#056: Impact of Prediction Markets, How to Get Ahead of 99% of People, Work on Something That Will Make a Difference

Hi All!

We are pleased to welcome you to this week's edition of Undiscovered, a newsletter with exclusive resources and insights expanding from the material found on our main site - becketu.com.

This week, we will take a look at how prediction markets shaped the U.S. presidential election, Naval's abridged advice along with lesser-known nuggets of wisdom, a job board filled with some of the most influential modern companies, and more. Let's dive in:

Following the Election

During the U.S. presidential election this previous Tuesday, prediction markets Polymarket and Kalshi provided novel insights and perhaps the highest-quality signal during an incredibly 'noisy' event.

For those unfamiliar, these sites essentially allow anyone to bet on the outcome of multiple types of events. These outcomes can be related to politics, sports, pop culture, business, and way more.

Other sites like ElectionBettingOdds.com which were previously used to track betting activity, have even started to aggregate the odds from these sites due to the sheer volume of activity on them. Between Polymarket and Kalshi, over $4.5 billion was bet on the U.S. presidential election.

New types of prediction tools were also made, such as Eli Dourado's live Monte Carlo-based election simulator that use these prediction markets, with the added ability to simulate the election 1,000,000 times every five minutes based on real-time data.

I find this fascinating, because studies have found that betting markets tend to be better at predicting election results than polls. This phenomenon has been written about since at least 2008.

Some people like the anonymous French crypto whale 'Théo' have even used these prediction markets to net over $50m from betting on the election. There have been numerous write-ups and coverage from this bet, including those from Trung Phan, Conor Sen, and Matt Bateman, that go deeper into the methodology used by Théo that gave him confidence to make the bet, ultimately shaping the prediction markets and providing incredible insight into the nature of persuasion and psychology of humans.

How to Get Ahead of 99% People

This is a video shortlist of Naval Ravikant's most common and widely shared advice, edited and usefully annotated by the YouTube channel PickingNuggets.

The original audio was from a conversation at The Network State conference, where Naval talks about working on whatever you are naturally curious about, how the books The Beginning of Infinity & The Fabric of Reality shaped his worldview, how to take care of your material needs, what things money can't buy, the key to self-improvement, and implications of the consistency bias.

It's an 11-minute video which is a welcomed departure from the usual hour-long podcast format you can typically find him on, and the notes provided by PickingNuggets are a great reference throughout.

If you are looking to go down an even further Naval rabbit hole, we also highly suggest checking out the Secret Sections of the Navalmanack site.

Work On Something That Will Make a Difference

If you want to build something that will make a difference in the United States, Christian Keil and Ryan McEntush curated a list of over 500+ of the most influential companies with active job listings and posted it on their newest site, BuildList.xyz.

Keil is the VP of Astranis Space Technologies, a company specializing in the development of small, powerful satellites for high orbits with the latest in digital processing technology. McEntush is an investor and partner at Andreessen Horowitz​

What I find interesting about this site is the layout, simplicity, and mission they are aiming for. On the BuildList site itself, companies are featured in descending order based off of how many upvotes they have, and users may only upvote a company if you provide an email (which they use to send out the 'best jobs and deep dives to once a month'). You may also filter by company stage, sector, HQ location, and searching by keyword.

It makes for an incredibly efficient user experience, and is useful for anyone looking to explore impactful job opportunities.

The YouTube Strategist Philosophy That Extends To Life

Fun fact: our YouTube channel just recently crossed over 44,000 subscribers. There is still lots of work to be done, but we are proud of how far we have grown since the beginning of the year when we had less than 100 subs on the channel.

One of the better accounts I follow on Twitter that regularly shares advice about growth on YouTube is a user by the name of Wono.

I did a deep dive through some of their articles on their website, The Investor's Kitchen. The ones that caught my attention immediately were focused on how to retain attention. Primarily this thread along with this one.

The first thread is about how to stand out among a sea of perfectly crafted videos. The key takeaway from Wono's philosophy, is that your video must be remarkable. Your videos should be focused on that remarkable moment, which is also presented and promised in the title and thumbnail, and if views are the focus then the remarkable moment should be related to the largest attention market possible for your content.

Chasing virality will kill your channel, and instead the main focus should be on audience building. You must also remember that it's impossible to achieve a 100% remarkable hit rate on your videos, even though it should always be the aim. The key is to focus efforts on the audience.

Lastly, the best way to balance a farming strategy for more viewers with being remarkable is to always be authentic and genuine, and don't try to be someone else.

Secret: this advice is applicable to more than just YouTube and social media.

The Mathematician Reforming Education

"Instead of optimizing return in the stock market, I optimize learning efficiency in students' brains". This is the first sentence on Justin Skycak's blog.

Skycak is the Chief Quant and Director of Analytics at Math Academy, which is our number one recommend resource for anyone serious about leveling up their math abilities.

He shares his thoughts regularly on Twitter, and he first entered my radar when I saw him tweet the following:

This aligns so clearly with our thesis for Becket U and why math is essential to learn. And on top of this math philosophy, he is also incredibly ripped and has personally developed a calisthenics routine. He even goes in-depth into how he first became shredded, and later gained mass.

When it comes to walking the walk, there are few who rival Skycak.

P.S Can you please respond to this email and bring it into your 'primary' inbox? You can say 'Hi!', tell us the last book you read recently, or what your favorite resource was from above.
​
It would also help if you add us as a contact on your mailing list, with a visual tutorial below:

We appreciate any feedback you are able to provide here. What do you want more or less of? Other suggestions? Feel free to reach out to us on Instagram and give us a follow there, tag your friends on our posts, and please forward this newsletter along to anyone else who would enjoy it.

Disclaimer: Becket U is an Amazon Associate and purchases through Amazon links may earn a small affiliate commission, but the price is the same for you. We only recommend books we love and think you would love, too.

Always wishing you the best,

J.B.