[HN Gopher] Why so few Matt Levines?
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Why so few Matt Levines?
Author : iNic
Score : 69 points
Date : 2024-10-28 20:37 UTC (2 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (gwern.net)
(TXT) w3m dump (gwern.net)
| majikaja wrote:
| I barely read his articles these days. Most of it is irrelevant
| to my work/obvious to professionals. A lot of it is just
| summarizing other articles in his own words.
|
| Deep insights in finance are typically not useful once everyone
| knows about them.
| NoboruWataya wrote:
| Were you actually using Levine's insights in your work
| previously (like, trading on them)? That is interesting if so.
| Some of Levine's stuff is relevant to my work and most of it is
| not, but I never really considered it particularly _useful_ ,
| just entertaining. I suppose it can be useful for its
| educational value as the article explains.
|
| I do also read his stuff less nowadays. I still enjoy it, but
| it's not as high a priority for me as it used to be. I think
| it's the repetition. After 100 "everything is securities fraud"
| stories, number 101 is less entertaining.
|
| Still a big fan though.
| majikaja wrote:
| I never found it useful for trading (he's never been involved
| in that as far as I know) but I found it useful for gaining
| general knowledge when I was new to finance.
| 47282847 wrote:
| I am not in finance and I'm not interested in investing because
| I'm rational and simply use world ETFs and don't see why I
| would ever want to do anything else. I really enjoy Levine
| because I learn a lot from it about how the world works. I do
| not read anything else from finance so really appreciate his
| summaries.
| paulpauper wrote:
| It's more about explaining why something happened, not so
| useful at predicting
| julianeon wrote:
| > Deep insights in finance are typically not useful once
| everyone knows about them.
|
| By that logic, it is right and good for the American public to
| be financially illiterate.
| readthenotes1 wrote:
| I wonder if more people know about Mr Money Mustache than Matt
| Levine?
| tyleo wrote:
| That's a great question. I was really hooked on Mr. Money
| Mustache for awhile but his content got old. Levine is harder
| for me to read. He feels more complex feels more relevant.
| ghaff wrote:
| The lean FIRE stuff really seems like schtick to me pretty
| quickly. Yeah, some of it is worth reading and thinking
| about, but a lot is pretty alien to my personal objectives.
| I'm not going to panic about going out to dinner or taking,
| what he would probably consider in print, a moderately
| comfortable vacation, if not an extravagant one.
| petesergeant wrote:
| > Particularly in economic matters, people believe many intuitive
| folk economics like eg. building new houses cannot lower prices,
| or that businesses raise prices simply "when they feel greedy",
| or that voluntary transactions must have a loser & a winner when
| other people transact (but not themselves personally), or that a
| policy will have only intended effects because everyone will just
| do what they are ordered to (even though they personally work
| around policies or rules all the time for doubtless noble
| reasons).
|
| Pretty skeptical of this assertion in an otherwise great read
| kbelder wrote:
| You're skeptical that many people believe those things?
| modeless wrote:
| Seems obviously true to me. Spend time on Reddit r/all and
| you'll see these beliefs repeated over and over.
| vlovich123 wrote:
| > Matt Levines of, say, chemistry or drug development
|
| Neil deGrasse Tyson, Sabine Hossenfelder, Brian Greene and many
| others cover astrophysics, quantum mechanics, particle physics,
| and other science topics.
|
| I think the challenge is that the sciences are hard and
| developments there are fairly slow as compared with financial
| stuff which moves a bit more quickly.
| bmitc wrote:
| > Neil deGrasse Tyson, Sabine Hossenfelder, Brian Greene
|
| None of those three "cover" any topics. They push their own
| topics and agenda, which can often be fringe or counterculture
| and highly personal pet preferences or topics. Tyson, in
| particular, just likes to hear himself talk above all else,
| took 11 years to get his PhD, was kicked out of the UT Austin
| PhD program, is often wrong, and is a living breathing example
| of "well, actually".
|
| These three are about as far from journalism as you can get and
| are actively hurtful, at least in the case of Greene and Tyson
| due to their popularity, to science.
| A4ET8a8uTh0 wrote:
| I don't want to pile on here, because Neil did do some good
| in popularizing science. He did not really manage to make it
| cool, but he did become a popular mainstream figure that the
| public was now allowed to associate with a mental image of a
| science nerd ( a big step given that previous media
| iterations were invariably a caricature straight from revenge
| of the nerds ).
|
| The problem.. as it often tends to be in instances such as
| this.. is that he did become a faux celebrity with all the
| benefits and drawbacks it brings. Unlike another celebrity in
| that realm however ( Hawking ), he did not manage to get the
| same level of recognition.
| NoboruWataya wrote:
| I suspect the sciences also aren't as "juicy" for want of a
| better word. Finance is a very human field and there is huge
| scope for interpersonal conflict and drama, which people love
| to read about.
| ozzydave wrote:
| I'd say Matt O'Dowd of PBS Space Time is the closest to
| Levine's role?
| nabla9 wrote:
| Derek Lowe is the Matt Levine of chemistry and drug development.
| https://www.science.org/blogs/pipeline His "Things I Won't Work
| With" series is legendary even in HN.
|
| Ann Lipton is the Matt Levine of business law.
| https://www.businesslawprofessors.com/author/alipton/
| loeg wrote:
| See footnote 1.
|
| > While I enjoy Derek Lowe, the extent to which his posts are
| inside-baseball and do not repeat themes, or only repeat many
| years apart, emphasize the contrast with Levine.
| mech422 wrote:
| Gotta Love Derek... "Things I won't work with" actually got me
| to read some of his other stuff about how drug development and
| trials work.
| ioblomov wrote:
| To Hossenfelder, I'd add Ben Thompson on "the business, strategy,
| and impact of technology" and the Financial Samurai on personal
| finance...
|
| https://stratechery.com/2024/elon-dreams-and-bitter-lessons/
|
| https://www.financialsamurai.com/minimum-investment-threshol...
| the_gastropod wrote:
| Man. I couldn't really disagree more re: Financial Samurai.
| That dude strikes me as a complete troll. His older articles
| aren't too bad, but the past several years, he's pivoted to a
| Get Rich or Die Tryin' mentality, and publishes endlessly
| repetitive takes. I think he's more an SEO expert than a
| financial one, at this point. If you can't figure out how to
| live on ~$380k of passive income, you have no business giving
| the general public financial advice.
| gkanai wrote:
| Levine being at Bloomberg (which is a central org in finance
| media) is important. That finance media can support a Levine and
| his salary is also important.
| hrpnk wrote:
| Marc Rubinstein also has great educational articles on history
| and inner workings of the finance industry:
| https://www.netinterest.co/
| richardw wrote:
| I've seen his stuff referenced many times but it's paywalled,
| right? Is there an email sub without the paywall?
| jcdavis wrote:
| Yes: https://www.bloomberg.com/account/newsletters/money-
| stuff?so...
| ForHackernews wrote:
| What a silly question. Being an excellent writer is hard! Why is
| there only one Joan Didion?
| Jun8 wrote:
| "So you have a filter with many layers: you need areas which
| fulfill a stringent set of conditions for such an educational
| newsletter, and you need a very unusual sort of individual,
| someone who is expert in the area and has preferably gotten their
| hands dirty, who is good enough to work professionally in it, but
| who also is capable of explaining it well, at a beginner level,
| many times, endlessly without burning out or getting bored,
| because of their intense interest in the area (but again, not
| quite intense enough to make them go do it instead of write about
| it)."
|
| I think the first filter is a _much_ bigger factor, but for a
| reason that's not mentioned in the post: $$$s to be gained. A
| large number of people read finance blogs because they think they
| themselves make money with the knowledge therein.
|
| This is hard to replicate with other examples given: for purely
| abstract topics, eg Greco-Roman philosophy, the prize is purely
| intellectual. For others, eg fracking and drug discovery, you can
| make tons of money but pool of interested people is much smaller.
|
| The only combination of general appeal and personal gain that
| could be interesting, I think, would be dating. You have
| recurrent patterns, clear outcomes, and pretty much everyone is
| interested and want to learn how to get better at it.
| paulpauper wrote:
| _Why don't we have a Matt Levine for every industry? Where is the
| Levine of, I don't know, petroleum refining or fracking, of
| shipping containers?_
|
| this would be a consultant. the market for 'shipping container
| experts' is tiny . not enough to support a columnist
| carbonguy wrote:
| Chiming in with a few of my favorite "Levine-likes":
|
| - For aviation disasters and safety, can't beat Admiral
| Cloudberg: https://admiralcloudberg.medium.com/
|
| - For more about the financial sector, Patrick McKenzie is solid
| gold every time: https://www.bitsaboutmoney.com/ (and I believe
| an HN regular as well!)
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