Links

"It's not that I'm so smart, it's just that I stay with problems longer." --Albert Einstein

Ruane, Cunniff & Goldfarb Investor Day Transcript (May 2019) [H/T @BluegrassCap] (LINK)

John Hempton on The Jolly Swagman Podcast (LINK)

The Fireworks Over Share Buybacks Are Duds - by Jason Zweig ($) (LINK)

Share buybacks are as American as mom, apple pie and hot dogs on the Fourth of July. 

You’d never guess that given the many politicians on both the left and the right who say share repurchases are a newfangled, evil spawn of deregulation. 

Complexity Investing [H/T @BluegrassCap] (LINK)

My Questions About Negative-Yielding Debt - by Ben Carlson (LINK)

Marketing 3.0: How L’Oréal is embracing new marketing codes [H/T @ivan_brussels] (LINK)

Raoul Pal with a Twitter thread about some of the macro risks he sees in Europe (LINK)

Short Seller Targets Anta in Another Attack on China’s Biggest Sportswear Company ($) (LINK)

Carson Block’s firm takes aim at Anta in report titled ‘Turds in the Punchbowl’

Huawei staff share deep links with Chinese military, new study claims (LINK) [The paper is available HERE.]

Cyberweapons: A Real Worry - by Kevin Kelly (LINK)

Ben Thompson on The Talk Show With John Gruber Podcast (LINK)

Techmeme Ride Home Podcast: The Man Who Could Have Been Bill Gates? (Part 1, Part 2)

Robert Greene: "The Laws of Human Nature" | Talks at Google (LINK)

TED Talk: Grief and love in the animal kingdom | Barbara J. King (LINK)

Ancient life awakens amid thawing ice caps and permafrost [H/T Linc] (LINK)

Not a Human, but a Dancer - by Ed Yong (LINK)

What Snowball the parrot’s spontaneous moves teach us about ourselves

Links

What the Hell Happened at GE? - by Geoff Colvin (LINK)

How Elon Musk became an inequality machine - by Roger Lowenstein (LINK)

Banks Won Big in Washington. What It Means for Investors - by Jason Zweig ($) (LINK)

Business Lessons from Oprah Winfrey - by Tren Griffin (LINK)

[I like Bruce Greenwald, but this is your latest reminder that smart people can often be very wrong...] Bruce Greenwald on Amazon in 2012 (video) [H/T @maxolson] (LINK)

Related previous posts: 1) Amazon is going to do to enterprise cloud companies exactly what it did to book stores (April 2013); 2) Bruce Greenwald and Judd Kahn on competitive advantage and Apple (circa 2005)

[I'm late to these, but there were interesting segments on Google and Theranos on "60 Minutes" this past Sunday.]

How To Democratize Healthcare: AI Gives Everyone The Very Best Doctor (LINK)

13D Research: “Liquidity is the new leverage” (LINK)

Dan Ariely talks to Shane Parrish on The Knowledge Project Podcast (LINK)

Exponent Podcast: Black Holes (LINK)

Ben and James continue their discussion on why aggregators and platforms are different and why it matters for big companies, competitors, and regulators.

Marc Cohodes on The Jolly Swagmen Podcast (LINK)

Einstein’s Theory of Relativity Explained in One of the Earliest Science Films Ever Made (1923) (LINK)

Book of the day: Tube: The Invention of Television

Links

"We basically believe that when you're talking about quality, [you're talking about] the level of certainty you have that a business will perform as you expect it to perform over a very long period of time." --Warren Buffett (1998 Berkshire Hathaway Annual Meeting, via Outstanding Investor Digest)

"The investment game always involves considering both quality and price. And the trick is to get more quality than you pay for in price. It's just that simple." --Charlie Munger (1998 Berkshire Hathaway Annual Meeting, via Outstanding Investor Digest)

Sanjay Bakshi on "hot states" and doing dumb things (LINK)

Fixing financial aid - By Bill Gates (LINK)

Another Weird Deal Upsets CDS Traders (LINK)

The imminent and potentially globally-destabilizing threat of automation in the apparel industry. (LINK)

Divine Discontent: Disruption’s Antidote - by Ben Thompson (LINK)

The Knowledge Project Podcast: A Conversation with Patrick Collison, CEO and co-founder of Stripe (LINK)

Did Einstein really say that? (LINK)

Links

"My favorite quote comes from a British author named Christopher Morley, 'There's only one success: to be able to live your life your way.' I believe you shouldn’t let society determine what your way is, and you shouldn’t let money determine what your way is." - Howard Marks (Source)

Howard Marks on CNBC (Video 1, Video 2)

The Bitcoin Boom: Asset, Currency, Commodity or Collectible? - by Aswath Damodaran (LINK)

How America’s pensions crisis could erode its ability to compete globally and exacerbate its domestic wealth divide (LINK)

Framing (LINK)

The Rules of the Doctor’s Heart - by Siddhartha Mukherjee (LINK)

Is It Possible to Predict the Next Pandemic? - by Ed Yong (LINK)

Einstein's Note On Happiness, Given To Bellboy In 1922, Fetches $1.6 Million (LINK)

So on a piece of hotel stationery, Einstein wrote in German his theory of happiness: 

"A calm and modest life brings more happiness than the pursuit of success combined with constant restlessness." 

On a second sheet, he wrote another message: "Where there's a will there's a way."

Links

"A new type of thinking is essential if mankind is to survive and move toward higher levels.... Past thinking and methods did not prevent world wars. Future thinking must prevent wars." -Albert Einstein

Tom Russo on WealthTrack (video) [H/T ValueWalk] (LINK)

Ed Thorp talks with Barry Ritholtz on the Masters in Business podcast (LINK)

Related book: A Man for All Markets

Grant’s Podcast: Hits and misses (LINK)

How I Built This podcast -- Aden + Anais: Raegan Moya-Jones (LINK)

FT Alphachat podcast: Tim Harford talks to Cardiff Garcia about his book Fifty Inventions That Shaped the Modern Economy (LINK)

Amazon Prime and other Subscription Businesses: How do you Value a Subscriber? - by Tren Griffin (LINK)

Greenlight Capital's Q2 Letter (LINK)

A Bird in the Hand is Worth…Two Marshmallows? - by Frank Martin (LINK)

GMO White Paper: Revisiting the Traditional Emerging Market Equities Allocation Framework (LINK)

From $2 Billion to Zero: A Private-Equity Fund Goes Bust in the Oil Patch ($) [H/T @williamgreen72] (LINK)

Tencent Dominates in China. Next Challenge Is Rest of the World [H/T @BaseHitInvestor] (LINK)

Counterintuitive Behavior of Social Systems - by Jay Wright Forrester (1971 paper) [H/T Adam Robinson] (LINK)

When Slower Communication Enables Faster Growth (LINK)

A History of Japan, in 9 minutes (video) [H/T Recomendo] (LINK)

Why fast birds, fish and animals are never too small or big (LINK)

What Would It Take to Completely Sterilize the Earth? - by Ed Yong (LINK)

Books of the day:

A Mind at Play: How Claude Shannon Invented the Information Age [Released tomorrow]

Crash Early, Crash Often [Kindle book]

Wishcraft: How to Get What You Really Want

"If you feel a negative emotion, including fear, your attention is on the wrong place.  Your attention should be focused on one of two things: the task at hand, or other people." -Adam Robinson (Source)

Links

Larry Page Talks Alphabet, Warren Buffett and Project Loon at Fortune Global Forum 2015 (video) [H/T Linc] (LINK)

Howard Buffett Is Getting His Hands Dirty [H/T Linc] (LINK)

Related book: 40 Chances

The Light-Beam Rider - by Walter Isaacson (LINK)

Related book: Einstein: His Life and Universe

Amazon Killed the Bookstore. So It’s Opening a Bookstore (LINK)

Sam Altman: The Tech Bust of 2015 (LINK)

So where is the problem?  Late-stage private valuations.  But perhaps the answer is that these “investments” aren’t really equity—they’re much more like debt. [1] I saw terms recently that had a 2x liquidation preference (i.e. the investors got the first 2x their money out of the company when it exited) and a 3x liquidation cap (i.e. after they made 3x their money, they didn’t get any more of the proceeds). 

This is hardly an equity instrument at all. [2] The example here is an extreme case, but not wildly so.  Investors are buying debt but dressing it up close enough to equity to maintain their venture capital fund exemption status.  In a world of 0 percent interest rates, people become pretty focused on finding new sources for fixed income.

Objectivity...

From Poor Charlie's Almanack:

The life of Darwin demonstrates how a turtle may outrun a hare, aided by extreme objectivity, which helps the objective person end up like the only player without a blindfold in a game of Pin the Tail on the Donkey. 

If you minimize objectivity, you ignore not only a lesson from Darwin but also one from Einstein. Einstein said that his successful theories came from "Curiosity, concentration, perseverance, and self-criticism." And by self-criticism, he meant the testing and destruction of his own well-loved ideas.

Links

Latticework of Mental Models: Tragedy Of Commons (LINK)

Has Einhorn Lost His Mojo? (LINK)

Stock Guru Bill Miller Is Back But the Questions and Pain Linger (LINK)

Mark Hanson's latest thoughts on the housing market (LINK)

Book of the day: Einstein's Cosmos

Links

Byron Trott: The billionaires' banker [H/T Linc] (LINK)

Mohnish Pabrai speaks with The Economic Times of India (video) [H/T ValueWalk] (LINK)

Jason Zweig: Lessons From a Year of Market Surprises (LINK)

Tim Ferriss interviews Ed Cooke (LINK)

Related book: Moonwalking with Einstein: The Art and Science of Remembering Everything

Related previous post: Memortation, or One Way to Put What You Learn to Practical Use

The Indiana Jones of collapsed cultures: Our Western civilization itself is a bubble [H/T Jon Shayne] (LINK)

Farnam Street: Einstein on the ideas of Truth, Goodness, and Beauty (LINK)

Links

Howard Marks on Bloomberg TV (video) (LINK)

Dec. 16 (Bloomberg) -- Howard Marks, co-chairman and co-founder of Oaktree Capital Group LLC, talks about investor concerns about Russia's financial markets, investment strategy and the outlook for oil prices and stocks.

.....

Marks also mentioned "Dornbusch’s Law" in the interview: The crisis takes a much longer time coming than you think, and then it happens much faster than you would have thought.

Farnam Street: Albert Einstein on Sifting the Essential from the Non-Essential (LINK)

Related previous post: Memortation, or One Way to Put What You Learn to Practical Use 

William Thorndike, Author Of ‘The Outsiders’, Fireside Chat (video) [H/T ValueWalk] (LINK)

Related book: The Outsiders

How Computer Hackers Could Destroy a Hedge Fund [H/T Will] (LINK)

Walter Isaacson on CNBC (video) (LINK)

Related book: The Innovators

Related previous posts:  Walter Isaacson in converstaion with two pioneers of the Internet, Vint Cerf and Bob Kahn, The Innovators: Author Walter Isaacson in Conversation with John Hollar, Walter Isaacson interview with Elon Musk, Walter Isaacson on Charlie Rose

Expeditor's latest 8-K (LINK)

In the name of full disclosure, we've always subscribed to the late and internationally renowned economist, John Kenneth Galbraith's opinion that "The only function of economic forecasting is to make astrology look respectable."

Russia, oil and stocks, from Meb Faber via Twitter:

• 1998 oil was down 40% & Russian stocks down 90% from peak
• 2014 oil was down 40% & Russian stocks down 75% from peak
• What happened in 1999?
• Russian stocks were up over 150%. [LINK to August 2006 paper on investing in the Russian stock market.]

Brain Pickings: Carl Sagan Explains How Stars Are Born, Live, and Die (LINK)

Related previous posts: Carl Sagan - Pale Blue Dot, The Most Astounding Fact About the Universe

After Oil Spill in Bangladesh's Unique Mangrove Forest, Fears About Rare Animals (LINK)

Book of the day: World on Fire: How Exporting Free Market Democracy Breeds Ethnic Hatred and Global Instability [This book was recommended by Malcolm Gladwell a few years ago. I was reminded of it when I read a Nassim Taleb tweet about his latest article. Specifically, I was reminded of this excerpt from the book that I had saved: “Whenever a market dominant minority [ethnicity, religion, etc.] is present, markets and democracy are not mutually reinforcing but on a collision course."]

If it's not simple, then I'm not interested...

I was recently reminded of this story, as told by Peter Bevelin in one of my interviews with him (HERE):

As Munger says: “All I want to know is where I’m going to die so I’ll never go there.” When I hear them at the annual meeting, I am thinking about Einstein’s reply to a student. The student had challenged Einstein’s statement that the laws of physics should be simple by asking: “What if they aren’t simple?” Einstein replied, “Then I would not be interested in them.”  

They have a unique ability to distinguish masses of trivia from what is really important – to filter out situations, and find what’s at their core.

The “All I want to know is where I’m going to die so I’ll never go there” was also quoted in the book 100 to 1 in the stock market (see THIS post), and it also reminds me of Taleb's Fourth Quadrant.

BBC Documentary: Beautiful Equations

Artist and writer Matt Collings takes the plunge into an alien world of equations. He asks top scientists to help him understand five of the most famous equations in science, talks to Stephen Hawking about his equation for black holes and comes face to face with a particle of anti-matter.

Along the way he discovers why Newton was right about those falling apples and how to make sense of E=mc2. As he gets to grips with these equations he wonders whether the concept of artistic beauty has any relevance to the world of physics.

Link

[H/T Open Culture]

Einstein quote

“The intuitive mind is a sacred gift and the rational mind is a faithful servant. We have created a society that honors the servant and has forgotten the gift.” -Albert Einstein

Albert Einstein quote

“Don’t think about why you question, simply don’t stop questioning. Don’t worry about what you can’t answer, and don’t try to explain what you can’t know. Curiosity is its own reason. Aren’t you in awe when you contemplate the mysteries of eternity, of life, of the marvelous structure behind reality? And this is the miracle of the human mind—to use its constructions, concepts, and formulas as tools to explain what man sees, feels and touches. Try to comprehend a little more each day. Have holy curiosity.” -Albert Einstein

Source