Neckar’s Notes

Neckar’s Notes (also published as “Alchemy of Money”) is the Substack written by Frederik Gieschen — “the Neckar” / “NeckarValue” — on investing, creativity, and the inner game. In Kyle’s notes it recurs as a referenced body of work whose individual pieces are cited across the wiki. Kyle read a cluster of Gieschen’s essays in April 2022 — “Attempting the Impossible,” “Divorce, Denial, Dissonance Reduction,” and “The Reading Obsession” — and pulled durable lessons from them. The “Attempting the Impossible” piece anchors Kyle’s Build a Fund concept, arguing how hard it is to spin out and raise a first fund “unless you come from a prestigious shop and have initial backing,” with the real edge being the ability to “build a network, tell a story, and get an introduction.”

Gieschen’s broader thesis, recorded from his Neckar writing, is that investor-writers like Buffett and Howard Marks “used content to instill trust, trust gave them permanent capital, and permanent capital gave them a massive financial advantage” — alongside a distinction between an investment business (gives customers what they want) and an investment practice (serves the client in a way that reflects the practitioner’s craft). His Neckar piece “Cranking The Learning Machine Up To 11” is catalogued as one of Kyle’s long reads, and Kyle harvested the Jesse Livermore “nothing new in Wall Street” quote while reading his work.

Context: Neckar’s Notes / The Alchemy of Money is a real investing newsletter by Frederik Gieschen, known for essays blending market history, the psychology of great investors, and the writer’s-craft angle on building trust and capital.

Where this appears

• Frederik Gieschen — the writer behind Neckar’s Notes; the page catalogs the essays Kyle drew from and the lessons he kept.