What happens when the person who knows the problem can build the tool?
I’m exploring this with AI and software for my own field. I’m interested in what other practitioners are making, especially in small, specialized corners of the world.
Hello, I’m Mik.
I like to play
long games.
I’m a transfer pricing economist and investor. I run a consulting firm, build software, and think out loud on a couple of podcasts.
Economics and investing give me one set of questions. Building software, writing, and running keep adding more. This page is a way to find people who might enjoy comparing notes.
A few open questions
Things I keep coming back to.
How do you tell a good decision from a lucky outcome?
Investing makes this hard to ignore. I like looking back at a thesis to see what I understood, what I missed, and what the result alone can’t tell me.
How do you pursue a goal without letting the metric take over?
Running has made this question rather less theoretical for me.
Where this gets practical
Work, investing,
and thinking aloud.
I run TP Analytics, a transfer pricing consultancy. In plain English, we help businesses analyze prices for transactions between related companies.
Why I want more open conversations about transfer pricing
I’m also building tpFins, starting with bond data for benchmarking intercompany loans. It grows out of years spent wrestling with data designed for someone else’s problem.
Investing is a core part of what I do: public markets, alongside small angel and real estate investments. That experience shapes FOMO Investing, which I co-host with Brian. We explore businesses, investment theses, and how our reasoning holds up over time.
A great product can still be a tough business
I also co-host Uncontrolled Opinions with Silvana, where we talk through questions in transfer pricing. Talking things through is one of the ways I figure out what I think.
And I’m building PodSnips, a way to share the exact moment in a podcast worth passing along.
A side quest
It started with a 5K.
I started running to keep up with my daughter in a Girls on the Run 5K. One thing led to another, and now I run marathons and do triathlons.
I recently finished a marathon disappointed because I’d become attached to an arbitrary finish time. Apparently understanding a behavioral bias doesn’t exempt you from it.
I’m married, with two daughters. We live in Northern Virginia.
A little more of the texture
A place to start reading.
An invitation
What question won’t
leave you alone?
If you’re building a tool for a field you know well, revisiting an investment thesis, or finding that a side project has become something more, I’d enjoy hearing about it.
If you have a business or investment perspective you think would make a good FOMO conversation, I’d be glad to hear about it.
Send me what you’re working on, a question, or something worth reading. A specific starting point is plenty.