FS | BRAIN FOOD
August 9th, 2026 - #693 - read online - Free Version
Welcome to Brain Food, your weekly signal in a world full of noise.
Tiny Thoughts
*
We trade time for money and power, then discover that what we wanted all along was time.
**
Most of the money you'll make is in the future, which is why your rate of improvement matters more than your starting point.
***
Every partnership is a repeated game.
The person who treats others like they're lucky to have them has to find a new partner for every deal.
Insights
*
Mary Kay Ash on the power of listening:
“Many of the problems I hear don’t require me to offer solutions. I solve most of them by just listening and letting the involved party do the talking.”
**
Phil Knight on the importance of forgetting:
“The art of competing, I'd learn from the track, was the art of forgetting ... You must forget your limits. You must forget your doubts, your pain, your past.”
***
Paul Graham on doing your life's work:
“A startup doesn't have to be your life's work, but if it is, you become much harder to defeat. You play the long game and you outlast everyone. Because practically everyone else is an opportunist by comparison.”
The Knowledge Project
This summer, I’m revisiting one of my favorite episodes. If you haven’t heard it, now is the time. If you have, it’s a classic and worth listening to again.
Brad Jacobs has built eight different billion-dollar companies, completed more than 500 acquisitions, and created extraordinary returns for shareholders over four decades. Few people understand how great businesses are built better than he does.
This conversation explores the principles behind that success.
Brad explains how he spots trends before they become obvious, why psychology matters as much as strategy, and how he thinks about acquisitions, hiring, capital allocation, decision-making, and building organizations that consistently outperform. He also shares lessons from therapy, meditation, and decades of leadership that changed how he manages people and makes decisions.
+ Listen to the full episode: YouTube | Spotify | Apple Podcasts | Web/Transcript
+ Members have access to a hand-edited transcript.
SPONSOR
In 2026, finance news gets written for the algorithm first and the reader an afterthought. No wonder so much of it wastes your time. The Daily Upside is written by Wall Street insiders who reverse that order, taking the events shaping markets and setting them in context that makes the news actually useful. Every morning, for free. Join 1M+ readers and subscribe.
Thanks for reading. I'll see you next week.
— Shane Parrish
P.S. No Thank You.
P.P.S. The Episode on John D. Rockefeller is worth a listen. I've gotten texts from parents who have listened to it on car rides with their kids, CEOs from some of the largest companies in the world, and even my mom! Listen on Spotify / Apple.
Want to share this edition with a friend? Use this link: https://fs.blog/brain-food/august-9-2026/
Upgrade Yourself
Members get access to all my reading highlights, ad-free newsletters and podcasts, hand-edited transcripts, early access, AMAs, and so much more. Join us → here.