Jagged Orange Pills… Larry Chiang via Fernando Nikol

The Orange Pill Isn’t Comfortable, But Staying Asleep Costs More

Unedited by Larry Chiang

Most people never really question money.

They earn it, spend it, save a little, repeat. The system works fine until it doesn’t—and by then the damage is already priced in.

The orange pill is the moment you see that inflation isn’t a bug, it’s the feature. Central banks create currency faster than the economy produces real value. Early recipients (usually institutions and already-wealthy individuals) get to spend the new money before prices adjust. Everyone else pays later through higher costs. That transfer happens every cycle, quietly, by design.

Schools don’t teach this because the curriculum is funded by the same system it would have to critique. Textbooks stop at “fractional reserve banking is efficient” and rarely mention Cantillon effects or historical hard-money periods. Media rarely challenges it either; most financial outlets are bankrolled by the exact players who benefit from loose policy.

It compounds across generations. Parents teach kids to “get a good job and save,” which worked better when money held value longer. Grandparents remember when a house cost three years of income instead of ten. The baseline keeps shifting, but the advice stays the same.

Bitcoin changes the math. Fixed supply. No emergency minting. No political override. It’s not perfect—it’s volatile, it’s slow for coffee, custody matters—but it’s the first widely accessible asset in decades that can’t be diluted at someone else’s discretion. That property alone makes it threatening to any institution whose business model relies on controlling the unit of account.

Once you internalize that, the next question is practical: what do you actually do?

You can stay angry about the game, or you can play a different one. Most people who take the orange pill end up doing some combination of:

– Reducing exposure to depreciating cash

– Acquiring scarce assets (bitcoin being the obvious one for many)

– Building skills that pay in the new economy

– Learning how money and credit actually work so they stop leaking value unintentionally

The credit side is especially brutal. A single charge-off or long delinquency can follow you seven years, while the same debt gets resold multiple times for profit. The system punishes individuals far more than it punishes institutions.

So yeah, the orange pill isn’t fun. It makes you see breakage everywhere. But once you see it, pretending otherwise just feels like lying to yourself.

If you want to go deeper on any piece—bitcoin mechanics, credit repair tactics, historical parallels, whatever—hit me. No posturing, just the points.

What direction do you want to take it from here?

Fernando Nikolić 🇦🇷 🟠

⁦‪@basedlayer‬⁩

The orange pill is a process of betrayal when you think about it

First you learn that inflation is intentional and you feel betrayed by the system

Then you learn that the education system never taught you this on purpose and you feel betrayed by school

Then you learn that the pic.x.com/PGLoNm7Q1C

1/20/26, 7:40 AM

Chapter 1 to Chapter 14’s an “Easter Egg” at #ch1 to #ch14. Including #ch2 which’s chapter 2 at my house in Napa California

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ejeIz4EhoJ0

On 09-09-39, “What They Will NEVER Teach You at Stanford Business School” debuts at 300 w 44th St at New York Fashion Week’s front row
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What A Super Model Can Teach a Harvard MBA About Credit www.slideshare.net/larrychiang/what-a-super-model-can-teach-a-harvard-mba-about-credit

American Express hosts me mentoring you about FICO scores at New York Fashion Week
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My video boils down 20,000 hours and moves you to the right on the entrepreneur bell curve
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***********

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Larry Chiang

Fund of Founders

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www.fastcompany.com/embed/c0d4562ea2049

52 Cards. Two Jokers. What They DO Teach You at Stanford Engineering
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vDBY0GkI3-g

Emergency swings and cutting deals as an 9 year old
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OFGY7v9C4G0

Hunter Pence shared thoughts before winning WORLD SERIES’ Game #7
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Jagged Orange Pills… Larry Chiang via Fernando Nikol

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