Sunday, April 30, 2017

Links

My must-read book over the next couple months gets released on Tuesday: Behave: The Biology of Humans at Our Best and Worst - by Robert M. Sapolsky 

Peace: Neither Ink nor Blood - by Nassim Nicholas Taleb (LINK)

How to Make Decisions like Ray Dalio - by Tren Griffin (LINK)

What Separates Goals We Achieve from Goals We Don’t [H/T @RobertCialdini] (LINK)

Home Capital Group - it is time for the Canadian regulator to act -- by John Hempton (LINK)

Interview with Adam Grant about his new book with Sheryl Sandberg, Option B [H/T @TimHarford] (LINK)

Dan Carlin on the History on Fire podcast (LINK)

Dan Carlin also has another episode of his Common Sense (politics) podcast up: Show 315 - War on a Whim? (LINK)

Howard Marks on Bloomberg TV (Video 1, Video 2)

Comment of note from Oaktree Capital Group's Q1 call, made by Bruce Karsh:
"So far in the second quarter, we are continuing the successful harvesting of fully valued portfolio holdings. As you may recall, last July, we highlighted the successful IPO of AdvancePierre Foods, a portfolio company of our Special Situations group. As a reminder, the legacy company, Pierre Foods, was a classic distress for control situation, where in 2008, the team invested $100 million to acquire the business through bankruptcy for an effective purchase price for the whole company of $170 million. This week, APF announced that it had agreed to be acquired by Tyson Foods for a total enterprise value of $4.2 billion. The transaction is expected to close in the current quarter, and the total cash received from this investment will represent approximately 23x our invested capital and generate $2.2 billion in profits for an IRR of over 90%. Clearly, one of the all-time great private equity investments and certainly the standout in the history of Oaktree. It's even more astounding to note that this is not a high-tech company but a prosaic food producer and distributor."

Friday, April 28, 2017

Links

"It's better to travel than arrive." -Robert Pirsig

Warren Buffett's money managers, Todd Combs and Ted Weschler, speak (video) (LINK)

Breaking Bread with Warren Buffett [H/T Linc] (LINK)

You’re Too Busy. You Need a ‘Shultz Hour.’ [H/T @jasonzweigwsj] (LINK)

Jeff Bezos speaks on Thinking Long-Term, Customer Focus, and Innovation [Some key thoughts from a couple of previous interviews.] (LINK)

Staying Competitive as the World Changes - by Morgan Housel (LINK)

The Hedge Fund Manager Who’s Shorting America’s Malls (LINK)

Exponent Podcast: Episode 112 — It’s Complicated (LINK)
Ben and James discuss whether or not monopolies are good, the differences between education and healthcare, and how to build an economy of the future.
McSquared - The Coming War between Trump & The Fed (video) [H/T @cullenroche] (LINK)
Introducing a new series of economic cartoons by the two Mc's - McCulley & McWilliams. What happens when Trump drops the mother of all policy bombs on the Fed? Who's going to win this war, what will the US economy look like in it's aftermath & what does it mean for markets? 
FT Alphachat podcast: Tyler Cowen's stubborn attachments (LINK)
Economist and polymathic author Tyler Cowen talks to Cardiff about his essay, "Stubborn Attachments", in which he shares his vision for a free and prosperous society - and the philosophical foundations necessary to build it.
Scientists Can Now Pull the DNA of Ancient Humans Out of Cave Dirt - by Ed Yong (LINK)

Massimo Pigliucci on Seneca’s Stoic philosophy of happiness (LINK)

Today's Audible Daily Deal ($4.95): Elon Musk: Tesla, SpaceX, and the Quest for a Fantastic Future - by Ashlee Vance

Wednesday, April 26, 2017

Links

"My premise has always been that there are good stocks everywhere. Some people say you can’t buy companies with unions, or you can’t buy companies in dying industries; for instance, who would ever buy a textile company? I mean, I didn’t buy it but a company called Unifi went up, I think, a hundred fold in the textile industry. I missed it. But look at all the money I made with Chrysler and with Boeing. I also lost money with a few airlines and I made money with airlines. But you hear this concept that you can’t make money if you ever buy a company that has a union, because the union will kill it. These are prejudices and biases that prevent people from looking at a lot of different industries. I never had that. I think there are good and bad stocks everywhere." -Peter Lynch (via the 1997 book Investment Gurus)

Stock Picking vs. Portfolio Construction: The Role of Checklists - by Sanjay Bakshi (LINK)

The power of focus in turnarounds - by Sean Iddings (LINK)
Related previous post: The Characteristics of Easy and Difficult Turnarounds
Einhorn's Greenlight Warns of Bubble With Tax Reform Prospects Fading (LINK)

Contra Einhorn - by Josh Brown (LINK)

Constellation Software Inc. – 2016 President’s Letter (LINK)

The U.S. Makes It Easy for Parents to Get College Loans—Repaying Them Is Another Story (LINK)
Student loans made through parents come from an Education Department program called Parent Plus, which has loans outstanding to more than three million Americans. The problem is the government asks almost nothing about its borrowers’ incomes, existing debts, savings, credit scores or ability to repay. Then it extends loans that are nearly impossible to extinguish in bankruptcy if borrowers fall on hard times. 
As of September 2015, more than 330,000 people, or 11% of borrowers, had gone at least a year without making a payment on a Parent Plus loan, according to the Government Accountability Office. That exceeds the default rate on U.S. mortgages at the peak of the housing crisis. More recent Education Department data show another 180,000 of the loans were at least a month delinquent as of May 2016.
Lucky, Good or Tipped Off? The Curious Case of Government Data and the Pound [H/T @jasonzweigwsj] (LINK)
Some investors could be trading with knowledge of U.K. official statistics before they are published, according to a comparison of currency trading data for the Swedish krona and British pound.
Not OK, Google - by Ben Thompson (LINK)

Ten Year Futures - by Benedict Evans (LINK)

a16z Podcast: QR. AR. VR. (LINK)

Prof. Adam Alter discusses his new book, "Irresistible", with Malcolm Gladwell (video) [H/T ValueWalk] (LINK)
Related book: Irresistible: The Rise of Addictive Technology and the Business of Keeping Us Hooked
Robert Pirsig Reveals the Personal Journey That Led Him to Write His Counterculture Classic, Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance (1974) (LINK)

How to Fight Cancer (When Cancer Fights Back) - by Ed Yong (LINK)

What Makes a Genius? (LINK)

Tuesday, April 25, 2017

Links

5 More Life Lessons from Lunch with Warren Buffett (LINK)

Patrick O'Shaughnessy talks with Danny Moses, head trader at Frontpoint during the Big Short (LINK)

Cal Newport on taking your life back from technology (podcast) [H/T James] (LINK)
Related book: Deep Work
The March 2017 issue of Value Investor Insight (LINK)

Fred Wilson gives the first annual Georges Doriot Lecture at MIT (video) (LINK)

Homo naledi is only 250,000 years old – here’s why that matters (LINK)

How a dolphin eats an octopus without dying (LINK)

The Very Hungry Plastic-Eating Caterpillar - by Ed Yong (LINK)

'Zen And The Art of Motorcycle Maintenance' Author Robert M. Pirsig Dies At 88 [H/T @paulg] (LINK)
Related books: 1) Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance; 2) Lila: An Inquiry Into Morals
Book of the day (released yesterday): Option B: Facing Adversity, Building Resilience, and Finding Joy - by Sheryl Sandberg and Adam Grant

Monday, April 24, 2017

Links

“A trust-based, win-win culture that’s genuine in every respect is how to take the normal levels of human effort; such as productivity, co-operation, and ingenuity; and to multiply them by five or 10 times.” -Peter Kaufman (source)

Uber’s C.E.O. Plays With Fire (LINK)

Workplace culture should be measured, just like sales or ROI (LINK)

Michael Bloomberg on 60 Minutes (video) (LINK)
The media mogul says most of his fortune will go to his foundation - viewing personal philanthropy not as a threat to democracy, but a way to get things done.
Hamdi Ulukaya on 60 Minutes (video, from 2 weeks ago) (LINK)
Hamdi Ulukaya built the best-selling yogurt brand in the U.S. after coming here 23 years ago. Today, 70% of Chobani employees are American born, 30% are immigrants and refugees.
Grab Your Pitchforks, America, Your 401(K) May Need Defending From Congress - by Jason Zweig (LINK)

Reid Hoffman on How to Be a Great Founder - by Ian Cassel (LINK)

Some great notes from a talk given by Sanjay Bakshi (LINK)

Mohnish Pabrai's two cents on Seritage Growth Properties (LINK)

Mental Model: Hanlon’s Razor (LINK)

Latticework of Mental Models: Physics Envy (LINK)

The Rise of the Freemium Business Model - by Tren Griffin (LINK)

Starting Is Easy, Finishing Is Hard - by Fred Wilson (LINK)

How Online Shopping Makes Suckers of Us All (LINK)

Tesla Has Something Hotter Than Cars to Sell: Its Story [from a couple of weeks ago] (LINK)
As Tesla shares surged past $300 this week and the company’s market value surpassed Ford’s, even its founder, Elon Musk, acknowledged on Twitter that the company was “absurdly overvalued if based on the past.” 
...“It’s nuts,” Bruce Greenwald, a professor at Columbia Business School and an expert in value investing, said of Tesla’s stock price. “Investors believe it’s going to dominate a market that no company has ever dominated before.”
How I Built This podcast -- Real Estate Mogul: Barbara Corcoran (LINK)

Russell Napier talks to James Grant (podcast) (LINK)
Related book: Anatomy of the Bear
G. Edward Griffin on the Peak Prosperity podcast [H/T ValueWalk] (LINK)
Related book: The Creature from Jekyll Island
Scientists find giant, elusive clam known as ‘the unicorn of mollusks’ [H/T Linc] (LINK)

Watch the World’s Biggest Animal Lunge for its Dinner (LINK)

For Audible members, the current 50% off sale ends tonight at 11:59 PM PT. Here are some of the under $10 audiobooks that stood out to me (i.e. better value than using a credit):

Astrophysics for People in a Hurry - by Neil deGrasse Tyson (to be released next week)

Cosmos – by Carl Sagan (to be released at the end of May)

The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark - by Carl Sagan (to be released at the end of May)

Churchill (The Great Courses)

Being Human: Life Lessons from the Frontiers of Science (The Great Courses)

Humility Is the New Smart: Rethinking Human Excellence in the Smart Machine Age

Competing Against Luck: The Story of Innovation and Customer Choice

Overcomplicated: Technology at the Limits of Comprehension

The Wawa Way: How a Funny Name and Six Core Values Revolutionized Convenience

Economics in One Lesson - by Henry Hazlitt

Friday, April 21, 2017

Links

Sanjay Bakshi’s Interview With Equitymaster (Part 1, Part 2)

Warren Buffett visits Texas Capitol and "Buffett Bill" is born [H/T Linc] (LINK)

Richard Branson's 70 must-read books (LINK)

On Neo-Cons and their Mental Defects – by Nassim Nicholas Taleb (LINK)

He Rides a Decrepit Bike and Owns a French Vineyard: The Unconventional World of Bank CEO Bob Wilmers (LINK)

Stress and Comfort: Careful What You Wish For - by Morgan Housel (LINK)

Sure, Stocks Are Overvalued. Now What? - by Ben Carlson (LINK)

Paul Tudor Jones Says U.S. Stocks Should ‘Terrify’ Janet Yellen (video plays) (LINK)
Billionaire investor Paul Tudor Jones has a message for Janet Yellen and investors: Be very afraid. 
The legendary macro trader says that years of low interest rates have bloated stock valuations to a level not seen since 2000, right before the Nasdaq tumbled 75 percent over two-plus years. That measure -- the value of the stock market relative to the size of the economy -- should be “terrifying” to a central banker, Jones said earlier this month at a closed-door Goldman Sachs Asset Management conference, according to people who heard him. 
..... 
Managers expecting the worst each have a pet harbinger of doom. Seth Klarman, who runs the $30 billion Baupost Group, told investors in a letter last week that corporate insiders have been heavy sellers of their company shares. To him, that’s “a sign that those who know their companies the best believe valuations have become full or excessive.”
Chat With Traders podcast Episode 121: Tactics for better decision making, and skill versus luck w/ Michael Mauboussin (LINK)

Adventures in Finance Podcast: Episode 12 - Bass and Burbank, A Masterclass (LINK) [The Bass/Burbank part is from a Real Vision TV chat in March of 2015, and the audio of that can also be found HERE.]

Quora raises $85 million to expand internationally and develop its ads business (LINK) [Sam Altman also discussed Y Combinator's reasons for investing HERE.]

Exponent podcast: Episode 111 — Lamentation Not Condemnation (LINK)

The World’s Strangest Mammal Can Survive 18 Minutes Without Oxygen - by Ed Yong (LINK)
Oxygen makes up around 20 percent of the air around you. If it fell to 5 percent, you’d pass out after 3 minutes or so. Then, your brain would start to die. To fuel itself, this gas-guzzling organ requires a constant supply of sugar and oxygen—even when you’re not doing anything. Without the vital gas, ions flood across the barriers of neurons, causing internal havoc, and forcing them to self-destruct. “There’s probably more than a hundred things that will kill brain cells if you turn off the oxygen,” says Thomas Park, from the University of Illinois at Chicago. 
Within minutes, you’d be dead. And hours after that, a naked mole-rat in the exact same conditions would be happily walking around—the picture of health. Imagine a disembodied index finger that’s been soaking in the bath for too long, and has teeth at the end. That’s a naked mole-rat. These weird rodents live in large underground colonies with nesting chambers the size of footballs. In these cramped subterranean quarters, oxygen levels often fall as low as 6 percent. And yet, these animals cope with this hypoxia.
Bill Nye Saves the World premiers on Netflix today (LINK)

Books of the day:

Uranium: War, Energy, and the Rock That Shaped the World

The Undersea Network

The Network: The Battle for the Airwaves and the Birth of the Communications Age

Thursday, April 20, 2017

Links

I Interviewed Warren Buffett. He Told Me 10 Things Every Successful CEO Must Learn - by Jeff Cunningham [H/T Linc] (LINK) [The video interview, from a couple of years ago, is available HERE.]

Bill Gates on Tropical Diseases, Trump and Brexit (video) [H/T Matt] (LINK)

Former Harvard Money Whiz Jack Meyer Tries to Regain His Edge (LINK)

Missing Billionaire Has Ties to China’s Military (LINK)

Are You Prepared? - by Ian Cassel (LINK)

Simplicity and the power of not doing stupid things (LINK)

Replay of the MoAF Live Stream Event with Aswath Damodaran from last week (video) (LINK)
Related book:  Narrative and Numbers: The Value of Stories in Business 
Grant's Podcast Episode 8: How not to get rich (LINK)

Facebook and the Cost of Monopoly - by Ben Thompson (LINK)

W. Brian Arthur on the Hidden Forces podcast (LINK)

Blood From Human Umbilical Cords Can Rejuvenate Old Mouse Brains -  by Ed Yong (LINK)

Boyles Asset Management – Q1 2017 Letter Excerpt

Delayed Gratification

“You’re looking for people who will delay gratification; who will focus on building a moat; who will focus on building a franchise; who will focus on the longevity of the business.” -Sanjay Bakshi, Adjunct Professor of Finance, Management Development Institute, India

In a recent podcast interview, when discussing the importance of investing in businesses and management teams that are willing to forgo near-term earnings in order to increase long-term value, Professor Sanjay Bakshi mentioned the compound interest formula as being a useful tool to help one think about building that kind of long-term value.  

That formula is:

where

a = the total amount after n years
p = the principal investment amount
r = the annual interest rate (or annual return)
n = the number of years the rate is earned

All too often, companies and their shareholders focus too much on the r variable in the equation.  They want instant gratification with high profit margins and high growth in earnings per share without having to wait.  This causes many management teams to pass on investments that would create long-term value, but look bad in the short run.  It can cause companies to make as much money as they can off of their present customers in order to report good quarterly numbers, instead of offering a fair price that creates goodwill and a long-term win-win relationship with those customers.

Some companies, however, are able to look past maximizing short-run r and instead focus on maximizing n in order to create maximum long-term value, and happy customers.  Amazon and Costco are probably two of the most commonly cited examples.  As they’ve grown and achieved economies of scale over time, they’ve continued to share those benefits with customers by keeping prices low and by continuing to add benefits to their respective membership bases, with little to no increase in the price of membership.  This not only makes for happy customers that then spend more with those companies, it makes those businesses harder to compete with over time.  As Amazon.com CEO Jeff Bezos said in a 2011 interview with Wired:
           
“If everything you do needs to work on a three-year time horizon, then you’re competing against a lot of people.  But if you’re willing to invest on a seven-year time horizon, you’re now competing against a fraction of those people, because very few companies are willing to do that.  Just by lengthening the time horizon, you can engage in endeavors that you could never otherwise pursue.”

We are often asked about the traits we look for in the businesses in which we invest, and near the top of our list are management teams that understand capital allocation and are willing to take a long-term view in building a durable business.  This is especially true among many of the smaller businesses that we’ve spent much of our time analyzing, and it is why we place so much emphasis on making sure that management incentives are aligned with us as shareholders.  System1 Group is a great example of a company with the desired traits we look for, and that’s why we continue to hold shares despite their rise and increased position size in our portfolio.  We believe the company is both benefiting from past investments, as well as continuing to make new investments and do the things it needs to do to become a much more valuable business a decade from now than it is today.  We are happy being partners with a skilled and well-aligned management team.

Capitalizing on businesses that operate on a long timeline of value creation is only possible if we operate with a long-term view as well.  We have to judge our investments, and potential investments, on their actions and business results, not the movements of their stock prices.  If the business performs, the stock price will eventually follow; whether that happens in five months or five years is hard to predict.

But a long-term investment horizon must also be married with an investment process willing to continually question investment theses.  All too often long-term investments are the names given to things that don’t work out in the short-term.  When one spends a lot of time getting to know a business and management team before investing—as we do—it can be hard to change one’s mind quickly, or at all, as one doesn’t want to feel like all that time was wasted learning things one didn’t act upon.  But staying intellectually honest while looking at many businesses, and only investing in the few where we think the odds are significantly in our favor, is how we think we can gain an advantage over time.



**********

Disclosure: I am a portfolio manager at Boyles Asset Management, LLC("Boyles") and the fund managed by Boyles may in the future buy or sell shares of the stocks mentioned below and we are under no obligation to update our activities. This is for information purposes only and is not a recommendation to buy or sell a security. Please do your own research before making an investment decision.

Wednesday, April 19, 2017

Howard Marks Memo: Lines in the Sand

Link to Memo: Lines in the Sand
In my 2016 year-end review, which went only to clients, I included a discussion of the use of subscription lines by closed-end funds in areas such as private equity, real estate, distressed debt and private credit. It’s my impression that their use has become fairly pervasive in recent years, and in response to clients’ requests and market trends, Oaktree has utilized subscription lines in some of its newer funds. 
 
That year-end note prompted some interesting and spirited discussion of lines and their merit and effect. Thus I decided to write this memo on the topic for general circulation.

Tuesday, April 18, 2017

Links

The Kindle version of To Pixar and Beyond is on the Kindle Daily Deal list for $2.99. And if you buy it, you can also add the Audible version for another $4.99.

Scott Galloway - How Amazon is Dismantling Retail (video) [H/T @MarceloPLima] (LINK)

Invest Like The Best Podcast: REALLY Private Equity, with Royce Yudkoff and Rick Ruback (LINK)

Steve Ballmer puts the entire government in a spreadsheet (video plays) (LINK)

Popular Gold Miner ETF To Change Dramatically [H/T @chriswmayer] (LINK)

a16z Podcast: The Science of Extending Life (LINK)

South Carolina hospitals see major drop in post-surgical deaths with nation’s first proven statewide Surgical Safety Checklist program (LINK)
Related book: The Checklist Manifesto
Drone spots humpback whales and orcas moving in on cloud of fish (LINK)

Monday, April 17, 2017

Links

Mohnish Pabrai on CNBC (video) [H/T Matt] (LINK)

No Worship Without Skin in the Game - by Nassim Nicholas Taleb (LINK)

Frank and Steven’s Excellent Corporate-Raiding Adventure (LINK)
Two law professors tried to mimic big activist hedge funds, investing their retirement savings in a small, languishing public company and trying to shake it up. Here’s what happened.
How I Built This podcast -- 1-800-GOT-JUNK?: Brian Scudamore (LINK)
Brian Scudamore didn't dream of a life hauling away other people's trash. But when he needed to pay for college, he bought a $700 pickup truck, painted his phone number on the side, and started hauling. Now 1-800-GOT-JUNK? makes over $200 million in annual revenue.
O Behave podcast: Episode 3 - Deceit and Self - Deception (with Robert Trivers) (LINK)
An engaging and wide-ranging conversation between evolutionary biologist Robert Trivers and Ogilvy & Mather vice-chairman Rory Sutherland. Podcast hosted by Ogilvy Change behavioural researchers Julia Stainforth and Maddie Croucher.
Bill Belichick reveals his 5 rules of exceptional leadership (article and video) [H/T Matt] (LINK)

This new solar-powered device can pull water straight from the desert air [H/T Linc] (LINK)

Receding glacier causes immense Canadian river to vanish in four days [H/T Linc] (LINK)

Sunday, April 16, 2017

Links

"When we can’t find anything exciting in which to invest, our “default” position is U.S. Treasuries, both bills and repos. No matter how low the yields on these instruments go, we never “reach” for a little more income by dropping our credit standards or by extending maturities. Charlie and I detest taking even small risks unless we feel we are being adequately compensated for doing so. About as far as we will go down that path is to occasionally eat cottage cheese a day after the expiration date on the carton." -Warren Buffett (2003 Letter to Shareholders)

BC2017 - Nitin Nohria Interviews Jorge Paulo Lemann and Warren Buffett (full video interview, starting at about the 5:15 mark) [H/T ValueWalk] (LINK)

A Dozen Lessons about Business Valuation from the Iridium Debacle - by Tren Griffin (LINK)
Related video: "Eccentric Orbits: The Iridium Story" | Talks at Google (BOOK)
The Marketing Genius of the Toothpick King (LINK)

Is American Retail at a Historic Tipping Point? (LINK)

Amex, Challenged by Chase, Is Losing the Snob War [H/T Linc] (LINK)

Linamar: Driving for More of the Auto-Parts Market [H/T @chriswmayer] (LINK)
Related book: Driven to Succeed: How Frank Hasenfratz Grew Linamar from Guelph to Global 
Related previous post: Linamar and being entrepreneurial
One of the Best Investment Books I’ve Read in a While - by Ben Carlson (LINK)
Related book: Bull: A History of the Boom and Bust, 1982-2004 [Warren Buffett also mentioned this book in his 2003 Letter to Shareholders.]
India’s ID system is reshaping ties between state and citizens (LINK)
Related link: Raoul Pal, Paying Attention
Exponent podcast: Episode 110 — Moral Hazard (LINK)

Audiobook of the day (I believe this is the audio of the PBS program mentioned by Boyd Varty in his fantastic chat with Patrick O’Shaughnessy.): The Power of Myth

Thursday, April 13, 2017

Links

"Sometimes there are plentiful opportunities for unusual return with less-than-commensurate risk, and sometimes opportunities are few and risky. It’s important to wait patiently for the former. When there’s nothing clever to do, it’s a mistake to try to be clever." -Howard Marks (via the presentation below)

The slides from Howard Marks' presentation ("The The Truth about Investing") are available HERE.

Via Negativa: Wisdom Through Subtraction (LINK)

David Einhorn Ratchets Up Pressure on GM (LINK)

Apollo Asia Fund: the manager's report for 1Q2017 (LINK)

Bill Gross' April 2017 Investment Outlook (LINK)

Buyout Firms Are Magically -- and Legally -- Pumping Up Returns [H/T Matt] (LINK)

How Canada completely lost its mind over real estate [H/T Matt] (LINK)

The Long-Ignored Reptile Rewriting the Prologue to the Dinosaur Story - by Ed Yong (LINK)

Book of the day (to be released in May) [H/T @Sanjay__Bakshi]: The Wisdom of Finance: Discovering Humanity in the World of Risk and Return

Wednesday, April 12, 2017

Jeff Bezos’ 2016 Letter to Shareholders

Link to: Jeff Bezos’ 2016 Letter to Shareholders (or in PDF)
“Jeff, what does Day 2 look like?” 
That’s a question I just got at our most recent all-hands meeting. I’ve been reminding people that it’s Day 1 for a couple of decades. I work in an Amazon building named Day 1, and when I moved buildings, I took the name with me. I spend time thinking about this topic. 
“Day 2 is stasis. Followed by irrelevance. Followed by excruciating, painful decline. Followed by death. And that is why it is always Day 1.” 
To be sure, this kind of decline would happen in extreme slow motion. An established company might harvest Day 2 for decades, but the final result would still come. 
I’m interested in the question, how do you fend off Day 2? What are the techniques and tactics? How do you keep the vitality of Day 1, even inside a large organization? 
Such a question can’t have a simple answer. There will be many elements, multiple paths, and many traps. I don’t know the whole answer, but I may know bits of it. Here’s a starter pack of essentials for Day 1 defense: customer obsession, a skeptical view of proxies, the eager adoption of external trends, and high-velocity decision making.

Links

Jim Sinegal Presentation at Loyola Marymount University (2016) (LINK)

Real Life is Risk Taking – by Nassim Nicholas Taleb (LINK)

Ray Dalio on the premiere episode of Henry Blodget's new markets and economics show (video) (LINK)

Raoul Pal, Paying Attention [H/T @chriswmayer] (LINK)
India has, without question, made the largest technological breakthrough of any nation in living memory. 
Its technological advancement has even left Silicon Valley standing. India has built the world’s first national digital infrastructure, leaping at least two generations of financial technologies and has built something as important as the railroad was to the UK or the interstate highways were to the US. 
India is now the most attractive major investment opportunity in the world. 
It’s all about something called Aadhaar and a breathtakingly ambitious plan with flawless execution. 
What just blows my mind is how few people have even noticed it. To be honest, writing the article last month was the first time I learned about any of the developments. I think this is the biggest emerging market macro story in the world.
ValueAct to Return $1.25 Billion After Seeing Frothy Market (LINK)

Mark Zuckerberg On Fake News, Free Speech, And What Drives Facebook (LINK)

Sam Adams and Miller Fight Over Future Of Craft Beer (video plays) [H/T @Kevin_Holloway] (LINK)

For Whom the Bond Tolls: Low Rate Beneficiaries in a Rising Rate Environment  - by Neil Constable and Rick Friedman (LINK)
In this white paper, Neil Constable, head of GMO’s Global Equity team, and Rick Friedman, a member of GMO’s Asset Allocation team, identify the types of companies that have benefited from the low rate environment in the US. High valuations and sensitivities to long-term rates leave many companies susceptible to even modest increases in rates. Some categories of stocks, however, are poised to outperform on a relative basis.
60 Minutes video: Brain Hacking [H/T Tamas] (LINK)
Have you ever wondered if all those people you see staring intently at their smartphones -- nearly everywhere, and at all times -- are addicted to them? According to a former Google product manager you are about to hear from, Silicon Valley is engineering your phone, apps and social media to get you hooked. He is one of the few tech insiders to publicly acknowledge that the companies responsible for programming your phones are working hard to get you and your family to feel the need to check in constantly. Some programmers call it “brain hacking” and the tech world would probably prefer you didn’t hear about it. But Tristan Harris openly questions the long-term consequences of it all and we think it’s worth putting down your phone to listen.

Tuesday, April 11, 2017

Links

"Mindful attention is the trick that underlies many of the other tricks. It is a call to attend to the inner world—and thus also to the outer world, for uncontrolled emotion blurs reality as tears blur a view. Anyone who clears their vision and lives in full awareness of the world as it is, Seneca says, can never be bored with life."-Sarah Bakewell (via her book How to Live: Or A Life of Montaigne in One Question and Twenty Attempts at an Answer)

Let Go of Self-Justification (LINK)

Video session from the Grant's Conference with John C. Bogle and Steven Bregman debating the Department of Labor’s new Fiduciary Rule (LINK)

Stock Market Valuations and Hamburgers (LINK)

Bill Miller on WealthTrack last weekend (video) [H/T ValueWalk] (LINK)

Invest Like the Best podcast: The Art of Tracking, with Boyd Varty (LINK)
This week’s episode is the most unique to date. My guest is Boyd Varty, who grew up in the South African Bush, living among and tracking wild leopards. The main theme of our conversation is tracking, and how the same strategy for pursuing animals in the wild can be applied to all aspects of our lives. Boyd’s family has been tracking animals for four generations, and he is bringing what they have learned to a larger audience around the world.
Seneca On Leisure (LINK)

500 years ago, a huge multi-star collision in Orion triggered a ridiculously powerful cosmic explosion (LINK)

Monday, April 10, 2017

Links

"Nature smiles at the union of freedom and equality in our utopias. For freedom and equality are sworn and everlasting enemies, and when one prevails the other dies. Leave men free, and their natural inequalities will multiply almost geometrically, as in England and America in the nineteenth century under laissez-faire. To check the growth of inequality, liberty must be sacrificed, as in Russia after 1917. Even when repressed, inequality grows; only the man who is below the average in economic ability desires equality; those who are conscious of superior ability desire freedom; and in the end superior ability has its way. Utopias of equality are biologically doomed, and the best that the amiable philosopher can hope for is an approximate equality of legal justice and educational opportunity. A society in which all potential abilities are allowed to develop and function will have a survival advantage in the competition of groups." -Will and Ariel Durant (The Lessons of History)

I'm a week late to a couple of thought-provoking reads from last week; the second of which I was waiting to link to until I tracked down the paragraph above: 1) PHILOSOPHICAL ECONOMICS: Diversification, Adaptation, and Stock Market Valuation; 2) The 1 Percent Rule: Why a Few People Get Most of the Rewards - By James Clear

The second article above also reminded me some wisdom from Peter Kaufman, as told via the East Coast Asset Management Q4 2014 letter:
I highlighted last quarter that Peter Kaufman, Editor of Poor Charlie’s Almanac and CEO of Glenair, presented an important insight during a talk to our Security Analysis class last fall. Peter shared his belief that there is one principle that explains the progress of inorganic (physical universe - compounding), organic (biology - evolution) and human systems (human achievement). He concluded the answer was Dogged Incremental Progress Over A Long Period of Time
Why Your Financial Adviser Can’t Be Conflict Free - by Jason Zweig (LINK)

When Warren Met Jorge Paulo: Buffett and Lemann Recall Their First Deal [H/T Matt] (LINK)

Grant's Podcast -- Episode 7: Free speech for bears (audio plays) (LINK)
Marc Cohodes, famed short seller, shares his approach to investing and a few actionable ideas with Grant’s.
How I Built This podcast -- Instacart: Apoorva Mehta (LINK)

Bill Gurley on This Week in Startups (audio/video) [H/T @trengriffin] (LINK)

The Walt Mossberg Brand - by Ben Thompson (LINK)

Scott Adams on the Art of Charm podcast (LINK)

To Be a Genius, Think Like a 94-Year-Old [H/T @maxolson] (LINK)
When I asked him about his late-­life success, he said: “Some of us are turtles; we crawl and struggle along, and we haven’t maybe figured it out by the time we’re 30. But the turtles have to keep on walking.” This crawl through life can be advantageous, he pointed out, particularly if you meander around through different fields, picking up clues as you go along. Dr. Goodenough started in physics and hopped sideways into chemistry and materials science, while also keeping his eye on the social and political trends that could drive a green economy. “You have to draw on a fair amount of experience in order to be able to put ideas together,” he said.
Book of the day (recommended by Bill Gurley his interview above): Startup: A Silicon Valley Adventure

Saturday, April 8, 2017

2017 Isaac Asimov Memorial Debate: De-Extinction

Neil deGrasse Tyson and panelists discuss de-extinction in the 2017 Isaac Asimov Memorial Debate at the American Museum of Natural History. Biologists today have the knowledge, the tools, and the ability to influence the evolution of life on Earth. Do we have an obligation to bring back species that human activities may have rendered extinct? Does the technology exist to do so? Join Tyson and the panel for a lively debate about the merits and shortcomings of this provocative idea.


Link to video

Friday, April 7, 2017

Links

"I realized the great investment arbitrage – the biggest source of alpha of all – was time horizon. The longer-term time horizon you have, the more probability you'll have of success if you have a framework that is true and robust and realistic. Those two things married together just shift the balance of probabilities in your favor." -Raoul Pal (source)

What We Said When the World Changed - by Morgan Housel (LINK)
Few things transformed the 20th century like the car and the airplane. 
Both set the stage for the modern world, completely changing family life, politics, war, culture, business, leisure time, and communication. 
But we only know how important the car and the plane are with hindsight. We had no idea how big they’d become when they made their first appearance.
Five Good Questions for Aswath Damodaran about his book Narrative and Numbers (video) (LINK)

The $90 Billion Investor Who’s Out to Fire Wall Street [H/T Matt] (LINK)

How Hackers Hijacked a Bank's Entire Online Operation (LINK)

The basics of basic income - by John Kay [H/T @TimHarford] (LINK)

Adventures in Finance podcast -- Carson Block: Short-selling Legend and Market Vigilante (audio plays) (LINK)

Planet Money podcast -- Episode 761: The Bank War [H/T @BaseHitInvestor] (LINK)
Banks and governments have been fighting each other for hundreds of years, but never more dramatically than during the showdown between President Andrew Jackson and Nicholas Biddle, the president of the Second Bank of the United States.
Exponent Podcast: Episode 109 — Screw-ups Are Fun! (LINK)
Ben and James discuss Apple’s Mac Pro screw-up and what it might say about the company and its culture.
Tropical MBA podcast: Brent Beshore and the 50 Year Private Equity Plan (LINK)

A girl was found living among monkeys in an Indian forest. How she got there is a mystery. [H/T Linc] (LINK)

Octopuses Do Something Really Strange to Their Genes - by Ed Yong (LINK)

Wednesday, April 5, 2017

Links

Howard Marks at a CFA Society India event in Mumbai (video) [H/T @Sanjay__Bakshi] (LINK)

Jamie Dimon's 2016 Shareholder Letter (LINK)

GMO's Grantham: Stocks 'Decently Different This Time' (video) [H/T Barry Ritholtz] (LINK)
Jeremy Grantham, co-founder of Boston investment firm GMO, doesn't expect valuations to drop back to normal levels for two decades. But he is keeping cash on hand to take advantage of any dip, which he says would need to be 15-20% to act.
Horizon Kinetics: The Indexation That Is, Versus The Indexation That Should Be (LINK)

Jim O'Shaughnessy: "What Works on Wall Street" | Talks at Google (video) (LINK)

Schiff's Insurance Observer's February blog post (first post since 2009) --  The Big Fall: Greenberg Admits He Oversaw Sleazy Transactions [H/T @GnDsville] (LINK)

Meb Faber chats with Raoul Pal (podcast) (LINK)

How do winning consumer-goods companies capture growth? [H/T @Find_Me_Value] (LINK)

Toronto Home Prices Just Jumped Another 33% (video plays) [H/T Matt] (LINK)

New details on Amazon's move to shutter the company it bought for $545 million (video plays) [H/T Matt] (LINK)

Mutual Fund Observer, April 2017 (LINK)

Speech by Andrew Haldane: A little more conversation - A little less action (LINK)

The Absolute Return Letter - April 2017: The truth about Brexit (LINK)

a16z Podcast: Cryptocurrencies, App Coins, and Investing in Protocols (LINK)

Siddhartha Mukherjee talks with Charlie Rose about his latest article, "A.I. Versus M.D." (video) (LINK) ["Genetic technology is A.I. I mean these two things are changing what human beings will be like in the future. There's no doubt about that, so it's something to know about; and particularly in medicine."]
Related book: The Gene
Get More Done By Working Less (LINK)
Related book: Rest: Why You Get More Done When You Work Less 
Related video: Five Good Questions for Alex Soojung-Kim Pang
Why Are Maker Schedules So Rare? (LINK)

Edge #490: Urban Evolution - A Conversation With Jonathan Losos (LINK)

Trees Have Their Own Songs - by Ed Yong (LINK)
Related book (just released): The Songs of Trees
Coastal Carolina football team goes to prison to learn a lesson (LINK)

Today's Audible Daily Deal ($3.95) is a book I've mentioned before: Spaceman: An Astronaut's Unlikely Journey to Unlock the Secrets of the Universe - by Mike Massimino

Monday, April 3, 2017

Links

How I Built This podcast -- AOL: Steve Case (LINK)
Related book: The Third Wave
Great ideas are born out of frustration not greed - by Ian Cassel (LINK)

Caution Signals Are Blinking for the Trump Bull Market - by Robert Shiller (LINK)

For Chinese Companies, If You Can’t Move Money Overseas, Raise It Overseas [H/T Matt] (LINK)
Chinese companies struggling to get their money out of the country have come up with an alternative: raise money overseas. 
Chinese firms have issued some $52.6 billion worth of U.S. dollar bonds in the first quarter, up 72% from the previous three months, according to Dealogic, and nearly five times the amount from the first quarter of 2016. 
The surge has come as Beijing has tightened curbs on capital outflows, making it harder for Chinese companies to use their yuan earned domestically overseas. Those companies looking to make acquisitions abroad, or even just pay back existing dollar debt, are increasingly turning to the U.S. dollar markets to raise funds.
Airlines Make More Money Selling Miles Than Seats [H/T Matt] (LINK)

What Tyler Cowen thinks of pretty much everything (LINK)
Related book: The Complacent Class
Phil Knight's 2014 Commencement Speech at Stanford (video) [H/T ValueWalk] (LINK)
Related book: Shoe Dog
Life Lessons From 100-Year-Olds (video) [H/T @morganhousel] (LINK)

Saturday, April 1, 2017

Links

This week's episode of the Value Investing Podcast features a conversation Matt and I had with Oliver Mihaljevic about the idea generation process during the 2014 Berkshire Hathaway Annual Meeting (LINK)

The Economics of Airline Class (video) [H/T Kevin Rose] (LINK)

Stunning astrophotos: Orion in context, and in detail (LINK)