Leon Lin

I like reading. And writing. And writing about the things I read. I try to avoid boring people.

About Me

I like learning.

I like reading.

I like writing.

It’s a nice coincidence that a great way to properly learn about what you read is to teach it. Writing is how I process ideas and (hopefully) get some feedback on them.

I’ve had some military, investment banking, and public markets investing experience. I don’t just focus on those sectors though, and will read and write about whatever I find interesting. Feel free to send stuff that you’re fascinated by!

I also send a regular email newsletter to friends, sign up here:

My beliefs

Partially inspired by this blog, below is a public record of my current beliefs. I’ll edit as these change over time, but these should give you a good idea of what I stand for.

I should aim to:

  • Be intellectually curious. There will be subjects too hard or irrelevant, but I want to learn as much as I can. Not knowing something is different from being uninterested in knowing
  • Be upfront about what I don’t know. I highly dislike pretenders since I can’t trust them. A person that never admits their ignorance is a big red flag, since I have to waste time to figure out what they’re making up
  • Be open to changing my mind when enough evidence is presented. Strong opinions, weakly held. I’d much rather realise I’m wrong on something early
  • Be concise
  • Be selective in who I spend time with, since time is precious and I am influenced by my peers. Avoid boring people. Avoid flaky people. Avoid stubborn people
  • Mean what I say. I do lie sometimes, but generally I’m upfront about what I’m thinking. I might avoid awkward questions though
  • Do what I say I’ll do. Reliability is important

I also believe:

  • Understanding incentives is key to understanding behaviour. Incentive alignment is critical for ideal outcomes
  • Improving processes and frameworks is necessary to make better decisions, particularly for outcomes highly influenced by luck. I like lists and checklists too
  • We should have a regret minimisation framework, keeping in mind we usually regret things we missed out on rather than things we tried
  • We should be less judgemental and be less easily offended
  • We should be more accountable for our statements. This particularly applies to predictions, where everyone seems to have high certainty before and low accountability after
  • The world has too much noise and too little signal, and we’re often fooled by randomness

My interests

  • Cocktails, both drinking and making them
  • Chocolate
  • Food in general, and reviewing restaurants ranging from budget street food to fine dining. Proud user of Google Maps rather than Yelp.
  • Internet business models, particularly marketplaces
  • Investing, both public markets and venture
  • Learning how to make better decisions
  • Meeting interesting people and discussing ideas
  • Ballroom dance
  • Bodyweight calisthenics
  • Bouldering
  • Manga, though I read less now than I used to
  • Scuba
  • Suicide prevention and coping with depression
  • Travelling, but more so that I can eat at new places
  • Trying to understand art. Mostly failing
  • Writing
Telegram