# Hi, I'm Karan *Mario Jude* Pinto. Welcome to my corner of the internet. Yes, Mario Jude is my real middle name. I am on a never-ending pursuit to transcend myself to new frontiers, push the boundaries of disciplines & contribute to building the future. I am a voracious reader, an unapologetic curious cat, an acute observer & an open minded individual with incredibly diverse interests spanning from technology & finance to art & dance, from adventure sport & movement to film & entrepreneurship. This second brain is my perpetual pursuit to learn, grow & become more. Learn more [[About me]], [[Who I am]], [[My Publications]], [[Speaker Profile]] and [[Advisory Profile]]. > [!tip] Short on time? Three ways in > - **2 minutes:** read one idea from [[#Ideas I keep coming back to]]. > - **20 minutes:** pick a door in [[#Pick a door]] and follow the links. > - **An evening:** open a deep dive from [[#What I'm digging into now]] and get lost. ## Now *Last refreshed: November 2026.* - **Building:** co-founder at Navon. We bring deep tech infrastructure to the Global South. See [[Navon MoC]]. - **Side builds:** - [MJ Research](https://investing.themariojude.com/): my public investing research. One day I want to run a hedge fund. - [Ask Mark](https://askmark.filmsbykp.com/): a tool for film production. I love filmmaking and want to be a filmmaker one day. - **Studio:** notes from my venture studio work live in [[Utopia Studio MoC]] and [[The Studio Insights]]. - **Obsessing over:** where the margin goes when AI makes one layer of the stack cheap. - **Looking back:** [[2025 Year-End Reflection - What Landed, What Didn't]] scores my [[Themes shaping 2025|2025 predictions]] against reality. ## What I'm digging into now Recent rabbit holes. Each map starts with a thesis and links out to the evidence. | Map | The question | |---|---| | [[Agent Engine Optimisation MOC]] | How does a brand get found, cited and used by AI agents? | | [[Industrial AI MOC]] | Why is the physical world the hard part for AI? | | [[Foreman MOC]] | Can agents capture the know-how of retiring factory experts? | | [[Music Royalty Financing MOC]] | Is lending against song royalties a real asset class? | | [[United States Lime and Minerals MOC]] | Can heated rock be a local monopoly? | | [[Advanced Packaging MOC]] | Where does chip value move after Moore's law slows? | | [[TechBio MoC]] | What happens when biology becomes a data problem? | | [[Data Center MoC]] | What does it take to build compute where power is cheap? | ## Ideas I keep coming back to Small, sharp ideas. Most are one screen long. - [[Scarcity Migration]]: when one input becomes free, value moves to the input that stays scarce. - [[Legibility Premium]]: the easier an opportunity is to explain, the more you pay to own it. - [[Inertia Rent]]: some profits depend on customers not using their options. - [[Liability Absorption]]: code is easy to copy. Accepting the blame is not. - [[Marginal Dollar Test]]: before you invest, ask whether your dollar changes the outcome. - [[Complexity Premium]]: when simple models commoditise, complexity becomes the entry fee. - [[Effort as a Hidden Filter]]: remove the cost of effort and the filter fails. - [[Stacked Margins in the AI Chain]]: every layer of the AI chain earns a scarcity margin. That cannot last. More in [[Concepts MOC]] and [[Defensibility Principles MOC]]. ## Pick a door | If you like… | Start here | |---|---| | AI, agents & software | [[Selling AI MOC]] · [[Foundational Models MOC]] · [[AI Eats Services Not Software]] | | Deep tech & quantum | [[Quantum Tech MOC]] · [[Security MoC]] · [[Cryptography MOC]] | | Investing & markets | [[Investing System MoC]] · [[Investment Thesis Plays]] · [[VC Moc]] | | Building companies | [[010 Venture Building]] · [[Venture Building Manifesto]] · [[How to start an AI-native company]] | | Energy, climate & materials | [[Future of Batteries MOC]] · [[Steel MoC]] · [[Carbon Capture Use & Storage (CCUS) MOC]] | | How to think | [[First Principles and Mental Models MoC]] · [[Collected Advice]] · [[Short Essays]] | ## My Second Brain Here you can find **my second brain** - a public space where I continuously collect, synthesise, connect, cultivate & create in my "[[Digital Gardens]]". A space where: - I collate my un-filtered pure thoughts, learnings & understandings. - I just write & output to gain clarity, discover guiding principles & uncover ideas. - I channel my expression on matters I care & am passionate about.​ This is a long-term journey through which I continuously evolve my personal knowledge over the next decades. The garden now holds 2,000+ notes. Please note that this is a curated selection that is published for the common good and knowledge sharing only. ## Why this site exists - It became *challenging to manage my mind better* w/ conventional note tools as they fell short when it came to the: - seamless, unstructured capture of one's thoughts, - connecting of uncorrelated knowledge dots & emergence of ideas, - compounding of my long term intelligence - To *continuously share my exploits* with the world *& include wider context*(which is a big missing piece of the puzzle), I felt the scratching urge for a channel / medium that: - helped me understand the realms of my [[Circles of Competence]], in terms of differentiating between what I know & don't know ([[Metacognition]]) - minimised friction / efficiently enabled the **"thought to capture to share to compounding"** flow in a fuss free way - **sync my internal sense-making w/ my external sharing** for reference, for conversations, for journey enhancement ([[Order for Chaos]] ) Ref: [[Notes & Networked Thought]] | [[Fluid Thinking]] ## Basic Terminologies Throughout my second brain, I use some abbreviations that are concepts to make room for thought and facilitate the development of my [[Digital Gardens]]. Below are are some key ones to know: - [[Maps of Content (MOCs)]] help organize and keep track of the [[Digital Gardens]]. - [[Block of Atomic Thought - BOATS]] that are very early child notes. > [!note] Rough edges are on purpose > Notes tagged `#boat` are young ideas. They may be wrong. That is how they grow. Ref: [[Home Map]] --- Connect w/ me [here](https://bit.ly/karanpinto-links) | [Medium](https://bit.ly/karanmjpintomedium) | [Twitter](https://bit.ly/karanmjpintotwitter) | [Dance](http://bit.ly/karanpinto-dance) | [LinkedIn](http://bit.ly/karanpinto-linkedin) Visitors, please read: [[Terms of Service]]