June 2025 | Monty Monthly

Dinosaurs, Big Pharma, James Dyson, and more...

Howdy Friends!

Jurassic Park Avenue (actually on 5th)

“Why am I getting this email?” — You

Relationships are important, but keeping in touch is hard…

This email’s purpose is to:

• share what I’m up to and cool stuff I’ve found

• stay in touch with you (feel free to reply with what’s new!)

Life Updates:

I moved back to NYC and started my internship in BioPharma Investment Banking.

…so far so good

What I’m Ingesting w/ Takeaways:

1. The Inner Game of Tennis by W. Timothy Gallwey

   

   • We have two selves: the ego-driven Self 1 and the quiet action-oriented Self 2

   • Don’t judge yourself (Negatively OR Positively)

     “When we plant a rose seed in the earth, we notice that it is small, but we do not criticize it as “rootless and stemless.”…The rose is a rose from the time it is a seed to the time it dies. Within it, at all times, in contains its whole potential.” - Gallwey

   • Focusing on the process quiets Self 1—concentrate and act without judgement

     • Thanks to this book, I can now juggle with four balls.

2. Invention by James Dyson

   

   • James Dyson has the independence of Elon, the style of Dali, and the grit of Teddy…he’s one cool guy

   • Being different is often inherently more valuable…cyclonic vacuum cleaner

   • A country’s culture determines its future…America loves entrepreneurship

3. The Strenuous Life: Essays and Addresses of Theodore Roosevelt

   

   “Hard times create strong men. Strong men create good times. Good times create weak men. And, weak men create hard times.” - G. Michael Hopf

Newsletters I’m Loving:

If you like Monty Monthly, you’ll love Dylan Adelman’s Reading Roundup…thank me later—not sponsored, just a fan

What I’m Thinking About:

Algorithmic Content

There’s a debate around taste. People say, “AI may be better at writing code, playing chess, or doing homework, but it will never replicate human taste.” We like to think of taste as uniquely human—an expression of identity and judgment. But maybe it’s just a tool for managing choice. And maybe algorithms are getting better at it than we are.

People don’t actually like having choices—they increase our cognitive load.

• Facebook’s clean, default interface ultimately won out over MySpace’s open customization.

• People pay more for preset tasting menus than for the sprawling fare found at American diners.

• People are happier walking down narrow streets than along wide, exposed ones.

Taste acts as a heuristic—a shortcut that lightens our cognitive load. I don’t have to worry whether I’ll enjoy a Christopher Nolan movie; I trust his taste. Call it the Paradox of Choice or option anxiety—the more credible options we have, the more anxious we become (think dating, houses, jobs, etc.).

Algorithms do the thinking for us.

You could spend 30 minutes deciding what to watch on Netflix, or you could let TikTok feed you a never-ending stream of hyper-personalized content that you’re statistically likely to enjoy. The problem has shifted: from wasting time on bad content to wasting time on good content that’s too addictive. Netflix and other studios have spent billions backing producers with “taste.” But the people have voted with their thumbs. The algorithm has won.¹

Netflix-and-Chill is to the 2010s as Brain Rot is to the 2020s.

The world wasn’t always flooded with content. In 1939, there was just one television network: NBC. If you wanted to watch TV, you watched NBC. Today, there’s a network for each of us — the FYP Channel.² You're no longer defined by race, gender, or occupation.

You are now an n of 1.

Taste doesn’t lose its meaning just because it’s curated by a machine. Just as each person has a unique response to a piece of art, we each experience our personal algorithms in our own way. Philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein captured this idea with his “beetle in a box” analogy: each of us has a private inner experience, which language can never fully convey it.

When machines curate our experience better than we can, it doesn't mark the death of taste—just its evolution.

Change My Mind: In the future, movie theater will only show pre-released films.

Other Fun:

Hermes’ NYC Mystery at the Grooms’ Pop-Up event; Washington Square Park Wednesday Salsa (6-9pm) and Juggling (9-12pm) Nights; the Elizabeth Street Garden was saved (beautiful secret city park); Merengue “Colocho”; High-Res Moon Photos from Andrew McCarthy

If you’re still reading this…Thanks for sticking around :)

What’s new with you?

1. There’s a great Matt Damon clip how technology fundamentally altered the entertainment business model and types of producible movies.

2. For you page.