Links

"If the business changes in a material way, you’d better change your business model. Or somebody else will. And then you’ll even have more changes facing you.... Capitalism is creative destruction. And sometimes, you’re on the short end of that." --Warren Buffett (2009)

"Some of our businesses have a shared-hardship model, where they don’t layoff, at least not yet. And the businesses with that model tend to be very strongly placed economically. So I guess it shows that Benjamin Franklin was right, when he said, 'It's hard for an empty sack to stand upright.' So we’re all over the map on that, and so is all of industry. But I do think an ideal model would be a business so strong that it could operate in the shared-hardship mode instead of the layoffs." --Charlie Munger (2009)

"Yeah, some are doing that, where you give up hours. But a lot of operations don’t lend themselves to that very well, either. So...in other cases, you basically have to close down whole plants. That’s just the nature of it. You really can’t operate every plant at 50 percent and have it work as effectively as shutting down the least-productive plants." --Warren Buffett (2009)

"In a world where you sometimes have to amputate a limb to stay alive, you can’t expect that every business can stay exactly as it is." --Charlie Munger (2009)

***

Klarman Made $1 Billion Hedging Markets. He Still Lost Money (LINK) [If anyone happens to have a copy of a Baupost quarterly update letter during this time, and is willing to share, it would be greatly appreciated (valueinvestingworld@gmail.com).]

The first 4 video replays of Grant Williams' 2020 Hmmminar Series are available online (LINK) [Marc Cohodes is the latest one from last night, and the next one is scheduled for tonight, with John Hussman.]

FUNDSMITH Annual Shareholders' Meeting - 25th February 2020 (video) (LINK)

Apple, Amazon, and Common Enemies -  by Ben Thompson (LINK)

Invest Like the Best Podcast: Sarah Tavel - Consumer & Marketplace Investing (LINK)

The Daily Podcast: A Kids’ Guide to Coronavirus (LINK)

The Peter Attia Drive (podcast): #104 - COVID-19 for kids with Olivia Attia (LINK)

Recode Decode Podcast: Niall Ferguson: How viruses (and fake news stories) spread, and how America screwed up its coronavirus response (LINK)

TED Connects: Why sleep matters now more than ever | Matt Walker (video) (LINK)

The Gene | Part 1: Dawn of the Modern Age of Genetics | PBS (video) (LINK) [A Ken Burns documentary, inspired by Siddhartha Mukherjee's book The Gene.]

WHO must answer serious questions before it is trusted with leading a Covid-19 inquiry - by Matt Ridley (LINK)

The Shelves Are Empty, the Test Swabs Are Gone - by Michael Lewis (LINK)

Some of Warren Buffett’s comments on inflation over the years (LINK)

Book of the day (PDF): Dying of Money: Lessons of the Great German and American Inflations - by Jens O. Parsson

Links

"We’re looking for the obvious, and something that is within our capability of doing something about. But we’re not trying to beat people at their own game where we’re not very good at the game." --Warren Buffett (1996)

How Jim Simons Built the Best Hedge Fund Ever (LINK)

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

Disney Is New to Streaming, but Its Marketing Is Unmatched (LINK)

Bradley Jacobs Has Acquired More Than 500 Companies. Here's What He Has Learned. ($) (LINK)

The Australian fund manager who uses FBI training to see through CEO lies [H/T @iancassel] (LINK)

What's Blockchain Actually Good for, Anyway? For Now, Not Much (LINK)

Biology is Eating the World: A Manifesto (LINK)

Odd Lots Podcast: Why Taiwanese Life Insurers Are The Great ‘Whodunit’ Of The Financial World (LINK)

The Peter Attia Drive: #77 – AMA #2 with sleep expert, Matthew Walker, Ph.D. (LINK)

How to Use Occam’s Razor Without Getting Cut (LINK)

How to Be Patient in an Impatient World - by Mark Manson (LINK)

Has Humanity’s Homeland Been Found? - by Ed Yong (LINK)

A contentious new paper traces the origins of modern humans to ancient wetlands in Africa, a claim other researchers have called far-fetched.

Links

"The biggest thing, too, is to have something in the way you’re programmed so that you don’t ever do anything where you can lose a lot. I mean, our best ideas have not been better than other people’s best ideas, but we’ve never had a lot of things that pulled us way back. So we never went two steps forward and one step back. We probably went two steps forward and a fraction of a step back. But avoiding the catastrophes is a very important thing, and it will be important in the future." --Warren Buffett (2007)

The Agony of Hope Postponed, by a Value Investor (LINK)

Why 1925? - by Frank K. Martin (LINK)

Bill Nygren Market Commentary | 2Q19 (LINK)

Notes from Peter Thiel’s speech at the National Conservatism conference on July 14, 2019 [H/T @tylercowen] (LINK)

The Long View Podcast: James Montier: ‘How Do I Get Paid for Owning This Asset?’ [H/T Ritholtz] (LINK)

EdSurge On Air Podcast: Sal Khan: Test Prep Is ’the Last Thing We Want to Be’ (LINK)

A great summary of Matthew Walker's key ideas on sleep via excerpts from his podcast chat with Peter Attia (LINK)

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

Links

Terry Smith, Fundsmith LLP, March 2019 Presentation (video) [H/T @iancassel] (LINK)

Related book: Accounting for Growth

Disney and the Future of TV - by Ben Thompson (LINK)

Disney CEO Bob Iger lays out details on company’s Netflix competitor (video) (LINK)

GMO White Paper - Thinking Outside the Box: How and Why to Invest in a Climate Change Strategy (LINK)

Interview Transcripts Tell Story of Fed Over Past 50 Years ($) (LINK)

Transcripts of more than 50 interviews with top Federal Reserve officials and staffers offer an inside view of central bank-operations over the past 50 years, including internal debates and pressures from the White House. 

Among the documents released Friday are interviews with former Fed leaders Paul Volcker, Alan Greenspan and Janet Yellen as part of an oral history project in advance of the central bank’s centennial in 2013.

Notes from Toronto - by Chris Mayer (LINK)

Uber's Coming out Party: Personal Mobility Pioneer or Car Service on Steroids? - by Aswath Damodaran (LINK)

Venture Stories Podcast: Robert Greene on his book “The Laws of Human Nature” (LINK)

Exponent Podcast: A Community of Loonies (LINK)

HBR IdeaCast Podcast -- HBR Presents: After Hours (LINK)

Harvard Business School professors and hosts Youngme Moon, Mihir Desai, and Felix Oberholzer-Gee discuss news at the crossroads of business and culture. In this episode, they analyze the current food delivery wars and garner some lessons in crisis management from Boeing.

FT Alphachat Podcast: Odette Lienau on the most complicated debt restructuring in history (LINK)

The Peter Attia Drive (podcast): Matthew Walker, Ph.D., on sleep – Part III of III (LINK)

Related book: Why We Sleep

Cracking the Code: A Toddler, an iPad, and a Tweet - by Evan Osnos (LINK)

Hubble lights up Saturn’s aurorae - by Phil Plait (LINK)

A Natural History Museum Is Under Fire for Hosting Brazil's New President - by Ed Yong (LINK)

'Extraordinary' 500-year-old library catalogue reveals books lost to time (LINK)

Links

"In economics, it’s far easier to tell what will happen than when it will happen. I mean, you can see bubbles develop and things, but you do not know how big the bubble will get.... I’ve just never been successful at [predicting timing] nor do I try to do it." --Warren Buffett (2005)

Ray Dalio on "60 Minutes" (video) (LINK)

Related paper: "Why & How Capitalism Needs to be Reformed"

The Investors Podcast: Sanjay Bakshi (LINK)

a16z Podcast: Fintech for Startups and Incumbents (LINK)

Exponential Wisdom Podcast: Flipping the Insurance Industry (LINK)

The Peter Attia Drive (podcast): Matthew Walker, Ph.D., on sleep – Part II of III (LINK)

You Could Have Today. Instead You Choose Tomorrow. - by Ryan Holiday (LINK)

The Disturbing Walrus Scene in Our Planet - by Ed Yong (LINK)

Book of the day [H/T @paulg]: Medieval Technology and Social Change

Links

"If you’re picking associates, pick out those whose behavior is somewhat better than yours, and you’ll drift in that direction. And similarly if you hang out with a bad bunch, you’re very likely to find your own behavior worse over time. Like Charlie says, the trite advice which Ben Franklin was handing out a few hundred years ago, really works.... Look at the people you like to associate with. What qualities do they have that you can have if you want to? Look at the people that you can’t stand to be around. What qualities do you have that they have? Can you get rid of them? You can do all of that at a young age. It gets harder as you go along. It’s not very complicated." --Warren Buffett (2004)

Sanjay Bakshi: The Practical Utility of Seven Math Ideas (video) (LINK)

What Sports Teaches Us About Investing - by Ian Cassel (LINK)

What Does Everyone Hate MMT? - by James Montier (LINK)

Odd Lots Podcast: From MMT Advocate To Outspoken Critic (LINK)

The Absolute Return Letter, April 2019: Is Life Expectancy Falling? Really? (LINK)

The Lyft I.P.O. and the Lessons of Tech-Stock Bubbles - by John Cassidy (LINK)

Acquired Podcast: The Lyft IPO (LINK)

Andreessen Horowitz three-part video miniseries on network effects (Part 1, Part 2, Part 3)

Capital Allocators Podcast: Dan Ariely – Investing in Irrationality (LINK)

The Peter Attia Drive (podcast): Matthew Walker, Ph.D., on sleep – Part I of III (LINK)

Related book: Why We Sleep

The Worst Disease Ever Recorded - by Ed Yong (LINK)

Netflix’s Our Planet Says What Other Nature Series Have Omitted - by Ed Yong (LINK)

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

"The only way to be loved is to be lovable.... But the nice thing about it, of course, is that...you always get back more than you give. I don’t know whether it was Oscar Hammerstein or who said,... 'A bell’s not a bell till you ring it, a song’s not a song till you sing it. Love in the heart isn’t put there to stay. Love isn’t love till you give it away.' And basically you’ll always get back more than you give away. And if you don’t give any, you don’t get any. It’s very simple." --Warren Buffett (2003)

Things I’m Pretty Sure About - by Morgan Housel (LINK)

Managing reputation in the age of infinity - by Seth Godin (LINK)

Why Regulators Went Soft on Monopolies - by Jonathan Tepper (LINK)

Strong and Weak Technologies - by Chris Dixon (LINK)

a16z Podcast: What’s Next for Marketplace Startups (Hint: Services) (LINK)

Vinod Khosla on How to Build the Future (video) (LINK)

10% Happier Podcast: Oliver Burkeman, The Power of Negative Thinking (LINK)

The French Burglar Who Pulled Off His Generation’s Biggest Art Heist [H/T @oraunak] (LINK)

The World Shifts When a Black Widow Squats - by Ed Yong (LINK)

I finally got around to listening to Joe Rogan's podcast with Matthew Walker discussing his book Why We Sleep, and there is a bunch of interesting information and tips in the episode. It also looks like there are some good notes on the key ideas from the podcast HERE.

"It's not just that you...go to sleep and you replay and you hit the save button on these new memories;  you actually sculpt out those memories and you improve them. And we've done some of these with motor skill learning, critical for athletic performance, and practice does not make perfect—practice with a night of sleep is what makes perfect, because you come back the next day and you're 20 to 30% better in terms of your skilled performance than where you were at the end of your practice session the day before. Sleep is the greatest, legal performance-enhancing drug that most people are probably neglecting in sport.... Skill learning, memory and then also...in the body all over—the recuperative benefits. And you can flip a coin, by the way, if you're getting 6 hours of sleep or less, your time to physical exhaustion drops by up to 30%.... [You should get] somewhere between 7 to 9 hours [of sleep]. Once you get below 7 hours of sleep we can measure objective impairments in your brain and your body " --Matthew Walker