Links

Jamie Dimon's 2019 Letter to Shareholders (LINK)

Coronavirus and Credibility - by Paul Graham (LINK)

The Bare Necessities You Need for a Bear Market - by Jason Zweig ($) (LINK)

Daniel Kahneman: Why We Underestimated COVID-19 (LINK)

The World Has No Pause Button (LINK)

Unlikely Optimism: The Conjunctive Events Bias (LINK)

Links

Howard Marks on investor psychology during coronavirus fears (video) (LINK)

How to Write Usefully - by Paul Graham (LINK)

100 Little Ideas - by Morgan Housel (LINK)

Finite and Infinite Games: Two Ways to Play the Game of Life (LINK)

What the E*Trade Deal Tells You About the New Investing Game - by Jason Zweig ($) (LINK)

13 Metrics for Marketplace Companies (LINK)

The Future Will Be Genetically Engineered (LINK)

Exponent Podcast: 181 — Competing with Spotify and Regulating Acquisitions (LINK)

Related article: "The Daily Update Podcast"

Venture Stories Podcast: Scaling and Network Effects with Anu Hariharan (LINK)

Highlights from Matt Ridley's reddit AMA (LINK)

Why have so many of our recent viruses come from bats? - by Matt Ridley (LINK)

The Strange Influence the Sun Has on Whales - by Ed Yong (LINK)

Links

"Part of investing and calculating intrinsic values is if you get the wrong answer when you get through [doing the work] — in other words, if it says don’t buy, you can’t buy just because somebody else thinks it’s going to go up or because your friends have made a lot of easy money lately or anything of the sort. You just have to be able to walk away from anything that doesn’t work.... You also have to walk away from anything you don’t understand." --Warren Buffett (1997)

Being a Noob - by Paul Graham (LINK)

Michael Mauboussin's Spring 2020 Security Analysis Course Syllabus (LINK)

Horizon Kinetics: 4th Quarter 2019 Commentary (LINK)

The Economist as Scapegoat - by Russ Roberts (LINK)

Tech in 2020: Standing on the shoulders of giants - by Benedict Evans (LINK)

On Bill Gurley’s Above the Crowd (LINK)

Access to all the Videos from Stoicon 2019 in Athens (LINK)

Links

‪"Great investing requires both generating returns and controlling risk. And recognizing risk is an absolute prerequisite for controlling it.... Risk means uncertainty about which outcome will occur and about the possibility of loss when the unfavorable ones do." --Howard Marks‬

Haters - by Paul Graham (LINK)

Berkshire Hathaway’s Culture of Trust (LINK)

Related book: Margin of Trust

Jim Grant on the Hidden Forces Podcast (LINK)

Aspen Ideas to Go Podcast: Netflix’s Ted Sarandos on Streaming, Competition, and What’s Next [H/T @JerryCap] (LINK)

A playlist of short videos on mental models [H/T @anshul81] (LINK)

Boeing Employees Mocked F.A.A. and ‘Clowns’ Who Designed 737 Max (LINK)

Meet 2020 AV2, the first asteroid found that stays inside Venus's orbit! (LINK)

Current Kindle book deals worth considering:

High Growth Handbook by Elad Gil ($1.49)

Genius: The Life and Science of Richard Feynman by James Gleick ($1.99)

Also, for audiobook listeners, I noticed that Cable Cowboy as well as Common Stocks and Common Sense are now available on Audible.

Links

"There's no such thing as a value company. Price is all that matters. At some price, an asset is a buy, at another it's a hold, and at another it's a sell." --Seth Klarman

Buffett Lieutenant to Head Berkshire Hathaway’s Geico Insurance Unit ($) (LINK)

Todd Combs to succeed Bill Roberts, who will retire at the end of 2020

In his 2019 Annual Book Review [Chinese], Li Lu recommends The Other Half of Macroeconomics and the Fate of Globalization. [H/T @mastersinvest] 

Is China Beating America to AI Supremacy? - by Graham Allison (LINK)

Amazon Advertising, Explained (LINK)

Banks Own Thousands of Railcars but Don't Know What to Do With Them ($) (LINK)

A Sea Change in Fuel Prices Is Imminent ($) (LINK)

January’s deadline to use cleaner marine fuel could ripple through the global fuel market on land and sea

Martin Stopford at the 2019 Hong Kong Maritime Forum - Where We Are in the Shipping Cycle Today (video) (LINK)

Related book: Maritime Economics - by Martin Stopford

Hyman Minsky explains financial fragility in his own words (November 1987 video) [H/T Ritholtz] (LINK)

We’ve just had the best decade in human history. Seriously - by Matt Ridley (LINK)

Grant’s Current Yield Podcast: Winter reading (LINK)

Related book: Great Society: A New History - by Amity Shlaes

Wall Street Unplugged Podcast: The best value ideas for 2020 [with Jonathan Boyar] (LINK)

The Tim Ferriss Show (podcast): #403: Tony Fadell — On Building the iPod, iPhone, Nest, and a Life of Curiosity (LINK)

The Knowledge Project Podcast: #72 Neil Pasricha: Happy Habits (LINK)

How a 35,000-Year-Old Frozen Woolly Mammoth Tastes (LINK)

Why You Never Have Time - by Derek Thompson (LINK)

The Two Kinds of Moderate - by Paul Graham (LINK)

Fashionable Problems - by Paul Graham (LINK)

Links

The Lesson to Unlearn - by Paul Graham (LINK)

A Framework for Regulating Competition on the Internet - by Ben Thompson (LINK)

Josh Wolfe and Peter Thiel on a panel at the 2019 Reagan National Defense Forum (video) (LINK)

Repo Blowup Was Fueled by Big Banks and Hedge Funds, BIS Says (LINK)

‘Fake Ebitda’ to Worsen Next Slump, $33 Billion Debt Maven Warns (LINK)

Notes From Sohn London Investment Conference 2019 (LINK)

a16z Podcast: The Stories and Code of Culture Change (LINK)

Masters in Business: Ben Horowitz Discusses Culture and Success (LINK)

Related book: What You Do Is Who You Are: How to Create Your Business Culture

Venture Stories Podcast: Investing in Marketplaces with Sarah Tavel and Nabeel Hyatt (LINK)

Acquired Podcast: TikTok (LINK)

The Evolutionary Breakthrough That Gave Mammals Their Hearing (LINK)

Paul Volcker, the Carter-Reagan Fed chairman who beat inflation, dies at age 92 (LINK)

Remembering Paul Volcker: 2005 Speech at Stanford (LINK)

Book of the day: Keeping At It: The Quest for Sound Money and Good Government - by Paul Volcker

Links

"I'm not saying there's no such thing as genius. But if you're trying to choose between two theories and one gives you an excuse for being lazy, the other one is probably right." --Paul Graham ("What You'll Wish You'd Known")

Overconfidence: An Autobiography - by Jason Zweig (LINK)

How to Read: Lots of Inputs and a Strong Filter - by Morgan Housel (LINK)

Survivorship Bias: The Tale of Forgotten Failures (LINK)

Yes, You Can Get Free Trading. But There’s Often a Catch. (LINK)

Startups and Uncertainty - by Jerry Neumann (LINK)

Blood and Soil in Narendra Modi’s India - by Dexter Filkins (LINK)

Masters in Business Podcast: Joe Ricketts Discusses Trade and Deregulation (LINK)

Starting Greatness Podcast: Sarah Leary of Nextdoor: “The Moment You Know You’ve Created Something Valuable” (LINK)

EconTalk Podcast: Gerd Gigerenzer on Gut Feelings (LINK)

COMPLEXITY Podcast: Olivia Judson on Major Energy Transitions in Evolutionary History (LINK)

Links

"To discover new things, you have to work on ideas that are good but non-obvious; if an idea is obviously good, other people are probably already working on it. One common way for a good idea to be non-obvious is for it to be hidden in the shadow of some mistaken assumption that people are very attached to." --Paul Graham

Novelty and Heresy - by Paul Graham (LINK)

Bill Gates on AI, Climate, Carbon Tax, Nuclear Power, China (video) (LINK)

Oaktree’s Marks on Global Economic Outlook, Recession (video) (LINK)

No More Gurus - by Morgan Housel (LINK)

EBITDA Definition Danger (LINK)

Infinite Loops Podcast with Jim O'Shaughnessy -- Behind the Curtains: Ramp Capital and Super Mugatu (LINK) [New podcast, available via Spotify]

Acquired Podcast: Disney, Plus (LINK)

Full Interview: Tom Hanks On ‘A Beautiful Day In The Neighborhood’ (video) (LINK)

The World’s Biggest Heart Can Beat Just Twice a Minute - by Ed Yong (LINK)

Links

The Bus Ticket Theory of Genius - by Paul Graham (LINK)

It’s Slow Going, but Stuff Like Wheat and Oil Can Spice Up Your Returns - by Jason Zweig ($) (LINK)

The best time to get interested in an investing strategy is when its performance is at its worst. By that standard, commodities are starting to look intriguing.

Everyone Gets Paid in CBS-Viacom Except Shareholders [H/T @JohnHuber72] (LINK)

Health Care Without (much) Government - by Russ Roberts (LINK)

How to Reverse Engineer Biology (LINK)

Full Disclosure Podcast: The Overachieving Underwriter [H/T @rationalwalk] (LINK)

Markel Corp vice chairman Steve Markel on the insurer and investment shop as it approaches its 90th year in business. Worth $15 million when its shares debuted on Wall Street in 1986, Markel Corp is now a Fortune 500 member in 18 countries that is valued at more than $16 billion.

Grant’s Current Yield Podcast: It’s a gusher (LINK)

Exponent Podcast: 178 — More Ergonomic (LINK)

The Knowledge Project Podcast -- Scott Adams: Avoiding Loserthink (LINK)

One Man's Wild Quest to Reach the Bottom of Every Ocean [H/T @MebFaber] (LINK)

Links

"The key to [Benjamin] Graham’s approach to investing is not thinking of stocks as stocks or part of a stock market. Stocks are part of a business. People in this room own a piece of a business. If the business does well, they’re going to do all right as long as they don’t pay way too much to join into that business....  It doesn’t make any difference to us whether the volatility of the stock market...averages a half a percent a day or a quarter percent a day or 5 percent a day. In fact, we’d make a lot more money if volatility was higher, because it would create more mistakes in the market. So volatility is a huge plus to the real investor.... As an investor, you love volatility. Not if you’re on margin, but if you’re an investor you aren’t on margin. And if you’re an investor, you love the idea of wild swings because it means more things are going to get mispriced." --Warren Buffett (1997 Berkshire Hathaway Annual Meeting)

On Writing Better: Becoming a Writer - by Jason Zweig (LINK)

Aggregators and Jobs-to-be-Done - by Ben Thompson (LINK)

Business Insider IGNITION conference video (Day 1) (LINK) [Paul Graham and Drew Houston at 27:55; Dalio at 1:42:45; Scott Galloway at 3:30:25]

Decrypted Podcast: The Secrets Hidden in Our Google Location Data (LINK)

Invest Like the Best Podcast: Maureen Chiquet – Leadership Through Hard Conversations (LINK)

Do I Deserve What I Have? Part I - by Russ Roberts (LINK)

Situational spending - by Seth Godin (LINK)

The CRISPR Baby Scandal Gets Worse by the Day - by Ed Yong (LINK)

Links

"It just stands to reason that you copy, very much, the people that you do look up to, and particularly if you do it at an early enough age. So I think, if you can influence the...role models of a 5-year-old or an 8-year-old or a 10-year-old...it’s going to have a huge impact. And of course, everybody, virtually, starts out with their initial models being their parents. So they are the ones that are going to have a huge effect on them. And if that parent turns out to be a great model, I think it’s going to be a huge plus for the child. I think that it beats a whole lot of other things in life to have the right models around.... Even as I’ve gotten older, I’ve picked up a few more. And it influences your behavior. I’m convinced of that.... And it’s not complicated. Nothing could be more simple than to try and figure out what you find admirable and then decide...that the person you really would like to admire is yourself. And the only way you’re going to do it is take on the qualities of other people you admire." --Warren Buffett

"There is no reason, also, to look only for living models. The eminent dead are, in the nature of things, some of the best models around. And, if a model is all you want, you’re really better off not limiting yourself to the living. Some of the very best models have been dead for a long time." --Charlie Munger

Warren Buffett's interview on Bloomberg last week (video) (LINK)

John Malone: 'I told Warren Buffett not to invest in Bill Gates before Microsoft went public' [H/T Linc] (LINK)

A Conversation with Paul Graham - Moderated by Geoff Ralston (video) (LINK)

The Next Financial Crisis Lurks Underground - by Bethany McLean (LINK)

Related book: Saudi America: The Truth About Fracking and How It's Changing the World

How the Chinese business elite think of America... (via John Hempton) (LINK)

The Absolute Return Letter, September 2018: Private Credit Demystified (LINK)

Tesla, software and disruption - by Benedict Evans (LINK)

All Things Sales! 16 Mini-Lessons for Startup Founders (LINK)

“Cheesy Dad” Readings and Reflections - by Chris Pavese (LINK)

Links

I had a great time in L.A. this week, and enjoyed getting to see Charlie Munger in-person holding court at the Daily Journal Annual Meeting. It appears we are still awaiting a video to be released, but there are some notes HERE (and someone recorded an audio of the meeting HERE). And I agree with my friend Phil that one of the more interesting pieces was also Peter Kaufman's brief remarks that Munger asked him to give. As Phil posted on Twitter: 

My favorite part of the $DJCO meeting yesterday was actually from Peter Kaufman. His "Five Aces" of investment management:

1. Total integrity.

2. Actual, deep fluency in the subject.

3. Fee structure w/two-way fairness.

4. Uncrowded investment space.

5. Long runway.

I think he then also added (roughly) that if you find someone who fits that criteria, give them as much as you can afford to give them. 

***

"There are worse things than having people misunderstand your work. A worse danger is that you will yourself misunderstand your work." - Paul Graham, "Hackers and Painters" (Source)

Making Sense vs. Being Right - by Morgan Housel (LINK)

Tony Hsieh of Zappos on Hiring for Culture (LINK)

Wild, But Not Crazy - by Clifford Asness (LINK)

The end of the low-volatility regime (LINK)

Tech Luminary Peter Thiel Parts Ways With Silicon Valley ($) (LINK)

Jim Chanos on the return of choppy markets, Tesla, and the 'rent-seeking behavior' that's hurting our economy (video) [H/T Josh Brown] (LINK)

This Short Seller Pressed ‘Tweet.’ Then the FBI Showed Up (LINK)

Matt Levine chats with Tyler Cowen (audio/podcast) (LINK)

Exponent Podcast: Episode 141 — The Mailbag Episode (LINK)

These Crickets Can’t Sing Anymore—But They’re Still Trying - by Ed Yong (LINK)

Links

"There are tricks in startups, as there are in any domain, but they are an order of magnitude less important than solving the real problem. Someone who knows zero about fundraising, but has made something users really love, will have an easier time raising money than someone who knows every trick in the book but has a flat usage graph." -Paul Graham (2014 class video lecture)

David Kass with 10 Highlights from the “Becoming Warren Buffett” documentary [H/T ValueWalk] (LINK) [And the quote I posted on Twitter while I was watching it last night was: "It's kind of crazy to spend your life painting if you're painting a subject you don't want to look at." -Warren Buffett]

Are Great Men and Women a Product of Circumstance? (LINK)

Greek Bond Yields Surge Amid Stalled Bailout Review, IMF Quarrel [H/T Matt] (LINK)

Brexit as a game of Chicken - by Tim Harford (LINK)

The “Wind and Solar Will Save Us” Delusion - by Gail Tverberg (LINK)

Inspired Media - by Ben Thompson (LINK)

William Ury on the Wavemaker Conversations podcast (LINK)

Related book: Getting to Yes: Negotiating Agreement Without Giving In

Book of the day [H/T @John_Hempton]: Genentech: The Beginnings of Biotech

A nice chat between Patrick O’Shaughnessy and Brent Beshore (audio) (LINK)

If you don't have time for the entire O’Shaughnessy/Beshore podcast above, you may at least want to go to the 1:51:14 mark for the brief discussion on meeting Charlie Munger. Beshore mentions (at about the 1:55:00 mark) some advice he took away from the Munger meeting:

One of the biggest pieces of advice that I took out of it was that he said, "Don't feel like you need to be impressive to people." He said that for the longest time, [it was] the single biggest thing that affected his life negatively.... He said that his need to show people that he was right, and that he was smarter than them, and that they were doing something stupid...he said he would have been much more successful than he was if he had just been able to, I think he said "disguise your judgment."

This also reminded me of similar advice Munger gave in his 2007 USC School of Law commencement speech (VIDEO). In my notes, I recorded it as "My advice to you is to learn sometimes to keep your light under a bushel." And in Poor Charlie's Almanack, in the longer transcript of that talk, that particular piece of advice is written as: 

Even though I was a good poker player when I was young, I wasn't good enough at pretending when I thought I knew more than my supervisors did. And I didn't try as hard at pretending as would have been prudent. So I gave a lot of offense. Now, I'm generally tolerated as a harmless eccentric who will soon be gone. But, coming up, I had a difficult period to go through. My advice to you is to be better than I was at keeping insights hidden.