About MenFem
I grew up poor.
Council housing. A single parent. Nothing to fall back on.
When you grow up without money, money is never an abstraction. It’s the thing that’s missing — it decides where you live, what you’re allowed to want, how the adults around you sleep at night. You learn early that caring about money isn’t greedy. The people who already have it are the ones who get to call caring about it vulgar.
I never wanted a job.
Once you’ve been poor, you understand fragility in your bones — and a job is the most fragile thing you can build a life on. One counterparty — your employer — holds the keys to your whole income, and can turn the lock whenever it suits them. They call that stability. Nassim Taleb calls it what it is: you’re “reliable” because you’re capturable. You trade every ounce of optionality for the feeling of safety, and you don’t even get safety.
I wanted the opposite. Own the thing. Carry the downside myself. Keep the upside. Build a life on assets I control, not hours I rent out. MenFem is that vehicle.
Why I talk about money
Most people never talk about money. They don’t invest. They never really learn how finance works — and they’re taught, quietly, that it’s rude to try. I think that’s one of the most expensive lies going. Not understanding money doesn’t make you noble; it makes you dependent. I know exactly what that dependence costs.
So I talk about it — openly, constantly — in relation to what I’m actually doing: what I’m studying, what I’m reading, the markets I’m trying to understand, the things that genuinely interest me. Not abstract advice from the sidelines. The real work, shown as I do it.
The bigger bet: knowledge is leaving the university
Here’s the wager underneath all of it. The institutions that used to hold knowledge — universities above all — are hollowing out. The most serious thinking, research and intelligence is migrating out of public institutions and into private ones: labs, firms, independent groups, small research organisations. Edwin Land saw it coming decades ago.
"The small company of the future will be as much a research organisation as it is a manufacturing company.
MenFem is built to be one of those organisations — with one difference that matters: skin in the game. A think tank publishes and walks away. We put our own money behind what we find, so the research is tested against reality — profit and loss — not just approval. It’s the River instinct made institutional: the doer in the arena, not the critic in the stands.
What that actually looks like
In practice, MenFem does four things — the way a research organisation with money on the line does them:
Studies markets
Real research into the industries being built right now, and the way capital actually moves once you strip away the theatre.
Invests — in public
I put my own money where the research is and show you the whole book. Live, daily, losses included. The track record is a time-stamped, real-money record that builds whether I’m right or wrong.
Finds people
The doers worth knowing — and backs them, profiles them, connects them.
Builds
Products and partnerships with the people and ideas worth betting on.
The model on top is simple: the track record is free — the receipts, always. The reasoning is paid — every thesis in full, the deep work, the framework I actually trade. And the direction is deliberate: prove it, productise it, then scale it. Most people pitch a story. I’d rather hand you the receipts.
What I believe
- Money is worth talking about — honestly. Not understanding it doesn’t make you noble; it makes you dependent.
- Own the thing. Hours are rented; assets compound. Build what you keep.
- Skin in the game. No call counts unless there’s real money behind it.
- Show the receipts — losses included. Transparency isn’t a feature; it’s the proof.
- Do the actual work. Read the primary source, form your own view, then put money behind it.
- Judge the decision, not the result. Good process survives a bad week; luck doesn’t.
The record
Everything official about MenFem, in one place and on the record — free to read, free to keep. It grows every year.
Annual Report 2026 — Year Zero
Inaugural · Inception → June 2026
Revenue at zero, stated plainly — and the proof of work behind it. Who we are, what got built, the numbers, the track record, how the business makes money, the plan, and what could go wrong.
The Manifesto
Free · PDF
What MenFem believes and why — the operating philosophy, in full.
This is proof of work
In the end, MenFem is simple: it’s me, documenting the whole journey — beginning to end — through the things I can’t stop studying. The markets. The technologies. The people building them. What I’m reading, what I’m backing, what I get right, and what I get wrong.
It starts today. From here, everything is public and on the record — the research, the positions, the wins, and the losses, logged as they happen.
There will be successes. There will be failures.
I’ve already been to the bottom. I know what it feels like — which is exactly why I’ve got nothing to lose.
I’m just no longer scared to show them.
The book is open. Keep score with me — I hope you enjoy it.
I document my learning daily in the Notebook — what I'm covering and what I'm taking away, on the record.
MenFem · public proof of work · June 2026