Links

"He who moves not forward, goes backward." --Goethe

IT'S TIME TO BUILD - by Marc Andreessen (LINK)

Dispersion and Alpha Conversion: How Dispersion Creates the Opportunity to Express Skill - by Michael J. Mauboussin & Dan Callahan (LINK)

Masters in Business Podcast: James Montier on Fear and Investment (LINK)

Renaissance's $10 Billion Medallion Fund Gains 24% Year to Date in Tumultuous Market ($) (LINK)

Airbnb Defied the Odds of Startup Success. How Will It Survive a Pandemic? ($) (LINK)

Calpers Unwound Hedges Just Before March’s Epic Stock Selloff ($) (LINK)

Case Study of Tidewater and The Capital Cycle by John Chew (LINK)

The Forgotten Man - by Frank K. Martin (LINK)

The Day of Reckoning for Private Equity - by Ted Seides (LINK)

Bloomberg Invest Talks: A Conversation with Ray Dalio (video) (LINK)

Kyle Bass: US & China Fallout & Recovery from COVID 19; Hong Kong Looming Banking Crisis (video) (LINK)

Why Walking Matters—Now More Than Ever (LINK)

Radiolab Podcast: The Cataclysm Sentence (LINK)

One day in 1961, the famous physicist Richard Feynman stepped in front of a Caltech lecture hall and posed this question to a group of undergraduate students: “If, in some cataclysm, all of scientific knowledge were to be destroyed, and only one sentence was passed on to the next generation of creatures, what statement would contain the most information in the fewest words?” Now, Feynman had an answer to his own question - a good one. But his question got the entire team at Radiolab wondering, what did his sentence leave out? So we posed Feynman’s cataclysm question to some of our favorite writers, artists, historians, futurists - all kinds of great thinkers. We asked them, “What’s the one sentence you would want to pass on to the next generation that would contain the most information in the fewest words?” What came back was an explosive collage of what it means to be alive right here and now, and what we want to say before we go.

Links

Bill Gates speaks with TED's Chris Anderson about COVID-19 (video) (LINK)

How Will the Coronavirus End? - by Ed Yong (LINK)

Atul Gawande on PBS NewsHour (video) (LINK)

Related article: "Keeping the Coronavirus from Infecting Health-Care Workers"

Against the Rules with Michael Lewis (podcast): Bonus Against the Rules: Help in a Crisis (LINK)

Masters of Scale with Reid Hoffman (podcast): Special: Danny Meyer on the wrenching decision to do layoffs (LINK)

David Remnick speaks to the historian John M. Barry, the author of “The Great Influenza,” about parallels between the Spanish-flu outbreak of 1918 and the current coronavirus crisis. (video) (LINK)

Marc Andreessen’s Blog Archives (LINK)

Links

Lucky Problems (LINK)

Controlling the Pendulum of Emotions - by Ian Cassel (LINK)

Charles Schwab on The David Rubenstein Show (video) (LINK)

Roblox Valued at $4 Billion as Investors Bet on Future of Gaming ($) (LINK)

Andreessen Horowitz leads investor group in latest $150 million funding round for popular videogame hub

Up to 91% More Expensive: How Delivery Apps Eat Up Your Budget (LINK)

Infinite Loops Podcast: Jim Chanos – Financial Frauds and Manias: Past, Present, Future (LINK)

The Tim Ferriss Show (podcast): #412: Josh Waitzkin on Beginner’s Mind, Self-Actualization, and Advice from Your Future Self (LINK)

Alfred North Whitehead’s Awe-Inspiring Focus (LINK)

Roger Lowenstein reviews the book Dark Towers [H/T @pcordway] (LINK)

The introduction to Peter Zeihan's latest book, Disunited Nations (LINK)

Matt Ridley: Officially Introducing My Latest Book, "How Innovation Works" (LINK)

Links

"When we own stock, we are not there to try and change people. Our luck in changing them is very low, anyway. In fact, Charlie and I have been on boards of directors where we’re the largest shareholders and we’ve had very little luck in changing behavior. So, we think that if you buy stock in a company, you better not count on the fact that you’re going to change their course of action." --Warren Buffett (2009)

The Financial Lesson of 2008-09 That Most Investors Have Forgotten - by Jason Zweig ($) (LINK)

If your memory minimizes how much you lost in the last bear market, you can easily overestimate how brave you will be in the next one

CFP Board to Tighten Oversight of Financial Advisers ($) (LINK)

Understanding Money (LINK)

The Financial Illiteracy Epidemic (LINK)

The 2019 Stratechery Year in Review – by Ben Thompson (LINK)

Jobs-to-be-Done - by Mike Dariano (Kindle ebook, PDF, Podcast)

What Does an Oil Refinery Do? (podcast) (LINK)

The Cutting Room Files, Part 6: The Future of the China - by Melissa Taylor and Peter Zeihan (LINK)

Related book: Disunited Nations: The Scramble for Power in an Ungoverned World

How to Fix Our Prisons? Let the Public Inside [H/T @RogerLowenstein] (LINK)

Across the Universe, it's the normal galaxies doing all the star-making work - by Phil Plait (LINK)

Extraordinary Routines [H/T @ChrisPavese] (LINK)

A couple of books mentioned by Marc Andreessen in his recent chat with Kevin Kelly: 1) VC: An American History; 2) More from Less: The Surprising Story of How We Learned to Prosper Using Fewer Resources―and What Happens Next

"There is so much that’s false and nutty in modern investment practice, and in modern investment banking, and in modern academia in the business schools, even in the Economics departments, that if you just reduce the nonsense, that’s all I think you should reasonably hope for." --Charlie Munger (2009)

Links

"If you need to use a computer or a calculator to make the calculation, you shouldn’t buy it. It should be so obvious that you don’t have to carry it out to tenths of a percent or hundredths of a percent. It should scream at you. So if you really need a calculator to figure out that the discount rate is 9.6 percent instead of 9.8 percent — forget about the whole exercise. Just go onto something that shouts at you. And essentially, we look at every business that way. But you’re right, we do not sit down with spreadsheets and do all that sort of thing. We just see something that obviously is better than anything else around, that we understand. And then we act." --Warren Buffett (2009)

"I’d say some of the worst business decisions I’ve ever seen are those that are done with a lot of formal projections and discounts back. Shell Oil Company did that when they bought the Belridge Oil Company. And they had all these engineers make all these elaborate figures. And the trouble is you get to believe the figures. And it seems that the higher mathematics, with more false precision, should help you. But it doesn’t. The effects, averaged out, are negative when you try and formalize it to the degree you’re talking about. They do that in business schools because, well, they got to do something." --Charlie Munger (2009)

"It’s a terrible mistake to think that mathematics will take you a long place in investing. You have to understand certain aspects of mathematics. But you don’t have to understand higher mathematics. And higher mathematics may actually be dangerous and it will lead you down pathways that are better left untrod." --Warren Buffett (2009)

***

Brent Beshore's‬⁩ 2019 Annual Letter (LINK)

The Money Men Who Enabled Adam Neumann and the WeWork Debacle ($) (LINK)

Notes on a Reading Framework - by Venkatesh Jayaraman (LINK)

Hidden Forces Podcast: The Greatest Story Ever Sold: The Rise of Passive Investing & the Fall of the Free Market | Mike Green (LINK)

Starting Greatness Podcast: Marc Andreessen: “Was Netscape an Overnight Success?” (LINK)

The Acquirers Podcast: Endowment Value: Mark Yusko on the endowment model, value investing and bitcoin, crypto and digital assets (LINK)

The Investor’s Podcast Network: TIP273: Billionaire Jim Simons’ Quant Revolution w/ Gregory Zuckerman (LINK)

Related book: The Man Who Solved the Market: How Jim Simons Launched the Quant Revolution

Odd Lots Podcast: How Online Dating Is Reshaping the Entire Economy (LINK)

Related paper: The Dating Market: Thesis Overview

There’s No Such Thing as ‘Quality’ Time - by Ryan Holiday (LINK)

Jupiter is still really weird: A new monster storm has formed around its south pole - by Phil Plait (LINK)

Links

"I would argue that differing people learn in differing ways. With me, I was put together by nature to learn from reading. If some guy’s talking to me, he’s telling me something I don’t know, I don’t want to know, I already know, or he’s doing it too slow or too fast. In reading, I can learn what I want at the speed that works. So, to me, reading is what works for my nature. And to all of you who are at all like me, I say welcome. It’s a nice fraternity.... My father was the type that always did more than his share of the work and took more of his share of the risk. All that kind of example was, of course, very helpful, and you learn it better from a person close to you. But in terms of the conceptual stuff, I’d say I learned it from books. Now, those are fathers in a difference sense." --Charlie Munger (2008)

Marc Andreessen and Kevin Kelly: Why You Should Be Optimistic About the Future (video) (LINK)

How You Can Get Big Gains That Wall Street Can’t - by Jason Zweig ($) (LINK)

Acquisition Vehicle EverArc Raises $340 Million ($) (LINK)

EverArc Holdings Ltd., a British Virgin Islands-based acquisition vehicle, said it raised $340 million in an initial offering in London. 

The company said in a filing that it expects to use the proceeds to “acquire a business with a significant proportion of its activities in North America.” It didn’t offer further details. The firm said it expects its shares to begin trading on the London Stock Exchange on Dec. 17. 

EverArc’s board includes Tracy Britt Cool, one of Berkshire Hathaway Inc. Chief Executive Warren Buffett’s key lieutenants in recent years. She announced in September that she plans to leave Berkshire next year to create her own investment firm.

David Perell's Coolest Things Learned in 2019 (LINK)

David Rosenberg on the WealthTrack Podcast (Part 1, Part 2)

The Tim Ferriss Show (podcast): #401: Gary Keller — How to Focus on the One Important Thing (LINK) ["My life is better when I'm spontaneous after I've done my most important thing. Being spontaneous before that, that's where it becomes a distraction and does me harm." --Gary Keller]

Related book: The ONE Thing: The Surprisingly Simple Truth Behind Extraordinary Results

So, about that 'too massive' black hole… yeah, not so much. - by Phil Plait (LINK)

The Startling Secret of an Invincible Virus - by Ed Yong (LINK)

Links

"What we really like at Berkshire is buying good-sized to very large first-class businesses with first-class management and just sitting there. Because the nice thing about that is you don’t have go from flower to flower. You can just sit there and watch them produce more and more every year and give you capital and you can buy more businesses." --Warren Buffett (2008)

Good Reading — 10th Anniversary Edition - by Phil Ordway (LINK)

Investors and Operators: Lessons I've Learned From Both Worlds - by Brent Beshore (LINK)

A reexamination of ownership in the age of the public corporation - by Roger Lowenstein (LINK)

The Horse Story - by Chris Mayer (LINK)

How U.S. Banks Took Over the World ($) (LINK)

A decade ago, they almost brought down the global financial system. Now they rule it.

Freakonomics Radio (podcast): 388. The Economics of Sports Gambling (LINK)

a16z Podcast: From the Internet’s Past to the Future of Crypto (LINK)

What can we learn from the history of the internet for the future of crypto? In this episode of the a16z Podcast, general partner Katie Haun interviews a16z co-founder Marc Andreessen.

Recode Media Podcast: The epic battle for Uber, with Mike Isaac from the New York Times (LINK)

Related book: Super Pumped: The Battle for Uber

A Radical Guide to Spending Less Time on Your Phone - by Ryan Holiday (LINK)

One of Nature’s Greatest Spectacles Is Coming Undone - by Ed Yong (LINK)

Corals release their eggs and sperms with perfect synchronization. But a new study suggests their incredible timing is starting to slip.

Links

"The whole investment world is more and more competitive, and if you talk about a real credit contraction, which gums up the whole civilization, no one would welcome that. And I would predict that if we ever had a really big credit contraction after a period like the one we’re in with all this excess, which is causing so much envy and resentment, that we would get legislation that most of us wouldn’t like." --Charlie Munger (2007)

Once Upon A Time In Tech (LINK) [H/T @AlexRubalcava, whose comments are also worth posting: "If you’re a software investor in private or public markets, you should check out this massive, comprehensive Seeking Alpha post, which is decidedly bearish. Naturally I don’t agree with everything in the post, but I appreciate its depth and rigor."]

a16z Podcast: Entrepreneurs, Then and Now [with Marc Andreessen, Ben Horowitz, and Stewart Butterfield] (LINK)

The Peter Attia Drive Podcast: #60 - Annie Duke (LINK)

Related book: Thinking in Bets

Radiolab Podcast - G: Relative Genius (LINK)

Albert Einstein asked that when he died, his body be cremated and his ashes be scattered in a secret location. He didn’t want his grave, or his body, becoming a shrine to his genius. When he passed away in the early morning hours of April, 18, 1955, his family knew his wishes. There was only one problem: the pathologist who did the autopsy had different plans.

Robert Caro Reflects on Robert Moses, L.B.J., and His Own Career in Nonfiction (Transcript, Podcast)

Related book: Working - by Robert A. Caro 

The Power of One Push-Up [H/T @Atul_Gawande] (LINK)

Several simple ways of measuring a person’s health might matter more than body weight.

Oregon’s Tsunami Risk: Between the Devil and the Deep Blue Sea - by Kathryn Schulz (LINK)

'Apollo 11': 8 moments from the documentary to watch for [H/T Linc] (LINK)

Book of the day [H/T @cristinagberta]: Grocery: The Buying and Selling of Food in America

Links

"Really, the only way a smart person that’s reasonably disciplined in how they look at investments can get in trouble is through leverage. I mean, if somebody else can pull the plug on you during the worst moment of some kind of general financial disaster, you go broke.... But absent leverage, and absent just kind of going crazy in terms of valuation on things, the world won’t hurt you over time in securities. And...the financial cataclysms — they don’t need to do you in. If you have any more money during periods like that, you buy." --Warren Buffett (2004)

Fees vs. Fines - by Morgan Housel (LINK)

Andreessen Horowitz Is Blowing Up The Venture Capital Model (Again) (LINK)

Jeremy Grantham at the 2019 Higher Education Climate Leadership Summit (video) [H/T Linc] (LINK)

a16z Podcast: A Podcast About Podcasting (LINK)

Trailblazers with Walter Isaacson (podcast): Public Transportation: Moving Us Forward (LINK)

Marcus Aurelius’ Psychological Toolkit: An Interview With Donald Robertson (LINK)

Related book: How to Think Like a Roman Emperor: The Stoic Philosophy of Marcus Aurelius

Links

"[There are] misperceptions of the salesman as somebody who’s wearing a shiny suit selling somebody something that they don’t need. And so, we have a couple of responses to that. We have a specific response to that, which is actually the role of sales is...not to sell something you don’t need — it’s essentially to help somebody buy what they actually do need.... But even deeper than that, the thing I tell the engineers is, look, dealing with customers, it’s another systems problem. You are the master of solving a systems problem, which is how to get the computer to do what you want. People aren’t computers, they’re different, but there is a system for dealing people. You can engineer a system for dealing with people. And actually, when you work with top-end sales people, what you find is they have incredibly elaborate, very real systems. Like, very, very, very thoroughly thought-through kind of abstract systems of how they basically run a large-scale sales campaign and how they deal with the customer." --Marc Andreessen  (Source)

Warren Buffett describes Haven's plan to improve health care while controlling costs (video) (LINK)

Warren Buffett Is No Fan of Modern Monetary Theory (LINK)

Investing: Theory vs. Practice - by Massimo Fuggetta (LINK)

The Hidden Risk When You Own Stocks for the Long Run - by Jason Zweig ($) (LINK)

Understanding Brookfield and Oaktree’s US$500-billion colossus (LINK)

Stock Analysis: The Most Important Things (Plus, A Case Study) - by Vishal Khandelwal (LINK)

Why our fund managers would never own up to an error like Buffett did on Kraft Heinz (LINK)

Related book: The Courage to Be Disliked

Bill Gurley - Runnin' Down a Dream: How to Succeed and Thrive in a Career You Love [9/14/2018] (video) (LINK)

Decentralized Finance - by Fred Wilson (LINK)

Fives Steps Toward Fairness in College Admissions - by Rick Bookstaber (LINK)

a16z Podcast: For the Billions of Creatives Out There (LINK)

This special, almost-crossover episode of the a16z Podcast features Billions co-showrunner Brian Koppelman — who also co-wrote movies such as Rounders and Ocean’s 13 with his longtime creative partner David Levien — in conversation with Marc Andreessen (and Sonal Chokshi).

Recode Decode Podcast: European commissioner for competition Margrethe Vestager (LINK)

Yes, It’s All Your Fault: Active vs. Passive Mindsets (LINK)

FoundMyFitness Podcast: Dr. Matthew Walker on Sleep for Enhancing Learning, Creativity, Immunity, and Glymphatic System (LINK)

Related book: Why We Sleep

"The only thing each of us lives and loses is the present." --Marcus Aurelius 

Links

"We think the best way to minimize risk is to think." --Warren Buffett (2004)

Brookfield to Buy 62% of Oaktree Capital Management (LINK)

Daniel Kahneman in conversation with Sam Harris (podcast) (LINK)

Where [Elizabeth] Warren’s Wrong - by Ben Thompson (LINK)

Adam Smith, Loneliness, and the Limits of Mainstream Economics - by Russ Roberts (LINK)

Prem Watsa on PM Modi, elections and Fairfax’s India investments (LINK)

The Decivilization of Venezuela - by Peter Zeihan (LINK)

The College Admissions Scandal Is About More Than Just Bribery - by Tyler Cowen (LINK)

Hallucination vs. Vision, Selling Your Art in the Real World: Brian Koppelman Interviews Marc Andreessen (LINK)

The Acquirers Podcast: Chris Cole chats with Tobias Carlisle [from last month] (LINK)

Related paper (July 2018): "What is Water in Markets?"

Invest Like the Best Podcast: Michael Mayer – Pseudonymous Social Capital and Bottomless Coffee (LINK)

Raghuram Rajan talks with Tyler Cowen (podcast) (LINK)

Big Questions with Cal Fussman (podcast): Simon Sinek: The Infinite Game (LINK)

Related book (June release date): The Infinite Game

The School of Greatness with Lewis Howes (podcast): The Power of Digital Detox with Cal Newport (LINK)

Related book: Digital Minimalism: Choosing a Focused Life in a Noisy World

This Is a Truly Lousy Experiment About Evolution - by Ed Yong (LINK)

Book of the day [H/T Tom Russo]: The Monk of Mokha

Links

Thank you to everyone who read the blog in 2018, with special thanks to those of you who were kind enough to also donate during the year.

And thanks again to all of those who reached out after the September blog update with support. I'm still figuring out exactly what I'll be doing next, but will update all of you when the time comes.

***

"We love the idea of other people using mechanistic formulas to price things, because they may be right 99 times out of 100 but we don’t have to play those 99 times. We just play the one time when we have a differing view." --Warren Buffett (2003)

What I learned at work this year - by Bill Gates (LINK)

Working More Magic at Disney ($) (LINK)

The Hidden System That Explains How Your Doctor Makes Referrals (LINK)

John Stockman’s Medical Bills Topped $1 Million. What Happened? (LINK)

Taking Surprise Medical Bills to Court (LINK)

Related book to the above 3 articles: An American Sickness: How Healthcare Became Big Business and How You Can Take It Back

Bold Predictions for the Travel Industry in 2019 (LINK)

The Atlantic Science Desk: 83 Things That Blew Our Minds in 2018 (LINK)

EconTalk Podcast: Sebastian Junger on Tribe (LINK)

Related book: Tribe

a16z Podcast: Talent, Tech Trends, and Culture (LINK)

This episode of the a16z Podcast features the rare combination of a16z co-founders Marc Andreessen and Ben Horowitz in conversation, together, with economist Tyler Cowen.

Links

"We only regard errors as being things that are within our circle of competence. So if somebody knows how to make money in cocoa beans, or they know how to make money in a software company or anything, and we miss that, that is not an error, as far as we’re concerned. What’s an error is when it’s something we understand, and we stand there and stare at it, and we don’t do anything. Or worse yet, what really gets me is when we do something very small with it. We do an eyedropper’s worth of it, when we could do it very big." --Warren Buffett

Lessons from Howard Marks’ New Book: “Mastering the Market Cycle – Getting the Odds on Your Side” - by Tren Griffin (LINK)

Why Quant Investor Cliff Asness Is Staying Calm, Despite a Tough 2018 (LINK)

Why Do Computers Use So Much Energy? (LINK)

How I Built This podcast -- method: Adam Lowry & Eric Ryan (LINK)

a16z Podcast: From Research to Startup, There and Back Again (LINK)

The New Atlanta Billionaires Behind An Unlikely Tech Unicorn (LINK)

Reddit: the rancorous rise of a social-media phenomenon (LINK)

Related book: We Are the Nerds: The Birth and Tumultuous Life of Reddit, the Internet's Culture Laboratory

TED Talk: How I climbed a 3,000-foot vertical cliff -- without ropes | Alex Honnold (LINK) [The documentary on the climb is now playing in select theaters as well.]

Links

"Raising prices is a great way to flesh out whether you actually do have a moat. If you do have a moat, the customers will still buy, because they have to. The definition of a moat is the ability to charge more." --Marc Andreessen

Where to Go After Product-Market Fit: An Interview with Marc Andreessen (LINK)

Lessons from Jim O’Shaughnessy - by Tren Griffin (LINK)

Free Trips Under Fire: SEC Wants Your Broker To Work For You - by Jason Zweig ($) (LINK)

If the Securities and Exchange Commission has its way, brokers will have to make big changes to how they sell investments. 

For the first time, brokers would be explicitly required to act in the best interests of their customers, not their own paychecks, when they make investment recommendations. 

Furthermore, as SEC Chairman Jay Clayton made clear in an interview, some sales contests — those competitions in which brokers earn rewards for selling specific investments — are in danger of extinction.

Tesla Asks Suppliers for Cash Back to Help Turn a Profit ($) (LINK)

Tesla Inc. has asked some suppliers to refund a portion of what the electric-car company has spent previously, an appeal that reflects the auto maker’s urgency to sustain operations during a critical production period. 

The Silicon Valley electric-car company said it is asking its suppliers for cash back to help it become profitable, according to a memo reviewed by The Wall Street Journal that was sent to a supplier last week. Tesla requested the supplier return what it calls a meaningful amount of money of its payments since 2016, according to the memo.

Private Pension Product, Sold by Felon, Wipes Investors Out ($) (LINK)

Scott Kohn, a 64-year-old felon, ran a company from a Nevada strip-mall mailbox that investors claim took them for more than $100 million in losses. 

Mr. Kohn’s company, Future Income Payments, appears shut, according to court filings. His investors are likely to be wiped out, according to lawyers representing them, who plan to sue scores of firms that sold Future Income products as soon as this week. At least 25 states have taken enforcement actions or are investigating the company, it said in April. 

The blow-up shines a light on the boom in opaque private markets, to which investors have flocked in the hope of doing better than they can in traditional stock and bond markets.

Can outsiders redefine the insurance industry? (LINK)

Masters in Business Podcast: John Carreyrou on Theranos & Bad Blood (LINK)

Related book: Bad Blood

Skift Podcast: The Amazon Factor in Travel (LINK)

How to Say “No” Gracefully and Uncommit (podcast -- book excerpt) (LINK)

Related book: Essentialism: The Disciplined Pursuit of Less

The G.O.P. Stands By as Trump Upends American Security - by Evan Osnos (LINK)

An Enormous Study of the Genes Related to Staying in School - by Ed Yong (LINK)

Michael Lewis' first Audible Original, The Coming Storm, will be released next week and is available for pre-order (free for Audible members).

Links

a16z Podcast: Beyond Zero-Sum Thinking in the Game of Tech… and Life (with Marc Andreessen, Ben Horowitz, and Steven Johnson ) (LINK) [Marc Andreessen also Tweeted a bunch of book recommendations, HERE.]

Lessons from Josh Wolfe (Lux Capital) - by Tren Griffin (LINK)

Something I Changed My Mind About Recently - by Ben Carlson (LINK)

Masters in Business Podcast: Paul Vigna on Blockchain & Cryptocurrency (LINK)

Recode Decode Podcast: Box CEO Aaron Levie talks tech regulation and the future of jobs (LINK)

Open Offices Make You Less Open - by Cal Newport (LINK)

Why Are We So Certain About Our Mistakes? - by Ryan Holiday (LINK)

How to Undertake the Artist’s Journey - by Steven Pressfield (LINK)

Related book: The Artist's Journey

Spiders Can Fly Hundreds of Miles Using Electricity - by Ed Yong (LINK)

The Original American Dogs Are Gone - by Ed Yong (LINK)

Links

Charlie Munger on Bitcoins, Banking, AI, and Life (LINK)

How Warren Buffett Won His Multi-Million Dollar Long Bet (LINK)

GMO Quarterly Letter (Ben Inker) (LINK)

Sequoia Fund Q4 2017 - Investor Letter [H/T Linc] (LINK) [And for a comprehensive list of Q4 investor letters, see THIS link.]

The importance of GE's credit rating - by John Hempton (LINK)

Mohnish Pabrai's Q&A Session at Dakshana Valley (Pune District), Dec. 26, 2017 (video) (LINK)

Authors@Wharton Speaker Series presents Satya Nadella (video) [H/T ValueWalk] (LINK)

Related book: Hit Refresh

a16z Podcast: The Business of Continual Change (a chat between Charles Koch and Marc Andreessen) (LINK)

a16z Podcast: The Internet of Taste, Streaming Content to Culture (a chat between Ted Sarandos and Marc Andreessen) (LINK)

How cryptocurrency mining is hurting astronomers (LINK)

Links

Philosophical Economics: Profit Margins, Bayes’ Theorem, and the Dangers of Overconfidence (LINK)

2006 paper from Michael Mauboussin -- "Expectations Investing: Reading Stock
Prices for Better Returns" (LINK)

FRMO August 2017 Letter [H/T @BluegrassCap] (LINK)

A Dozen Lessons about Investing and Money from Dan Ariely - by Tren Griffin (LINK)

Related book (to be released in November): Dollars and Sense: How We Misthink Money and How to Spend Smarter

Mutual Fund Observer, September 2017 (LINK)

Kroger Seeks to Repel Amazon’s Onslaught ($) (LINK)

Has disruption from e-commerce run its course? (LINK)

These Robots Are Using Static Electricity to Make Nikes [H/T @kevinroose] (LINK)

Sheryl Sandberg Just Gave Some Brilliant Career Advice. Here It Is in 2 Words [H/T @ChrisPavese] (LINK)

I want you to think about the following question, because it can mean the difference between just getting through the day at work, and doing the best work of your life.  

What's the most important thing you can get done today? 

Sheryl Sandberg recently spoke to Inc. to share some lessons learned over the years. One concept she spoke about really resonated with me. 

It's called:  

Ruthless prioritization. 

"I think the most important thing we've learned as we've grown is that we have to prioritize," said Sandberg. "We talk about it as ruthless prioritization. And by that what we mean is only do the very best of the ideas. Lots of times you have very good ideas. But they're not as good as the most important thing you could be doing. And you have to make the hard choices."

a16z Podcast: Competing Against Luck (LINK)

Related book: Competing Against Luck  

Related previous conversation between Christensen and Andreessen: a16z Podcast: Disruption in Business… and Life

Prof Scott Galloway’s 10 Rules for Your Career (LINK)

An old post I was reminded of and have been thinking about today: Charlie Munger on how he invested when younger compared to today, and how he reads books