Searching for the Evergreens
The forest of content is dense—and still growing faster every year.
Most of what we read is optimized for now: today’s market, this week’s outrage, the current cycle. While some of this is useful, almost all of it expires.
I try to be Bayesian about how I understand the world—updating as new evidence comes in. But the bigger risk isn’t failing to update; it’s updating too aggressively. Recency bias is the tax we pay for being plugged in.
When I consume content, I try to separate it into two buckets:
- Just-in-time: content optimized for current conditions.
- Evergreen: content that remains useful across cycles.
Both have a place. Confusing them is where problems start.
Over time, I’ve found that the best filter is also the simplest. As David Senra likes to say on the Founders podcast:
“Time is the only filter that I trust.”
That idea does a lot of work. Time removes urgency, fashion, and cleverness. What survives tends to deal with incentives, behavior, power, and constraints—the things that don’t change much.
Turning Time into a Test
When I’m deciding whether something is evergreen or just-in-time, I run it through three questions:
- Would this still be useful if I didn’t know when it was written?
- Is it explaining incentives and behavior, or just reacting to events?
- Can I apply this in a different domain without much translation?
If it fails one, it’s probably cycle-bound.
If it passes all three, it’s worth coming back to.
An Ongoing Evergreen Library
This is a list of content I find myself returning to time and time again, and expect to remain useful decades from now. This list is dynamic: some things will fall off, others will get added.
Thinking, Fast and Slow — Daniel Kahneman
Bias is inherent in every decision you make. Understanding how systematic errors shape judgment allows you to approach problems more holistically.
The Psychology of Money — Morgan Housel
“Everyone has an incomplete view of the world. But we form a complete narrative to fill in the gaps.” This gap between experience and narrative explains a lot of money-related decisions.
The Brothers Karamazov — Fyodor Dostoevsky
Still one of the best explorations of character, moral conflict, and internal contradiction. People haven’t changed.
The Prize — Daniel Yergin
Energy underpins everything. Understanding how oil shaped geopolitics reframes modern power, conflict, and economics.
Designing Your Life — Burnett & Evans
I revisit this book and its exercises annually. The specific tools matter less than committing to a structured way of thinking about your life.
How Competitive Forces Shape Strategy — Michael Porter
Still one of the clearest lenses for analyzing industry profitability and competition.
7 Powers — Hamilton Helmer
A durable framework for value capture.
The Memo — Howard Marks
A running lesson in second-level thinking, risk management, and cycle awareness. In times of volatility, ignore the noise.
Bitcoin Whitepaper — Satoshi Nakamoto
Regardless of where you land on Bitcoin, the paper itself operates at the intersection of cryptography, economics, and systems and governance thinking.
The Wizard and the Prophet — Charles C. Mann
Climate change is a simple problem to solve—stop emitting carbon into the atmosphere. But the path to get there requires bridging the ideological divide between wizards (techno-optimists) and prophets (environmental restraint). "There are no solutions, only tradeoffs."
Evergreen content doesn’t shout. It waits.