I try to be very intentional about what I spend. I think the key is being proactive instead of reactive. Over time I’ve built a kind of uniform. Right now it’s brown Sperry Top-Siders, black Lululemon ABC pants, and a black crewneck. It’s simple, me, and most importantly it keeps me from buying clothes impulsively, which I’m very good at. The uniform solves a problem. Sometimes I see clothes that look great on other people and think they might look great on me too. The unifo

From Gold to Data: The Psychology of Constant Comparison Status isn’t new. Hierarchies are ancient. Long before gold sat in vaults, it sat in tombs. Wealth has always been visible — and visibility has always signaled rank: who held power, who controlled resources, who offered protection. Human societies have never been flat. The difference today isn’t status. It’s velocity. Gold made status visible . Money made it measurable. Once status became numeric, it became scalable. O

Before Money Was Math, It Was Meaning Markets run on fungibility — the idea that one unit is interchangeable with another. But money didn’t start that way. Long before it became numbers on a screen, it was sacred. Before it was monetary architecture, it was bling. For much of recorded history, value wasn’t stored in clay tablets, paper, ledgers, spreadsheets, or blockchain. It was stored in gold. Gold doesn’t grow. It doesn’t compound. It signals. And shines. Empires rose an

Markets run on fungibility, Humans don't. One dollar is identical to another. A share of stock is interchangeable with any other share of the same class. Markets function because money is fungible — memoryless, liquid, efficient. And yet, few things trigger more emotion. Investors freeze when markets fall. Employees hesitate to negotiate salaries. Families argue over inheritances. We label dollars as “vacation money” or “savings,” even though each bill carries equal spending