Thursday, May 30, 2019

A sunny disposition is worth more than fortune...

From Andrew Carnegie in his autobiography:
I think my optimistic nature, my ability to shed trouble and to laugh through life, making "all my ducks swans," as friends say I do, must have been inherited from this delightful old masquerading grandfather whose name I am proud to bear. A sunny disposition is worth more than fortune. Young people should know that it can be cultivated; that the mind like the body can be moved from the shade into sunshine. Let us move it then. Laugh trouble away if possible, and one usually can if he be anything of a philosopher, provided that self-reproach comes not from his own wrongdoing. That always remains. There is no washing out of these "damned spots." The judge within sits in the supreme court and can never be cheated. Hence the grand rule of life which Burns gives:  
"Thine own reproach alone do fear." 
This motto adopted early in life has been more to me than all the sermons I ever heard.

....................

Related previous post: Charlie Munger on cheerfulness

Wednesday, May 29, 2019

Related Quotes (envy and vanity)

"It is not greed that drives the world, but envy." --Warren Buffett

"The idea of caring that someone is making money faster [than you] is one of the deadly sins. Envy is a really stupid sin because it’s the only one you could never possibly have any fun at. There’s a lot of pain and no fun. Why would you want to get on that trolley?" --Charlie Munger

"Almost all the parts of our bodies require some expense. The feet demand shoes, the legs stockings, the rest of the body clothing, and the belly a good deal of victuals. Our eyes, though exceedingly useful, ask when reasonable, only the cheap assistance of spectacles, which could not much impair our finances. But the eyes of other people are the eyes that ruin us." --Benjamin Franklin (via A Benjamin Franklin Reader)

Tuesday, May 28, 2019

Links

"We don’t like having excess cash around. We like even less doing dumb deals because we do them forever. I mean, if we make a dumb deal, it just sits there. We don’t resell it three months later by having an IPO of it or something of the sort. So you’re right to say that we should be very uncomfortable about the fact that we’ve got the cash. But it’s also important that we not be so uncomfortable that we go out and do something just to be doing something.... The goal of that cash is to be translated into permanent earning power over time." --Warren Buffett (2006

Jeff Bezos: Big Things Start Small (LINK)

Think Before You Fish for Bargains in Chinese Stocks - by Jason Zweig ($) (LINK)

Kyle Bass: Trouble in Hong Kong- Part Deux (LINK) [Part 1 was HERE.]

Ominous Outlook for Autos & the Economy (w/ Danielle DiMartino-Booth & Daniel Ruiz) [video filmed April 11, 2019] (LINK)

David Epstein went on the EconTalk podcast as well as the Invest Like the Best podcast to discuss his new book, Range: Why Generalists Triumph in a Specialized World (released today).

Venture Stories Podcast: Mental Models with Scott Page (LINK)
Related book: The Model Thinker
The Knowledge Project Podcast: Following Intellectual Curiosity (with Entrepreneur and Investor Thomas Tull) (LINK)

Acquired Podcast: The Electronic Arts IPO (with Trip Hawkins) (LINK)

HBR IdeaCast: 684: Understanding the Space Economy (LINK)

The Peter Attia Drive Podcast: #55 - Jocko Willink (Part I of II) (LINK)

Sunday, May 26, 2019

Howard Marks on Risk, Market Cycles, and Investing

Howard Marks is one of the most successful and well-known investors in the world.  He co-founded Oaktree Capital, the largest distressed securities investor in the world, managing over $120 Billion.  Marks himself is worth $2.1 Billion and his ideas expressed through his memos have been endorsed by Warren Buffett himself.  He has also written two best-sellers on investing: "The Most Important Thing" and "Mastering the Market Cycle."  Howard spoke to students in the Amador Valley Investment Club on May 2nd, 2019.


Link to video

Saturday, May 25, 2019

Links

"Any asset class that has a big move, that’s based initially on fundamentals, is going to attract speculative participation at some point, and that speculative participation can become dominant as time goes by.... How far it goes, you never know. Some things go on to just unbelievable heights." --Warren Buffett (2006

Li Lu: Discussions about Modernization – Part Two: A Look at the Future of Sino-US Relations (December 2018) [H/T Linc] (LINK) [Part 1 was HERE.]

Mohnish Pabrai speaks at Trinity College Dublin - February 21, 2019 (video) (LINK)

Salesforce’s Success Rides on One Man’s Gut (LINK)

‘They Were Conned’: How Reckless Loans Devastated a Generation of Taxi Drivers (LINK)

Exponent Podcast: An Intra-west Debate (LINK)

The Wright Show: A Brief History of Doom (Robert Wright & Richard Vague) (LINK)
Related book: A Brief History of Doom: Two Hundred Years of Financial Crises
How China Sees Trump and the Rapidly Escalating Trade War (podcast) (LINK)
Evan Osnos joins Dorothy Wickenden to discuss the forces driving the first real economic and political test between the two superpowers of the twenty-first century. 
Five Good Questions: Barbara Tversky – Mind in Motion (LINK)

Beyond the Hype of Lab-Grown Diamonds [H/T Abnormal Returns] (LINK)

Thursday, May 23, 2019

Links

"Charlie and I have circles of competence that extend to evaluating a number of types of businesses, and there are a whole lot of businesses that we won’t be able to evaluate.... We are best at the businesses where we can come to a judgment that they’re going to look a good bit like they do now five years from now, ten years from now. They’ll be bigger. They’ll be doing different things, but the fundamentals will be the same." --Warren Buffett (2006

Transcript of Jason Zweig on the North Star podcast (LINK)

Kyle Bass' full letter: "The Quiet Panic in Hong Kong" (LINK)

Global imbalances and the international footprint of firms: what role for exchange rates? [H/T @Trinhnomics] (LINK)

David Tepper is reportedly converting hedge fund into a family office, returning outside capital (LINK)

Daniel Kahneman's forward to the latest Edge Annual Question book (LINK)

The Investing City Podcast: 22 - Bluegrass Capital: Securities Analysis (LINK)

The Wright Show (podcast): Completing the Darwinian Revolution (Robert Wright & David Sloan Wilson) (LINK)
Related book: This View of Life
The Secret of Coral Reefs: Tiny Fish That Are Great at Dying - by Ed Yong (LINK)

Wednesday, May 22, 2019

Housing risk in 2006...

"I’m firmly convinced that markets will continue to rise and fall, and I think I know (a) why and (b) what makes these movements more or less imminent. But I’m sure I’ll never know when they’re going to turn up or down, how far they’ll go after they do, how fast they’ll move, when they’ll turn back toward the midpoint, or how far they’ll continue on the opposite side. So there’s a great deal to admit uncertainty about." --Howard Marks (Mastering the Market Cycle)

As I've mentioned before on this blog, I think paying attention to the macro landscape is best done with the mindset of identifying risks, as opposed to making forecasts. Though as the quote from Howard Marks above shows, while it's possible to develop skill at identifying those risks and even knowing when they may be imminent, you still never know precisely when or to what extreme they will manifest themselves. 

As I continue to go back through the old Berkshire Hathaway Annual Meeting transcripts, I've been paying special attention to when Buffett and Munger have identified some of those big picture risks. And the excerpt below, from the 2006 meeting, is a good example. 

***

CHARLIE MUNGER: I also think that some of the sin that was in the manufactured housing finance a few years ago has shifted into the finance of the stick-built houses. 

There is a lot of ridiculous credit being extended in America in the housing field. And it had a horrible aftermath in the manufactured housing sector, and my guess is there will be some trouble in the stick-built sector in due course. 

WARREN BUFFETT: Well, dumb lending always has its consequences and usually on a big scale, because you don’t see it for quite a while. So, therefore, it’s like a disease that doesn’t manifest itself for a few weeks. 

And you can have an epidemic of something like that, and by the time you know you have an epidemic, you’re very well into it. Well, that’s what happens in dumb financing. 

...You certainly had it in commercial financing in the ’80s, and you had the RTC and the savings and loan crisis and all of that because, literally, one dumb project was put up after another. 

A developer will develop anything he can borrow the money against. It’s that simple. And when the lending institutions pour the money out for something, it will get built. 

And that happened in manufactured housing. It happened in commercial real estate in the ’80s. I think it’s happened in conventional housing here in recent years. 

And if you look at the 10-Qs that are getting filed for the first quarter of some lending institutions, and 10-Ks that were last year, and you look at the balances increasing on loans for interest that’s accrued but was not paid because people had adjustable mortgages, but they’re only adjustable so far, but the lending institutions are taking in the income as if it were paid, you’ll see some very interesting statistics. 

CHARLIE MUNGER: Yes. And some of this dumb lending is being facilitated by contemptible accounting. The accounting profession has not stopped compromising its way into terrible behavior. 

Tuesday, May 21, 2019

Links

"Do not spoil what you have by desiring what you have not; remember that what you now have was once among the things you only hoped for." --Epicurus

Mark Leonard. An Anthology of Lessons [H/T @Gautam__Baid] (LINK)

China, Leverage, and Values - by Ben Thompson (LINK)

Jeffrey Gundlach and Danielle DiMartino Booth at the Rockefeller Center's Rainbow Room discussing macro and the economy (video) (LINK)

On the topic of macro, A Brief History of Doom: Two Hundred Years of Financial Crises looks like it could be interesting.

Against the Rules with Michael Lewis (podcast): Bonus Live Episode: Michael Lewis and Malcolm Gladwell (LINK)

The Tim Ferriss Show: #371: Ramit Sethi (LINK)

Invest Like the Best Podcast: Priya Parker – The Art of Gathering (LINK)
Related book: The Art of Gathering: How We Meet and Why It Matters
TED Talk: Sloths! The strange life of the world's slowest mammal | Lucy Cooke (LINK)

Why So Many Sharks Have Bird Feathers in Their Bellies - by Ed Yong (LINK)

Apollo Astronauts, in Their Own Words (LINK)

Marcus Aurelius on Embracing Mortality and the Key to Living with Presence (LINK)

"The longest-lived and those who will die soonest lose the same thing. The present is all that they can give up, since that is all you have, and what you do not have, you cannot lose." --Marcus Aurelius

Monday, May 20, 2019

Links

A write-up on the book The Path of Least Resistance - Learning to Become the Creative Force in Your Own Life by Robert Fritz (LINK)

Patsy in the Game - by Sanjay Bakshi (LINK)

Mr. Market Just Got Inside Your Head. Don’t Let Him Mess With You. - by Jason Zweig ($) (LINK)

Negative Rates, Designed as a Short-Term Jolt, Have Become an Addiction ($) (LINK)
Europe’s central banks haven’t been able to wean the eurozone off cheap money, which distorts economies and leaves little ammunition to cushion a downturn
The New Social Status - by Steven Wood (LINK)

Researchers have no idea when electric cars are going to take over (LINK)

All Eyes On The U.S. Truck Market - by Daniel Ruiz (LINK)

WorkLife with Adam Grant (podcast): Fadbusting (LINK)
Freakonomics host Stephen Dubner joins Adam for a live conversation to reveal why some popular workplace fads might be bogus—and what to do instead.
John Hempton on The Jolly Swagman Podcast discussing housing in Australia (LINK)

Can “Indie” Social Media Save Us? - by Cal Newport (LINK)

Bill Gates recommends 5 books for the summer (LINK)
The books: 1)  Upheaval - by Jared Diamond; 2) Nine Pints - by Rose George; 3) A Gentleman in Moscow - by Amor Towles; 4) Presidents of War - by Michael Beschloss; 5) The Future of Capitalism - by Paul Collier
An update from the fight to eradicate polio - by Bill Gates (LINK)

Bonobo Mothers Are Very Concerned About Their Sons’ Sex Lives - by Ed Yong (LINK)

Book of the day: Bottle of Lies: The Inside Story of the Generic Drug Boom

Friday, May 17, 2019

Links

"The job of the board is to get the right CEO, to prevent that CEO from overreaching. Because sometimes you have some people that are very able, but they still want to take it all for themselves. But if they take nothing and they’re the wrong CEO, they’re still a disaster. So low pay itself is not the criteria. So you want the right CEO. You do not want them overreaching. And then I think the board needs to exercise independent judgment on important acquisitions, because I think CEOs — even smart CEOs — are motivated, frequently, in acquisitions by other than rational reasons." --Warren Buffett (2006

Value Investing with Legends Podcast: The All-Important Power of Consumer Brands (with Tom Russo) (LINK)

Kyle Bass on Bloomberg (video) (LINK)

My Way or the Huawei - by Peter Zeihan (LINK)

Dan Rasmussen talks small, cheap and levered stocks with Tobias Carlisle on The Acquirers Podcast (LINK)

The World According to Boyar Podcast: Howard Lorber (LINK)

Five Good Questions Podcast: Mark Moffett - The Human Swarm (LINK)

Recode Media with Peter Kafka: Eugene Wei explains why we’re all ‘status monkeys’ on social media (LINK)

A Waste of 1,000 Research Papers - by Ed Yong (LINK)

Thursday, May 16, 2019

Links

"You don’t have to have perfect wisdom to get very rich. All you’ve got to do is have slightly more than other people, on average, over a long time." --Charlie Munger (2005)

What can Long-term Value Investors Learn from Traders? - by Sanjay Bakshi (LINK)

Realistic Personal Finance Hacks - by Morgan Housel (LINK)

As Baby Boomers downsize, an unprecedented generational unloading of houses looms on the horizon. (LINK)

Corner Office Podcast: Delta CEO Ed Bastian on why he’s spending big on airports (LINK)

Spinoza, the Stoic (LINK)

The Forgotten Soviet History of Plague Eradication (LINK)

A black hole in a distant galaxy has been eating a star… for more than a decade! - by Phil Plait (LINK)

Tuesday, May 14, 2019

Links

"There are things in life that you don’t have to make a decision on and that are too hard.... One of the interesting things about investment is that there’s no degree of difficulty factor.... We get paid, not for jumping over 7-foot bars, but for stepping over 1-foot bars. And the biggest thing we have to do is decide which ones are the 1-foot bars and which ones are the 7-foot bars so when we go to step we don’t bump into the bar. And that is something that I think we’re reasonably good at. Now maybe we cast out too many things as being too hard and thereby narrow our universe. But I’d rather have the universe be interpreted as being a little smaller than it really is, than being interpreted as larger than it is." --Warren Buffett (2005

Connor Leonard's presentation to the Value Investing Club at Google (LINK)

Spring 2019 issue of Graham & Doddsville (LINK)

2019 Value Investing Conference | Keynote Speaker: Kiril Sokoloff (video) (LINK)

2019 Value Investing Conference | Keynote Speaker: Lawrence A. Cunningham (video) (LINK)

Gates’s Law: How Progress Compounds and Why It Matters (LINK)

A critical step to reduce climate change - by Bill Gates (LINK)

Against the Rules with Michael Lewis (podcast): The Magic Shoebox (LINK)
Related book: Flash Boys
O Behave Podcast: Rory discusses Alchemy & The Surprising Power Of Ideas That Don’t Make Sense (LINK)
Related book: Alchemy: The Dark Art and Curious Science of Creating Magic in Brands, Business, and Life - by Rory Sutherland 
The Knowledge Project Podcast: Popping the Filter Bubble (with DuckDuckGo CEO, Gabriel Weinberg) (LINK)

A Truly Remarkable Spider - by Ed Yong (LINK)

Today's Audible Daily Deal ($3.95) is one I've seen recommended by at least one science writer: The Rise and Fall of the Dinosaurs

Sunday, May 12, 2019

Links

"It’s better to pay attention to something that is being scorned than something that’s being championed." --Warren Buffett (2005

What Warren Buffett's Teacher Would Make of Today's Market - by Jason Zweig ($) (LINK)

A Thread on Diversification - by Sanjay Bakshi (LINK)

Amazon's Size Is Becoming a Problem---for Amazon ($) (LINK)

Degrees of Confidence - by Morgan Housel (LINK)

Think Again – a Big Think Podcast: Jared Diamond (LINK)
Related book: Upheaval: Turning Points for Nations in Crisis
Capital Allocators Podcast: Michael Mauboussin – Who’s on the Other Side (LINK)
Related paper: Who Is On the Other Side?
Exponent Podcast: A Perfect Meal (LINK)

Aswath Damodaran chats with Meb Faber (podcast) (LINK)

Acquired Podcast: The Uber IPO (LINK)

Mark Zuckerberg & Yuval Noah Harari in Conversation (video) (LINK)

When the first stars in the Universe exploded, they really exploded - by Phil Plait (LINK)

TED Talk: Sleep is your superpower | Matt Walker (LINK)

[I'm a bit late to these, but...] The Bruce Lee Library episodes of the Bruce Lee Podcast look especially worth checking out.... Such as the episode on the Tao Te Ching and the episode on Krishnamurti's Commentaries on Living.

"Absorb what is useful, reject what is useless, add what is essentially your own." --Bruce Lee


Thursday, May 9, 2019

Links

"If you’re analyzing something like WD-40, or See’s Candy, or our brick business, or whatever...they may have good or bad prospects but you’re not likely to be fooling yourself much about what’s going on currently. But with financial institutions, it’s much tougher. Then you throw in derivatives on top of it, and...no one probably knows perfectly — or even within a reasonable range — the exact condition of some of the biggest banks in the world.... I just think you have to accept the fact that insurance, banking, finance companies — we’ve seen all kinds of finance company...frauds and just big mistakes over time — just one after another over the years. It’s just a more dangerous field to analyze. It doesn’t mean you can’t make money in it. We’ve made a lot of money on it. But it’s difficult." --Warren Buffett (2005)

Influencers Transcript and Video (Yahoo Finance): Charlie Munger (LINK)

Berkshire Takes Tax Hit as Victim of ‘Ponzi-Type’ Solar Scheme [H/T Linc] (LINK)

U.S. Recession Would Spur ‘Massive’ Corporate Bond Losses, Eisman Says (LINK)

Chick-fil-A’s Lean Menu Helps Chain Bulk Up ($) (LINK)

Jeremy Grantham on the battle to save society from climate change: ‘We’re not winning’ ($) (LINK)

The Intelligent Investing Podcast: Christian Olesen - Cambria Automobiles (LINK)  [Disclosure: As of the date of this post, I own shares for myself and clients at Sorfis Investments in Cambria Automobiles.]

The Empty Promise of Data Moats (LINK)

Venture Stories Podcast: Tim O’Reilly and Parker Thompson on Company Building, Venture Capital, and Inequality (LINK)

Crazy/Genius Podcast: Why Should We Care About Privacy? (LINK)

Another Bat-Winged Dinosaur Has Been Found - Ed Yong (LINK)

A Dying Teenager’s Recovery Started in the Dirt - by Ed Yong (LINK)

Wednesday, May 8, 2019

Links

"Now the search expenses that brought us Ajit Jain, now there was an investment that really paid a dividend. I can think of no higher return investment that we’ve ever made that was better than that one. And I think that’s a good life lesson. In other words, getting the right people into your system can frequently be more important than anything else." --Charlie Munger (2005)

GMO Quarterly Letter: Stop Worrying About Your Portfolio (LINK)

Notes From Sohn New York Investment Conference 2019 (LINK)

Google Fights Back - by Ben Thompson (LINK)

Matthew Ball's latest articles (parts 6 and 7) on Netflix misunderstandings came out last week.... Here are links to all 7 parts to date (Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5, Part 6, Part 7)

Against the Rules with Michael Lewis (podcast): Baby Judge School (LINK)

Invest Like the Best Podcast: Stephanie Cohen – The Evolution of M&A and Corporate Strategy (LINK)

Mr. Rogers’ Nine Rules for Speaking to Children (LINK)

Will You Choose Alive Time or Dead Time? - by Ryan Holiday (LINK)

The Birth-Tissue Profiteers - by Caroline Chen (LINK)

Monday, May 6, 2019

Links

For those looking for Berkshire Hathaway Annual Meeting links, see the post from earlier today.

Ian Cassel's initial investor letter for Intelligent Fanatics Capital Management (LINK)

Howard Buffett Looks Beyond an Oracle for Advice ($) (LINK)

Buffett And Inverse Emotionalism - by Frank K. Martin (LINK)

CNBC's full interview with Apple CEO Tim Cook (LINK)

The Investors Podcast: Value Investing w/ Mohnish Pabrai (LINK)

The making of Amazon Prime, the internet’s most successful and devastating membership program (LINK)

Can anyone tame the next internet? - by Kara Swisher (LINK)
Forces have been unleashed that seem out of control. But is it the end of the beginning or the beginning of the end?
a16z FinTech Newsletter: April 2019 (LINK)

Bank On It Podcast: John Buttrick from Union Square Ventures (LINK)

Trailblazers with Walter Isaacson (podcast) -- Insurance: Who’s Looking Out For You? (LINK)

The School of Greatness Podcast -- Mark Manson: What People Don’t Tell You about Success (LINK)
Related book: Everything Is F*cked: A Book About Hope
Renaissance Paragone: An Ancient Tactic for Getting the Most From People (LINK)

The Giant Panda Is a Closet Carnivore - by Ed Yong (LINK)

AI Evolved These Creepy Images to Please a Monkey’s Brain - by Ed Yong (LINK)

For Audible Members, the current sale is 50-70% off all titles, so it's probably worth going through your wish list. A couple on my list that I noticed fell in the 70% off category were AI Superpowers and The Fifth Risk.

Berkshire links

"[Lee Kuan Yew] said one thing over and over and over again all his life: 'Figure out what works and do it.' If you just go at life with that simple philosophy....you'll find it works wonderfully well. Figure out what works and do it." --Charlie Munger (2019)

I'm back after another great weekend in Omaha at the Berkshire Hathaway Annual Meeting. For those that missed it, the video and transcript are already up on the Warren Buffett Archive page, HERE.

It was nice catching up with those of you I saw in Omaha. I mostly go for things other than the actual meeting these days, but it's always special to hear and see two heroes live on stage. I don't think there were too many surprises in the Q&A this year. One thing I would love to see in the future is an investment manager or two that own a lot of Berkshire up on stage asking some questions as well. I may be biased because he's a close friend, but for anyone out there with influence who also thinks this would be interesting, Chris Bloomstran from Semper Augustus Investments Group gets my vote. I think, outside of Berkshire's board and executives, he's about the world's foremost expert on the company. 

As is usual following the meeting, Warren Buffett was on CNBC this morning. He also was joined by Charlie Munger and Bill Gates during the interview. Here is the full video: CNBC's full interview with Warren Buffett, Charlie Munger and Bill Gates 

Warren Buffett also did a short interview with CNBC on Friday of last week. 
The Wall Street Journal ($) had a fantastic interview with Berkshire's Vice Chairman: Charlie Munger, Unplugged.
Berkshire Hathaway Inc. Vice Chairman Charlie Munger, 95, spoke to Wall Street Journal reporters Nicole Friedman and Jason Zweig for six hours over dinner in his Los Angeles home on April 23. He covered a wide array of subjects. Here is an edited transcript from that conversation and a follow-up telephone discussion.
And they also had another article on Munger out last week: Buffett Partner Charlie Munger Has a Side Gig: Designing College Dorms

One of the newer books in the bookstore at the meeting that stood out to me as being especially of note, and which may have been a Charlie Munger recommendation: The Future Is Asian - by Parag Khanna

Thursday, May 2, 2019

The investor as an investigative journalist...

From Warren Buffett at the 1999 Berkshire Hathaway Annual Meeting:
Essentially, you’re being a reporter. I mean, it’s very much like journalism. And if you ask enough questions — Andy Grove has in his book — he talks about the silver bullet, you know.  
You talk to the competitor and you say, “If you had a silver bullet and you could only put it through the head of one of your competitors, which one would it be and why?” Well, you learn a lot if you ask questions like that over time.  
And you ask somebody in the XYZ industry and you say, “If you were going to go away for 10 years and you had to put all of your money into one of your competitors — the stock of one of your competitors, not your own — which one would it be and why?” Just keep asking, and asking, and asking.  
And you’ll have to discount the answers you get in certain ways, but you will be getting things poured into your head that then you can use to reformulate and do your own thinking about why you evaluate this business at this or that.  
The accounting, you know, you just sort of have to labor your way through that. I mean, you may be able to take some courses, even, in that. But the biggest thing is to find out how businesses operate.  
And, you know, who am I afraid of? If we’re running GEICO, you know, who do we worry about? Why do we worry about them? Who would we like to put that silver bullet through? I’m not going to tell you. (Laughter)  
You keep asking those questions. And then you go to the guy they want to put the silver bullet through and find out who he wants to put the silver bullet through. It’s like who wakes up the bugler, you know, in the Irving Berlin song?  
And that’s the way you approach it. And you’ll be learning all the time.  
You can talk to current employees, ex-employees, vendors, supplies, distributors, retailers, customers, all kinds of people and you’ll learn.  
But it’s an investigative process. It’s a journalistic process. And in the end, you want to write the story. I mean, you’re doing a journalistic enterprise. And six months later, you want to say the XYZ Company is worth this amount because, and you just start in and write the story.  
And some companies are easy to write stories about, and other companies are much tougher to write stories about. We try to look for the ones that are easy. 

Wednesday, May 1, 2019

Links

"We haven’t succeeded because we had great complicated systems or some magic formulas we apply or anything. We’ve succeeded because we have simplicity itself. We take people that know how to play their game very well, and we let them play the game. And it’s just worked in one field after another. And every now and then we make a mistake. And there’ll be more mistakes made. But overwhelmingly, it works." --Warren Buffett (2005)

The Industrialists (LINK)

Bayes & Base Rates (LINK)

Winning Your Race - by Ian Cassel (LINK)

The behavioural science of online harm and manipulation, and what to do about it [H/T Tamas] (LINK)