About
I build businesses and study how society works.
My background is in online publishing. My interests reach further: economics, income mobility, personal strategy, and the decisions that shape how people live.
I’m based in Texas, where I run Connell Family Office. I also founded Connell Media and American Digest Media. This site brings together the businesses I’ve built and the ideas I spend time thinking about.
Background
From online publishing to company operations.
Publishing has put me on both sides of the page: developing websites and hiring writers, as well as contributing articles of my own. The subjects have ranged from financial education to news, writing, and philosophy.
It also means working on how a publication reaches its readers. Search engines, social platforms, and email each create a different kind of publishing business. An article people find when they need an answer has a different job from a news story delivered to their inbox.
That distinction runs through the companies I work on today. Connell Media develops free web magazines, tools, and calculators. American Digest Media publishes news sites and newsletters. Both are publishing businesses, but the reasons readers come to them are different.
Earlier, I founded Conservative Tribune, which Liftable Media acquired in 2015. I later founded Conservative Institute in 2017. Today, Conservative Institute is one of the publications featured by American Digest Media.
My experience hiring writers also led to FreelanceWritingJobs.com. Connell Media’s other publications include WritingTips.org, which explains everyday writing questions, and StoicQuotes.com, which introduces readers to Stoic thinkers and their work.
Explore the companies and publications →What I read
Economics is a recurring interest.
I read textbooks, financial news, and arguments from across the political spectrum. Textbooks matter to me because they give a subject structure. A stream of articles can be useful, but it isn’t the same as working through a field systematically.
My reading includes the Financial Times, The Wall Street Journal, Seeking Alpha, and Cullen Roche’s Pragmatic Capitalism. Authors I’ve spent time with include Richard Maybury, Ray Dalio, and Tim Ferriss.
I also read people I disagree with. That includes writers far outside my own political outlook, such as Noam Chomsky. Understanding an argument and agreeing with it are different things.
These interests extend beyond markets. I’m interested in how institutions, incentives, technology, and individual decisions affect one another. The broader question is the one on the homepage: how society works.
Personal strategy
What changes the odds of getting the life you want?
Personal strategy is a longstanding interest of mine. By that I mean the decisions people make about their lives and how those decisions affect their chances of getting the outcomes they want.
Income mobility is part of that interest: how people improve their circumstances, including when they start with very little. Business ownership, investing, education, and personal decisions all belong in that conversation.
In How to Predict the Future, I explored a related problem: recognizing a broad trend doesn’t tell you exactly what will happen next, or what to do about it. The distinction matters when a real decision depends on the answer.
“Just because we can identify major trends doesn’t mean we can translate that knowledge into actionable specifics.”
How to Predict the Future, 2018
The articles on this site cover these subjects from different angles and at different points in time. You can browse them by topic or read the full collection.
Explore the analysis →What I’m working on
Connell Family Office
A family office and operations company, with real estate and other investments.
Connell Media
Web magazines and useful tools and calculators. All free.
American Digest Media
A large network of news sites covering business, crime, and political news, with newsletters reaching readers by email.
For reference
Official profile and sources
Shaun Connell
Shaun Connell is a business owner and publisher based in Texas. He runs Connell Family Office and founded Connell Media and American Digest Media.
This is his personal website. His analysis covers economics, personal strategy, and how society works. The businesses page explains his current companies; the media page provides biographies, a portrait, and published references.
Official profiles and company references
- Shaun Connell on LinkedIn
- Connell Family Office: company operations, real estate, and other investments.
- Connell Media: free web magazines, tools, and calculators.
- American Digest Media: news publications and newsletters.
An interview about my background
In a May 31, 2022 interview with Authority Magazine, I discussed my early publishing businesses, setbacks, and lessons from starting again. It records my perspective at that time; the company information above describes my current work.
If you spot an incorrect biographical detail or a broken reference, send a correction with the page link and the supporting source.