The long-term benefits of “second-level” thinking (2024)

This is an installment of The Nightcrawler, a weekly collection of thought-provoking articles on tech, innovation, and long-term investing by Eric Markowitz of Nightview Capital. You can get articles like this one straight to your inbox every Friday evening by subscribing above. Follow him on X: @EricMarkowitz.

This week, the writer and neuroscientist Anne-Laure Le Cunff published a practical, short essay on how to make better long-term decisions through “second-level” thinking.

As she details in the piece, many — if not most — of the decisions we make each day often solve for immediate outcomes, but do nothing to improve long-term results. Whether it’s skipping exercise or selling stocks in a panic, quick decisions often feel good in the moment — but rarely lead to positive long-term benefits. In fact, they are typically counterproductive to playing the long game — both in life and investing.

There are methods, however, to slow down the decision-making process and optimize for better long-term outcomes. As Le Cunff writes in her essay: “Making decisions based on immediate outcomes might seem efficient, but it ignores the complex interconnections of real-life situations.” She continues:

Key quote: “Prioritizing immediate rewards over sustainable growth can lead to poor long-term outcomes. Focusing only on the obvious benefits while overlooking potential hidden costs can result in financial strain. Making decisions without considering the ethical ramifications can damage your reputation and relationships in the long run. On the other hand, second-level thinking can result in extraordinary performance. When we take the time to consider the second and third order consequences, including our own biases, disentangling the signal from the noise, we’re more likely to determine the most favorable decision.”

A defense of tech monopolies

Since the late 1990s, the internet era has enabled a handful of technology companies to scale to unprecedented size — and global influence. Governments are now grappling with the question of how to regulate these monopolistic platforms. Meanwhile, a provocative — but worthy — question is as follows: even if the big tech companies are indeed monopolies, is that necessarily bad for society writ large?

The writer and startup executive Conrad Bastable doesn’t think so. In a recent essay for his newsletter, Radical Contributions, Conrad provides a nuanced take on why tech monopolies are “actually good for society.”

He writes: “Hold on! Stow the pitchforks! Hear me out. Nothing lasts forever. All technologies have their moment in the spotlight — then the wheel of progress turns and a new challenger arises, one better adapted to the environment.” He continues:

Key quote: “Progress is a cruel master. Just because a given company managed to fundamentally advance the frontier of technology doesn’t mean they’ll have a strong defense against the next challenger. The lesson of technology is the exact opposite: each society-transforming success story in Tech creates the conditions for its own replacement by funding the development of the next wave of progress… and then letting someone else execute on it, totally disrupting their monopoly. But in the meantime, for a brief moment, we all benefit from their market dominance.”

A few more links I enjoyed:

A Few Little Ideas And Short Stories — via Morgan Housel

Key quote: “A startup founder I know was once trying to raise money from an investor. The investor told him, ‘I love your idea, but I think this only has a 20% chance of working.’ The founder replied: ‘Twenty percent? Wow, you’re an optimist. I think the odds are 10%, max.’ This was from a founder who was devoting his life to this company, with full passion and energy.”

The Cost of Apathy — via Jack Raines

Key quote: “The irony of modern life is that those of us with the means to really, truly live, who can afford to take risks and strike out on our own and blaze our own paths, are the least likely to do it, because we are seduced by the comforts of the apathetic life, and we don’t have to go above and beyond to make ends meet. So we continue existing, not living, and the clock keeps ticking.”

Shell Game — via Evan Ratliff

Key quote: “This is a show about things that are not what they seem, and in our first six-episode season, the thing in question is… my voice. Six months ago I made a clone of it, then I hooked that clone up to a phone line and powered it with an AI chatbot, to create a ‘voice agent’ that could make and receive its own calls. I was curious what it could do — as me — and how people would respond to it.”

Why did the U.S. miss the battery revolution? — via Noah Smith

Key quote: “The failure of both American media and the American government to anticipate the battery revolution is actually a huge historical outlier. When it comes to any other major technological revolution I can think of, the U.S. was very early to the party — driving the key research and development, hyping up the technology well before it was commercially viable, and making a major effort at early commercialization.”

From the archives:

The days are long but the decades are short — via Sam Altman (2015)

Key quote: “It’s difficult to do a great job on work you don’t care about. And it’s hard to be totally happy/fulfilled in life if you don’t like what you do for your work. Work very hard — a surprising number of people will be offended that you choose to work hard — but not so hard that the rest of your life passes you by. Aim to be the best in the world at whatever you do professionally. Even if you miss, you’ll probably end up in a pretty good place. Figure out your own productivity system — don’t waste time being unorganized, working at suboptimal times, etc. Don’t be afraid to take some career risks, especially early on. Most people pick their career fairly randomly — really think hard about what you like, what fields are going to be successful, and try to talk to people in those fields.”

Nightpixels:

5 Charts Exploring Why The Construction Industry Hasn’t Innovated