Seth Walsh
Iconoclast
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- Jan 12, 2020
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Follow these laws step by step. Protect your money, status, reputation and future self.
1. Survival first
No survival, no compounding.
Avoid:
- ruin
- forced selling
- legal/reputational blowups
- dead-end dependency
- fragile obligations
2. Keep optionality
Options are valuable because the future is uncertain.
You want many ways to win and few ways to die.
Examples:
- cash runway
- portable skills
- strong network
- elite brand names
- public proof-of-work
- technical leverage
- low fixed costs
- no unnecessary debt
3. Prefer convex bets
Good bet:
Bad bet:
Career example:
- Low-upside stable role: capped upside, opportunity cost hidden.
- Elite finance / trading / AI-adjacent seat: harder, riskier, but convex if it changes your trajectory.
4. Do not confuse safety with low volatility
Some things look stable but are fragile.
Examples:
- “safe” private loan notes
- low-pay employer with no progression
- job title without market value
- house-rich/cash-poor retirement
- pension concentration with bad liquidity
- smooth returns hiding tail risk
Smoothness can be fake safety.
5. Size matters more than being right
A good idea can destroy you if oversized.
A mediocre idea can help if sized correctly.
Position sizing is the bridge between intelligence and survival.
6. Avoid absorbing barriers
An absorbing barrier is a state you cannot easily recover from.
Examples:
- bankruptcy
- permanent health damage
- criminal record
- destroyed reputation
- long-term unemployment stigma
- forced asset sale
- family financial entanglement
- losing confidence after repeated avoidable failures
Avoid these at all costs.
7. Time is the real judge
A strategy is not good because it looks good in one snapshot.
It is good if it survives repeated exposure over time.
Ask:
Not:
