Epsilon Theory

Welcome to Second Foundation Partners, the team behind Epsilon Theory. We are dedicated to transforming the fields of investing and civic engagement. As an independent source for change, our only responsibility is to our readers, clients, and partners—our Pack! We encourage you to join us, not only to enhance your skills as an investor but also to work together towards becoming better citizens. This collective effort harnesses the strength of the crowd observing the crowd. It creates remarkable achievements, sparks revolutions, and influences markets. It is an incredibly powerful force in society, and we invite you to collaborate with us in understanding it and putting it into action.

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Articles

How to Build the Perfect City

1 week ago | epsilontheory.com | Chris Arnade

Chris Arnade is one of my favorite humans, and we’re delighted that he’s agreed to let us republish some of his public notes from his excellent substack — Chris Arnade Walks the World — which you should definitely check out, along with his book Dignity: Seeking Respect in Back Row America. I bought a copy of Dignity for each of my four daughters … it’s that good. Chris is a former bond trader, but left that all behind years ago for a much more worthwhile path.
Beyond Nudge

3 weeks ago | epsilontheory.com | Ben Hunt

Over the last few weeks, I’ve received dozens of emails or DMs or texts from very smart friends pointing me to really interesting articles, usually but not always on Substack, that have something to say about the nature of LLMs and/or the future of generative AI. Each of these articles has LLM-generated text as the heart of the article’s meaning, sometimes directly as the meaning-claim (what we call a “semantic signature”), but more typically as evidence that the author’s meaning-claim is true.
How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Deficit

1 month ago | epsilontheory.com | Ben Hunt

“DOGE has and will do great work to postpone the day of bankruptcy of America, but the profligacy of government means that only radical improvements in productivity can save our country.” — Elon Musk, May 23, 2025 In narrative-world, the House passage of the Big Beautiful Bill and Elon Musk stepping back from DOGE and the White House have had a clear result: no one believes that this administration has any ability (and probably not any real desire) to control explosive growth in the federal...
The Death of Risk

1 month ago | epsilontheory.com | Ben Hunt

Some say the world will end in fire,Some say in ice. From what I’ve tasted of desireI hold with those who favor fire. — Robert Frost, Fire and Ice (1920)I think most of us are like Robert Frost. I know I am. When I think about how bad things might happen, how our world might end, I tend to imagine it in a series of mighty events like market crashes that explode like bombs and result in a blaze of destruction. That’s the romantic in me and Frost, imagining that we perish in fiery excitement.
Our True Enemy Has Yet to Reveal Himself

1 month ago | epsilontheory.com | Ben Hunt

I don’t quote from The Godfather, Part 3 very much because it’s not a great movie and isn’t even in the same solar system as Part 1 and Part 2, but Al Pacino has two all-time great scenes here: the “pull me back in!” scene after the failed assassination attempt and the final, wordless cut scene of the movie, where — in a mirror-image contrast to Vito Corleone’s heart-attack-while-gardening death scene in Part 1, immersed in green and laughter and love — Michael collapses and dies alone in a...
Wall Street's Not-So-Golden Rule

2 months ago | epsilontheory.com | Ben Hunt

“What have I told you since the very first day you set foot in this office? There are three ways to make money in this business. Be first. Be smarter. Cheat. Now I don’t cheat. And although I like to think that we have some pretty smart people in this building, it sure is a hell of a lot easier to just be first.”“Sell it all.
Scoreboard

2 months ago | epsilontheory.com | Rusty Guinn |Harper Hunt |Ben Hunt

When you research narratives for a living you can’t help seeing them everywhere. Our politics are awash with them, of course. They are the water in which we swim, these broad, sweeping stories that force facts and evidence into the background. These are stories designed to make us feel more and think less, custom-made so that we can slot them effortlessly as some piece of our identity.
Crashing the Car of Pax Americana

2 months ago | epsilontheory.com | Ben Hunt

“Can I confess something? I tell you this as an artist, I think you’ll understand. Sometimes when I’m driving… On the road at night… I see two headlights coming toward me. Fast. I have this sudden impulse to turn the wheel quickly, head-on into the oncoming car. I can anticipate the explosion. The sound of shattering glass. The flames rising out of the flowing gasoline.”“Well, I have to — I have to go now, Duane, because I … I’m due back on planet Earth.”“Are you going to drive them to the airport?
DeepFreak

Feb 2, 2025 | epsilontheory.com | Harper Hunt |Ben Hunt |Rusty Guinn

We are not unbiased. We are large-scale consumers of AI inference and are not in the business of training large models. We are neither long nor short the stock of any individual company in the AI or semiconductor space, but we do pay OpenAI and Anthropic lots of money to perform AI inference for us.
A Death in the Family

Jan 20, 2025 | epsilontheory.com | Harper Hunt |Rusty Guinn |Ben Hunt

This weekend we had the memorial service for my wife’s grandmother, who died a few weeks ago. She was a wonderful woman, very much la doña for this Hispanic side of the family, very much more of a mother than a grandmother to my wife, and she was the last of her generation.