Preparing, networking, choosing and recovering: the lessons that apply to the person rather than the firm.
The market misprices what is hard to measure, so a consistent cheap signal can beat an expensive expert.
Quant interviews, any debate about discretionary against systematic investing, and understanding how you yourself are being assessed in recruiting.
From Moneyball · 2011
Results come from a few outcomes, so the job is to survive long enough to be there when they arrive.
Position sizing, venture portfolio construction, and any moment of frustration that most of your effort seems to produce nothing.
From The Psychology of Money · Morgan Housel
Write to a model as you would brief a capable junior: the task, their role, the context they lack, and what the output should look like.
Using any model on real work, and explaining in an interview how you would get a useful answer from one.
From Prompting 101 · Anthropic
Separate what you can do from the structure that makes it valuable, and watch the structure.
Choosing a seat, judging the effect of automation on a role, or answering what AI changes about an analyst job.
From Floored · 2009
Name the purpose of a job separately from its tasks; automation changes the tasks and leaves the purpose to be done better or worse.
Answering what AI changes about an analyst role, planning a career, or assessing headcount claims in a bank.
From NVIDIA's fiscal 2026 letter from Jensen Huang · Jensen Huang
In a field where the rules keep changing, a late specialist with range usually outlasts an early one without it.
Explaining a non-standard background, choosing between a narrow and a broad early role, or answering why you changed direction.
From Range · David Epstein
Duration beats brilliance in compounding; arrange your life and portfolio so you are never forced to stop.
Thinking about personal finance, about a long career, or about why survival matters more than any single year's return.
From Becoming Warren Buffett · 2017
Most offers come from a few deeply prepared applications, so prepare deeply rather than widely.
Deciding where to apply, how many applications to make, and how to allocate the weeks before deadlines.
From The 80/20 Principle · Richard Koch
Lead with something useful to the other person; a request with nothing attached is ignored by anyone worth reaching.
Cold outreach, coffee chats, and off-cycle recruiting where there is no process to carry you.
From Never Eat Alone · Keith Ferrazzi
Schedule the uninterrupted block first; the preparation that matters cannot be done in the gaps.
Planning interview preparation, or any period where learning something structurally complex has to fit around other work.
From Deep Work · Cal Newport
Being distinctive is not a state but a cost paid continuously; stop paying it and the drift to typical begins.
Questions about culture, moats that depend on behaviour rather than assets, and personal career choices.
From Amazon's 2020 letter to shareowners, Jeff Bezos's last as chief executive · Jeff Bezos
Institutional AI is scoped, governed and data-limited; expect to work inside those limits and to be able to explain them.
Questions about AI in banking, technology roles inside financial firms, and any claim about what AI is doing to the industry.
From Goldman CIO Marco Argenti on the Warp-Speed Improvements in AI · Bloomberg Odd Lots
Prepare for the parts of the job the tools make scarce, judgement and client sense, rather than the parts they make cheap.
The interview question about what AI changes for an analyst, and planning what to get good at before you start.
From Goldman Sachs CEO David Solomon on AI, Debt and America’s Future · Prof G Markets