund letters and papers.
  20. The Books table lists who recommended each book by name, and the browser tab names the section you are in.
  21. Feedback can take a screenshot of the page, or one you paste or choose, and opens in the corner beside Updates.
  22. Each rail button reopens its section where you left it, and Browse, Table and People show on every book and subject page.
  23. Filters grey out choices that hold nothing instead of hiding them, and Books › People filters by authors or recommenders.
  24. Feedback takes a subject line and up to three screenshots.
  25. Biographies are grouped by the person they are about: 41 new pages, from Abraham Lincoln to Lee Kuan Yew.
  26. Sport splits into 23 sports, and Religion into one topic per faith.
  27. Book lists show as cards: the cover, one recommendation quote and every recommender by name.
  28. Seventeen subjects that had two or three pages under different names now have one page each.
  29. Every page lists its Experts as authors and recommenders, with a link to them on the Experts tab.
  30. Economics, Financial history, Financial panics and Accounting are subjects of their own, with one page per financial crisis.
  31. Book, person and subject pages open inside the app, so the tabs stay in view.
  32. 996 more book covers, and photographs or logos for 227 more people and companies.
  33. Books › Browse shows every subject as cards, and the rail holds Fund letters, Papers, Experts, Books and Funds.
  34. Every topic over 150 books splits into narrower topics, each with a page of its own.

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Defence Spending

Secular themes

A government-budget cycle rather than a market cycle. The industry itself is covered under defence and aerospace; this entry is about the spending wave and its procurement politics.

Books 8Recommenders 6

Start here

  1. Skunk WorksBen R. Rich, Leo Janos, 1994
  2. The Kill ChainChristian Brose, 2020
  3. Augustine's LawsNorman R. Augustine, 1983
The Rise and Fall of the Great PowersThe Rise and Fall of the Great Powers
T1 The Rise and Fall of the Great Powers
Paul M. Kennedy · 1987
Open LibraryGoodreads

Military spending measured against the economy that has to carry it.

“The River Out of Eden by Richard Dawkins, The Rise and Fall of the Great Powers by Paul Kennedy” — Ray Dalio

Source: Ray Dalio Reddit AMA, r/IAmA (u/RayTDalio)

Recommended by: Ray Dalio, Michael Wong

Augustine's Laws
T2 Augustine's Laws
Norman R. Augustine · 1983
Open LibraryGoodreads

Fifty-two laws of management and defence spending, each backed by data.

Skunk WorksSkunk Works
T2 Skunk Works
Ben R. Rich, Leo Janos · 1994
Open LibraryGoodreads

Inside Lockheed's secret projects unit, from the U-2 to the stealth fighter.

Recommended by: Patrick Collison, Sam Altman

Freedom's ForgeFreedom's Forge
T2 Freedom's Forge
Arthur Herman · 2012
Open LibraryGoodreads

How Knudsen and Kaiser led America's industrial build-up for the Second World War.

“One of the best books I've read, it's a great story of industrial production and heroes.” — Christopher Bloomstran

Source: Semper Augustus 2020 Letter to Clients, 'To Read or Not to Read', p. 57

Recommended by: Christopher Bloomstran, Patrick Collison

The Kill ChainThe Kill Chain
T2 The Kill Chain
Christian Brose · 2020
Open LibraryGoodreads

Why the US buys military power wrongly, and the case for cheap autonomous systems.

Recommended by: Palmer Luckey

The Pentagon WarsThe Pentagon Wars
T3 The Pentagon Wars
James G. Burton · 1993
Open LibraryGoodreads

Insider account of the Bradley programme and operational testing.

Prophets of WarProphets of War
T3 Prophets of War
William D. Hartung · 2011
Open LibraryGoodreads

Lockheed Martin as a case study in the contractor-state relationship.

Unit XUnit X
T3 Unit X
Raj Shah, Christopher Kirchhoff · 2024
Open LibraryGoodreads

Insiders on Pentagon-Valley contracting where Palantir won

More secular themes

← Commodity SupercyclesDeglobalisation →All secular themes