Web Excursions 2022-11-16

对话张维迎：我们的未来什么样，依赖于我们相信什么

• 张维迎今年 63 岁了，如果用一句话概括他近 40 年来的工作，那就是他试图把 “企业家” 在中国从负面词变成正面词。

  • 他今年出版的新书《重新理解企业家精神》依然是这个长期工作的一部分。

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• Q: 你曾经说自己 40 年都在做的一个工作就是在中国把 “企业家” 从负面词变成正面词。 它今天似乎也没有完全变成正面词？

• 很大的变化。

  • 在 20 世纪 80 年代的时候，那绝对是个贬义词，这也是我当时写的文章产生一定影响力的原因，它们触动了这些东西。

  • 现在，“企业家” 有点褒义了，但是社会对他们的评价很复杂。

  • 另一方面，人们把社会出现的好多问题都不断地归罪于企业家，这导致企业家的正当性经常受到怀疑。

• 企业家需要的知识不只是书本上的，如果不理解这一点，就始终没法理解企业家是怎么创造财富的

  • 认识到知识的本质，就知道企业家拥有的只可意会不可言传的知识是软知识。要明白企业家有一种天赋，而这种天赋是能给我们带来好处的。

• 发挥想象力。世界上的好多机会一般人会熟视无睹，只有少数人能识别出来，而明天是什么样的，依赖于我们想象它是什么样的。

• 市场经济最重要的就是让人的创造力得到发挥，特别是让最具创造力、野心勃勃的人只能干好事，不能干坏事。

• 公司治理涉及的不光是利益冲突，更是认知冲突。

  • 为什么很多企业很难基业长青，就是因为一个企业做大之后，一个企业家本身的企业家精神就衰退了。

  • 第二个就是很多企业要规范化管理，企业管理者与企业家是不一样的。

  • 我们过去把他们混淆了，好像只要任命你是企业管理者以后，你就是企业家了，但实际上很多企业管理者没有企业家精神。

• 如果理解我讲的企业家精神，你至少不会那么轻易地下结论，包括对于贾跃亭，你不能简单地说他是骗子。

• 很多人类的进步都是由这些人带来的，所以企业家的过度自信对人类来说是好事。

  • 实际上，即使只有 10% 的成功概率，他们也会 100% 去完成，当然这是少数人。

  • 不过一旦成功，他们对人类的积极影响就是巨大的。

• 从道德的角度来讲，真正的骗子知道那是假的，而很多企业家相信那会是真的、自己会做成，他们把自己的财富也放进去了。

  • 这就是我在牛津时期的论文研究主题 “资本雇佣劳动”。

  • 一个人如果不愿意把自己的财富放进去，你是不会相信他的。

• 要保证企业家尤其是创始人控制企业，就必须设立特殊安排，或者他 1 股投 10 票，你 1 股只能投 1 票。

  • 如果 1 股 1 票，一定是好多有企业家精神的人被干掉。

• 市场是个竞争机制，你自己不纠正，别人就帮你纠正——提供更好的产品。

  • 发现别人的不足，就是赚钱的机会，相互本来就是个制约，所以就不需要三权分立了。

  • 所以不要担心公司内部的专制，因为公司内部的专制如果好，它就能存在下去，不好的话就会被干掉。

• Q: 怎么看之前淘宝双 11 的二选一？

• 这个是自负的表现，我认为它不是好的商业策略，但我不认为这是一个违法的事。

  • 这是一个市场行为，市场自动会纠正。

  • 2013 年阿里在电商市场的份额是 92%，现在只剩大概一半左右。

• 媒体可以批评企业，但是我觉得不需要有任何一个强制的力量。

  • 我们不要想着要一个时刻完美的世界，我们一定要允许体制本身存在缺陷。

  • 就算你每天检查身体，你也不会多活多长时间。

• 我主张每个人本身要对自己的行为负责。

  • 现在有太多的人都是出事了以后找政府帮，这就是为什么真骗子能够行得通——有人给他 “上保险”。

  • 这样的兜底其实保护了骗子、还使得被骗的人不那么谨慎了。

• Q: 所以你觉得反垄断到底应该反什么？

• 反特权。

• 其实我们改革本来就是一个反垄断的过程，让更多的人可以有机会创新。

  • 市场化就是反垄断的过程。

• 我不反对政府帮助企业，只要是在公平的原则下。

  • 你举出一个成功的例子，我也可以给你举出 100 个不成功的例子。

• 好的政策就是普适性的政策

• Q: 你早年是新古典经济学派的捍卫者，现在你说自己更接近奥地利学派，这是怎样的转变？

• 早年，我的基本思想受弗里德曼的影响很大，但是后来我越来越转向哈耶克，我认为那才是更正确的一个思想理论，哈耶克的思想更深刻。

• 在新古典经济学中，市场的有效性是建立在完美市场、人绝对理性这些假设上的，而这些假设全是不现实的。

  • 它里边是没有企业家的，强调的是均衡。

• 芝加哥学派认为变化都是外界给的，有一个明确的均衡点。

  • 但事实上，这个点在不断地跳动，而跳动不是由于外生，而是内生的，每一个企业家都是变化的力量。

• 市场经济任劳任怨，可我们把所有坏东西都归结为它。

  • 市场经济是平等的，决定走向的力量是市场本身而不是一些具体的人。

  • 经济好了，大家就偷着乐，市场也不需要我们感谢。

The Psychopharmacology of the FTX Crash

1: Was SBF Using A Medication That Can Cause Overspending And Compulsive Gambling As A Side Effect?

• Probably yes, and maybe it could have had some small effect, but probably not as much as the people discussing it on Twitter think.

• Milky Eggs reports a claim by an employee that Sam was on “a patch for designer stimulants that mainlined them into his blood to give him a constant buzz at all times”.

  • This is a hyperbolic description of Emsam, a patch form of the antidepressant/antiparkinsonian agent selegiline.

• Emsam is a brand of selegiline, a medication used since the 1960s to treat Parkinson’s disease.

  • Selegiline is a MAOB inhibitor2.

  • MAOB is an enzyme that breaks down dopamine.

  • If you inhibit it, you get more dopamine.

  • So in a very broad sense, selegiline gives you more dopamine.

• Everyone wants “magic bullets” - drugs that can increase dopamine in one of these ways, but not any of the others.

• But it’s tough.

  • There are dozens of dopamine-based drugs, and all of them succeed in some ways and fail in others.

  • Adderall mostly helps attention but sometimes causes a little paranoia on the side.

  • Antipsychotics mostly prevent hallucinations and delusions, but also cause anhedonia.

  • If a good doctor carefully chooses the right drug and dose, you’ll mostly get what you want.

• The pharma companies decided to release the patch anyway, in case some people liked patches better than pills - and so Emsam was born.

• I can see why this caught so much attention.

  • But let me rain on the parade: this seems pretty rare.

  • Grossett et al found a prevalence of about 8% on any antiparkinsonian, but none of the 17 patients they found were taking selegiline.

  • Lanteri et al quote a prevalence of 2.2 - 7%, but only one of the 15 patients they found was on selegiline, and that person was also on other medications more likely to cause the condition.

  • This doesn’t prove that selegiline never causes problem gambling - but it suggests it’s one of the less likely medications to do so, probably at somewhere well below 2 - 8% of patients.

• Does this mean that Emsam definitely wasn’t involved?

  • Not exactly.

  • “Gave someone a gambling disorder” is an overly binary way of saying “shifted someone’s brain’s risk curves6 a lot”

• A significant fraction of the finance industry is on Adderall - I know because they keep trying to make me prescribe it to them.

  • This hasn’t degraded performance so much that managers have noticed or made rules against it.

  • And for all I know, maybe the medicated mental risk curves are better for trading than the unmedicated ones.

  • Still, I would warn everyone involved to be careful.

2. Is There Some Conspiracy That His Name Was Sam And He Was On A Medication Called Emsam?

• Emsam is in fact named after the two kids of the CEO of the pharma company that developed it: Emily and Sam.

  • This is the cutest psychopharmacology fact I know.

3: What Was In The Blue-Green Bottle?

• Here the heroic detectives on r/NootropicsDepot recognized it as their company’s old brand of adrafinil7.

  • Adrafinil is a prodrug of modafinil, an unusual stimulant-like drug.

  • That is, your body metabolizes adrafinil and turns it into modafinil after you take it.

• So was SBF effectively on modafinil?

  • Seems likely - many traders are.

  • I won’t lie - modafinil is a good stimulant, during medical residency some doctors (including me) would use it to stay alert through the night shift.

  • It’s not any better than Adderall or anything, just a bit different and easier to get.

• all dopaminergics affect attitude to risk in complicated ways we don’t really understand, but for most people these effects will be too small to notice.

• Except - was he taking the selegiline and adrafinil at the same time?

• Selegiline prevents the body from breaking down dopamine.

  • Modafinil works by preventing cells from reabsorbing dopamine.

  • If you can’t break it down, and you can’t reabsorb it, what happens?

  • Does it just build up forever until it explodes and you die?

• This is what happens with serotonin.

  • If you take a drug that prevents serotonin breakdown (like a traditional MAOI) and a drug that prevents serotonin reuptake (like an SSRI) at the same time, you definitely die.

  • Lots of doctors have noticed that the MAOI + stimulant situation is pretty similar and decided you shouldn’t take these at the same time either.

  • So some people following the FTX situation have wondered whether this combo might have been very dangerous - either to Sam’s health or to his risk-management ability.

• My verdict: this is a bad idea but - surprisingly! - probably won’t literally kill you.

• I once placed one patient, one time, on a combination of MAOIs and amphetamines, during a situation where I thought potential benefits outweighed risks.

  • I quadruple-checked every detail of the regimen, prayed, and added my malpractice attorney’s phone number to speed dial.

  • In the end it went fine

4: Was Everyone On Meth?

• When you take selegiline, your body metabolizes it other chemicals.

  • One of them is methamphetamine.

  • How much?

  • Probably lower than the levels methheads get, but maybe around the threshold for being clinically relevant.

• There’s boring technical debate about exactly how dangerous and addictive l-methamphetamine is, but the answer I find most convincing is “so safe and nonaddictive that the government lets you sell it over the counter as a nasal decongestant”

• Anyone taking selegiline might get a positive urine test for methamphetamine, but there’s no reason to expect any real negative effects.

5: Okay, But Was Everyone On Other Stimulants?

• Probably it’s selection bias - as a Bay Area psychiatrist, I see the people who are in stimulants, but not the ones who aren’t.

  • A few years ago I wrote a piece on my experience as working in SF’s business district

• The human brain wasn’t built for accounting or software engineering.

  • A few lucky people can do these things ten hours a day, every day, with a smile.

  • The rest of us start fidgeting and checking our cell phone somewhere around the thirty minute mark.

  • I work near the financial district of a big city, so every day a new Senior Regional Manipulator Of Tiny Numbers comes in and tells me that his brain must be broken because he can’t sit still and manipulate tiny numbers as much as he wants.

  • How come this is so hard for him, when all of his colleagues can work so diligently?

• (it’s because his colleagues are all on Adderall already – but telling him that will just make things worse)

6: Is It Okay, As A Psychiatrist Bound By Doctor-Patient Confidentiality, To Give An Interview About Your Patient To The New York Times?

• Apparently the FTX company psychiatrist gave an interview to the New York Times on his opinion of SBF’s personality.

• I’m usually the last person to be a stickler for role-conflict-rules - I prescribe to family members in emergencies, and sometimes the emergency is “they are bad at getting a real doctor”.

  • But this is just way beyond anything that even I would consider appropriate.

• I’d like to think that maybe SBF asked him to do this interview and gave 100% express consent.

  • But even then, there’s a marit ayin consideration - the psychiatrist should start by very explicitly saying he has express consent, and would never do anything like this without it.

• The best I can say for him is that he’ll probably get away with it, because the only injured party is Sam Bankman-Fried, and I assume Sam’s lawyers are busy right now.