Friends,
In 1979, a revolution in Iran installed a new Islamic theocracy. Roughly 20 years later, Hugo Chavez rose to power in Venezuela and used record-high oil prices to install his socialist regime.
And at roughly the same time (the late 1990s), the stock market underwent a major shift: companies focused on digital technology (bits) began garnering huge valuations, while those focused on physical-world products (atoms) saw their valuations fall.
What do these three things have in common?
For decades, all three were considered givens. It made the most sense to assume Iran would always be run by the Ayatollah, Venezuela would always be a socialist country where investments went to die, and the software business model would always be considered superior to peddling hardware.
We're only two months into 2026, and all three of these assumptions have been called into question. We don't know how things will unfold in Iran, Venezuela, or software. But the adage is true: sometimes, decades can happen in months!
This underscores the importance of cultivating antifragility. It means having cash on hand to take advantage of stock market corrections, investing in wide moat businesses that are continually looking for new ways to fulfill their missions (optionality), run by founders who don't mind shaking things up in the process.
But more than anything else, it underscores the importance of curiosity. It's easy to look at the world around us, and either retreat in horror or celebrate the changes we've (perhaps) hoped for.
Instead, we encourage you to cultivate curiosity. Notice the horror or joy, but leave room for space to be wrong. Antifragility is nothing if not adaptable. And keeping that in mind not only helps us in investing, but in life as well.
Wishing you investing luck in the months ahead,
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Brian Feroldi, Brian Stoffel, & Brian Withers
Long-Term Mindset
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