top of page
Stay Curious.
Make the most of your college experience.
Jeff Hulett
Curator, The Curiosity Vine
Stay Curious.
The Curiosity Vine is an idea incubator.
Our contributors have experience and interest in a variety of high-impact topics, such as science, technology, conservation, mathematics, data science, public policy, economics, and others. Our objective is to promote early-stage ideas, enable idea collaboration, and test idea purchase.
TCV platform is curated by Jeff Hulett.
Join our team - become a TCV contributor!
Learn about why you should join The Curiosity Vine.
TCV's ideas are used to provide seminars, write books, build businesses, and especially to help people.
So take a look around the site, feel free to ask or answer your own questions, and enjoy your own curiosity exploration!
Like what you see? Please join our BEST DECISIONS newsletter!
Featured Posts
Win/Win Economics: How Adam Smith Showed Us the Way to Prosperity
A Legacy of Enrichment. This year, we celebrate the 250-year anniversary of Adam Smith's publication of The Wealth of Nations . It is, of course, no coincidence that 1776 was also the year the American colonies declared independence from the British; both events signaled a radical shift toward individual liberty and self-determination. We owe much of our modern prosperity to the insights of Adam Smith. By identifying the mechanics of market economics, Smith helped kick off t
Insurance Gerrymandering: The "La La Land" Tax Hitting Many Americans
In the world of policy, there is a recurring pattern where a small group of influential leaders—the "Anointed"—decide that their personal vision for society is more important than the hard facts of the market. They don't see themselves as politicians; they see themselves as rescuers. Their vision is simple: "We can make dangerous places feel safe by making them artificially cheap to live in." But in economics, there is no such thing as a free lunch. When the Anointed decide t
The City-Center Illusion: Why Your Brain Thrives on the Road, Not the Destination
Why is understanding our own brain and neurobiology so difficult? After all, it is right behind our eyes; we carry it around and use it all the time. Part of the challenge lies in our social mental models. It turns out, the very structures that make us successful together in groups provide the wrong framework for thinking about how our individual brains operate. This article explores how our models for building community are fundamentally different from the way our biological
The Great Unbundling: Why Self-Directed Mastery is the New American Education
America stands on the precipice of a quiet yet absolute educational revolution. For decades, the national discourse has centered on fixing a broken system, yet we must acknowledge a fundamental economic reality: large-scale education systems, often managed by government bureaucracies, possess almost no incentive to change. These institutions are infected by what those in Positive Political Theory call congealed preferences. Like wet cement that has long since hardened, the in
Never Miss a New Post.
What goes into changing our minds?
Search
Solving the blurry line between man and machine: Example of using GenAI as your thinking partner
I wrote the next speech and published the text on Personal Finance Reimagined. PFR is a sister platform to The Curiosity Vine, our idea incubator. The Time Traveler's Co-Pilot: Guiding Your Child Through the College Decision This speech is part of the program introduction for high school parents, as a kick-off for a SCHEV-sponsored Gear Up program at several Virginia high schools. It is an amazing program and we are proud to partner with SCHEV. This article is about how we
Jeff Hulett
Nov 10, 20254 min read
The Rewired Life: Seeking Better, Not Just More
Seeking is profoundly natural. In fact, it is a drive wired deep into our brains, a crucial part of our evolutionary biology. In many ways, seeking is why we exist today—it is the fuel for growth, discovery, and survival. So, this article is not about stopping that powerful, innate force; it's about channeling it. Are we seeking the wrong things? In a world saturated with curated lifestyles, comparison-driven ambition, and endless information, the impulse to achieve more is
Jeff Hulett
Nov 5, 202516 min read
The Real Failure of Financial Education: We Don't Teach Students to Invest Their Time
The Real Input to Wealth: Time and Attention As a personal finance professor and the president of Personal Finance Reimagined, I'm constantly talking about wealth generation. It's the "output" we all strive for, but the conversation around it, particularly concerning wealth inequality, often misses the mark. It focuses too heavily on the outcome and not enough on the fundamental inputs that drive the entire system. Every four years, the Federal Reserve releases its massive st
Jeff Hulett
Oct 31, 20255 min read
When Maps Melt: The Limits of Knowledge in Decision-Making
At Personal Finance Reimagined (PFR) we often remind students and entrepreneurs of an essential point: Good decisions depend on clear thinking, yet one recurring confusion is between probability and frequency. The error arises because historical frequencies—what has happened—are often incorrectly treated as certain probabilities for the future. As the physicist E.T. Jaynes suggested, frequency is merely an observation of the past terrain, while probability is the map we use
Jeff Hulett
Oct 1, 202511 min read
Embrace the Power of Changing Your Mind: Think Like a Bayesian to Make Better Decisions, Part 1
Why Changing Our Minds Matters Changing your mind is not weakness; it is disciplined strength. We live in a world rewarding certainty, slogans, and quick takes. Yet the choices shaping our careers, finances, health, and relationships usually unfold under uncertainty. The risk is obvious: when we cling to yesterday’s belief in a shifting world, the accuracy of our future judgments drifts away from reality. The result is avoidable regret—missed opportunities, inefficient effort
Jeff Hulett
Sep 24, 202529 min read
From Conditional Approval to Closing: A First-Time Homebuyer’s Guide to the Final Stretch
Credit If you’re buying your first home, you’ve probably already discovered that the mortgage process has a language all its own. Words...
Jara Jones
Jun 20, 20255 min read
The College Pricing Illusion: Why Higher Education Defies Economic Logic (and what we can do about it)
Higher education operates in a world of its own, where traditional economic principles break down and students struggle to maximize their...
Jeff Hulett
Mar 11, 20258 min read
The Absurdistan Satire - A Playbill
This is the playbill for the satire: Absurdistan U: How the Student Loan System Holds Higher Ed on a Leash Summary: This imaginary home...
Jeff Hulett
Feb 24, 20254 min read
bottom of page