New York Times picks up signal in a world full of noise

Monday, November 26th, 2018

I don’t follow Shane Parrish’s Farnam Street closely, but I’m familiar enough to be pleasantly surprised that it got coverage in the New York Times:

Shane Parrish was a cybersecurity expert at Canada’s top intelligence agency and an occasional blogger when he noticed something curious about his modest readership six years ago: 80 percent of his followers worked on Wall Street.

The blog was meant to be a method of self-improvement, helping Mr. Parrish deal with a job whose pressures had increased with the growing threat of global hacking. But his lonely riffs — on how learning deeply, thinking widely and reading books strategically could improve decision-making skills — had found an eager audience among hedge fund titans and mutual fund executives, many of whom were still licking their wounds after the financial crisis.

“People just found us,” Mr. Parrish said. “We became a thing on Wall Street.”

His website, Farnam Street, urges visitors to “Upgrade Yourself.” In saying as much, Mr. Parrish is promoting strategies of rigorous self-betterment as opposed to classic self-help fare — which appeals to his overachieving audience in elite finance, Silicon Valley and professional sports. His many maxims cite Ralph Waldo Emerson, Bertrand Russell and even Frank Zappa. (“A mind is like a parachute. It doesn’t work if it is not open.”)

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Mr. Parrish’s site has drawn the attention of some of the biggest names in finance. Dan Loeb, one of the more prominent hedge fund executives on Wall Street, is a big fan. And Ray Dalio of Bridgewater, the world’s largest hedge fund, recently did a podcast with him.

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Mr. Parrish joined the Communications Security Establishment, a division of Canada’s Defence Department, straight out of college. His first day was Aug. 28, 2001, and he was soon promoted in the tumult that followed the Sept. 11 attacks. Suddenly, he was managing a large staff at the age of 24.

Wanting to improve his decision-making skills, Mr. Parrish found inspiration in Charlie Munger — Warren Buffett’s longtime investment partner. Mr. Parrish quickly became an acolyte, drawn to Mr. Munger’s thoughts on multidisciplinary thinking and mental models.

He pored over Berkshire Hathaway annual reports and became a regular attendee of Mr. Buffett’s yearly meetings in Omaha. The name of his site is another tribute to the billionaire investor: Berkshire Hathaway’s address in Omaha is 3555 Farnam Street.

Last year, Mr. Parrish left intelligence work to tend to the site full time. He wouldn’t disclose how much his various projects were making.

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