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

"I think most people get very few, what I call, no-brainer opportunities, where it’s just so damned obvious that this is going to work. And since they are very few and they may be separated by periods of years, I think people have to learn to have the courage and the intelligence to step up in a major way when those rare opportunities come by." --Charlie Munger (1997)

"Yeah. You've got to be willing to take a really big bite. And it’s crazy if you don’t. And it’s crazy if you dabble around at the edges, so you’re not prepared to take a big bite when the time comes." --Warren Buffett (1997)

Why it only costs $10k to ‘own’ a Chick-fil-A franchise [H/T @cristinagberta] (LINK)

The chicken chain is known for having the lowest entry cost of any major fast-food franchise — but there’s a catch.

Vanguard Broadens Reach With Entry Into Private Equity ($) (LINK)

Ray Dalio's response to the recent WSJ article on him and Bridgewater (LINK)

Corner Office from Marketplace (podcast): Janet Yellen and David Malpass on global economic slowdown (LINK)

1,000 True Fans? Try 100 (LINK)

Links

"One can see the investment universe as full of certainties, or one can see it as replete with probabilities. Those who reflect and hesitate make far less in a bull market, but those who never question themselves get obliterated when the bear market comes. In investing, certainty can be a serious problem, because it causes one not to reassess flawed conclusions. Nobody can know all the facts. Instead, one must rely on shreds of evidence, kernels of truth, and what one suspects to be true but cannot prove." --Seth Klarman

Masters in Business Podcast: Christopher Davis Discusses Smart Value Investing (LINK)

The Stock Got Crushed. Then the ETFs Had to Sell. - by Jason Zweig ($) (LINK)

Ray Dalio Is Still Driving His $160 Billion Hedge-Fund Machine ($) (LINK)

Useful Laws of the Land - by Morgan Housel (LINK)

Tankers Are Tanking - by Harris Kupperman (LINK)

An anonymous, detailed short thesis on Luckin Coffee [H/T @muddywatersre] (LINK)

Exponent Podcast: 180 — It’s Been a Week (LINK)

The Young IPA Podcast Episode 143: We Just Had The Best Decade In Human History with Matt Ridley (video) (LINK)

Hardcore History Addendum Podcast: EP9 Glimpses of Olympias (LINK)

The Sun, up close and very personal - by Phil Plait (LINK)

Links

My year-end letter at Sorfis is in the proofreading stage. If you are interested in receiving it as soon as it is released next week, you can sign up on the website HERE. 

*********

Greenlight Q4 2019 Letter (LINK)

Fundsmith Annual Letter (LINK)

Apollo Asia Fund: the manager's report for 4Q19 (LINK)

Wealth Is What You Don’t Spend - by Morgan Housel (LINK)

Every Company Will Be a Fintech Company (LINK)

Paul Tudor Jones on CNBC (video) (LINK)

Ray Dalio on CNBC (video) (LINK)

Brian Moynihan on CNBC (video) (LINK)

Stephen Schwarzman on CNBC (video) (LINK)

David Rubenstein on CNBC (video) (LINK)

Carlos Brito on CNBC (video) (LINK)

Invest Like the Best Podcast: Rebecca Kaden – Thesis Driven Investing (LINK)

The James Altucher Show: 531 - Jocko Willink (LINK)

Related book: Leadership Strategy and Tactics: Field Manual

The Knowledge Project Podcast: #74 Jeff Hunter: Embracing Confusion (LINK)

Finding the One Decision That Removes 100 Decisions (or, Why I’m Reading No New Books in 2020) - by Tim Ferriss (LINK)

Hey, maybe the dinosaur-killer asteroid really did act alone! (LINK)

Links

"Accepting that we cannot predict the future⁠—i.e., that there will always be unexpected and highly consequential events⁠—is the first step in becoming less fragile and more adaptable. People should be highly skeptical of anyone's, including their own, ability to predict the future, and instead pursue strategies that can survive whatever may occur." --Seth Klarman (Source)

The Art of (Not) Selling [Akre Capital Management] (LINK)

The Future of America’s Contest with China - by Evan Osnos (LINK)

7 Reasons Why Video Gaming Will Take Over - by Matthew Ball (LINK)

⁠Are You Undervaluing Your Customers? [H/T @BrentBeshore] (LINK)

Amazon Has Long Ruled the Cloud. Now It Must Fend Off Rivals. ($) (LINK)

In Carlos Ghosn’s Escape, Plotters Exploited an Airport Security Hole ($) (LINK)

Railroads are cutting workers at a pace not seen since the Great Recession [H/T Linc] (LINK)

What Will Happen In The 2020s - by Fred Wilson (LINK)

“What is Happening to US Shale Production?” [H/T Linc] (LINK)

The Acquirers Podcast: Gregory Zuckerman on Renaissance / Rentech (LINK)

Capital Allocators Podcast: Gregory Zuckerman – Decoding Renaissance Medallion (LINK)

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

EconTalk (podcast): Melanie Mitchell on Artificial Intelligence (LINK)

Hidden Forces Podcast: Range: Why Generalists Triumph in Today’s Specialized World | David Epstein (LINK)

Related book: Range: Why Generalists Triumph in a Specialized World

Odd Lots Podcast: Why So Many Emerging Markets Are Blowing Up Right Now (LINK)

OPIS Crash Course Podcast: IMO 2020 Is Here! Refinery Impacts and Oil Price Analysis (LINK)

Sean "Diddy" Combs Has A Next-Level Conversation W/ Mentor Ray Dalio (video) [H/T Linc] (LINK)

***

Chart of the day (with description), via John Hussman's "One Tier and Rubble Down Below":

As I’ve noted before, individual price/revenue ratios aren’t clear indications of value in and of themselves. Typically, low ratio stocks include retail, grocery, and banking companies, while high ratio stocks include technology and emerging growth companies. What’s more important is the comparison of each group with its own norms, as well as dispersion across the behavior of different groups. 

 

Presently, it’s clear that except for the most expensive 10% of stocks, every other decile is at valuations 10-50% more extreme than those observed at the 2000 market peak.

Links

"It’s not any goal of ours to double the revenues or increase them 20 percent, even, or anything. We just try to do whatever comes along that makes sense. And if there’s a lot that comes along in one year that makes sense, we’ll do a lot. And if there’s nothing that comes along that makes sense, we’ll do nothing. So there’s a lot of accident in it." --Warren Buffett (1996)

Warren Buffett's latest attempt to put his cash to work is thwarted (LINK)

Chris Bloomstran of Semper Augustus Investments Group doesn't like the price being offered by Kyocera for the rest of AVX. He posted some thoughts and his letter to the CEO and Special Committee on Twitter, which you can also find HERE.

Mohnish Pabrai's Annual Talk at Boston College (video) (LINK)

Josh Wolfe's Lux 2019 Annual Meeting Talk (video) (LINK)

Paul Tudor Jones and Ray Dalio at the Greenwich Economic Forum earlier this month (video) [H/T Linc] (LINK)

The Greatest Value Investor You’ve Never Heard (LINK)

Risky Business - by Frank K. Martin (LINK)

The Complete Guide To Drilling (LINK)

Value Investing with Legends Podcast: Matthew McLennan - The Power of Selectivity and Patience (LINK)

Invest Like the Best Podcast: Gavin Baker – Tech and Consumer Growth Investing (LINK)

Value: After Hours Podcast: Taylor, Brewster and Carlisle discuss Rentec, Chanos, and value (LINK)

Conversations with Tyler (podcast): Mark Zuckerberg Interviews Patrick Collison and Tyler Cowen on the Nature and Causes of Progress (LINK)

The Tim Ferriss Show (podcast): #398: Peter Attia, M.D. — Fasting, Metformin, Athletic Performance, and More (LINK)

The Beirut Banyan Podcast: 81: Nassim Nicholas Taleb & Local Solutions for Lebanon (LINK)

Origin Stories Podcast: 40: The Denisovans (LINK)

Links

"It’s crazy to have people get so big and so important that you can’t allow them to fail, and allow them to be run with as much knavery and stupidity as permeated the major investment banks. It’s not that Berkshire hasn’t had wonderful service from investment banking all these years, because we have. It’s just that, as an industry, this crazy culture of greed and overreaching and overconfidence in trading algorithms and so on creeps in. I would argue it’s quite counterproductive for the country, and it ought to be reigned way back. These institutions are too big to fail, and it was demented to allow derivative trading to end up the way it’s ended up and with the current risks that are embedded in the present system. And it’s amazing how few people spoke against it as it was happening. There was just so much easy money to be reported. A lot of the money that was reported as being earned wasn’t really being earned. It was in that wonderful category of assets that I call 'good until reached for.' They sit there on the balance sheet, and when you reach for it, it just fades away like — mist." --Charlie Munger (May 3, 2008)

Bill Gates at the DealBook conference (video) (LINK)

Reed Hastings at the DealBook conference (video) (LINK)

[The rest of the DealBook conference videos can be found HERE.]

The World Has Gone Mad and the System Is Broken - by Ray Dalio (LINK)

Three Things I Think I Think – Has The World Gone Mad? - by Cullen Roche (LINK)

The Acquirers Podcast: Ian Cassel turns the tables and interviews Tobias Carlisle (LINK)

Masters of Scale with Reid Hoffman (podcast): Bill Gates — How to accelerate history (LINK)

The Hazards of Talking to Strangers (LINK)

Links

"In general terms, unless you find the prices of a great company really offensive.... I think it’s better just to own them. We could attempt to buy and sell some of the things that we own that we think are fine businesses. But they’re too hard to find.... So, to sit there and hope that you buy them in the throes of some panic, that you sort of take the attitude of a mortician, waiting for a flu epidemic or something.... I’m not sure that will be a great technique....  I think the main thing to do is find wonderful businesses.... We’ve had our share of flu epidemics. But you don’t want to spend your life waiting around for them." --Warren Buffett (1996)

"By definition, a great company is one that’s going to remain great for 30 years. If it’s going to be a great company for three years, it ain’t a great company. So, you really want to go along with the idea of something that, if you were going to take a trip for 20 years, you wouldn’t feel bad leaving the money in with no orders with your broker and no power of attorney or anything, and you just go on the trip. And you know you come back, and it’s going to be a terribly strong company." --Warren Buffett (1996)

Berkshire Hathaway's Cash Pile Hits a Record ($) (LINK)

The Making of the World’s Greatest Investor ($) (LINK)

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

Masters in Business Podcast: Gregory Zuckerman on the Quant Revolution (LINK)

Sometimes the Stock Market Needs ‘Knights of Faith’ - by Jason Zweig ($) (LINK) [Zweig also added some more detail HERE.]

The Absolute Return Letter - November 2019: How to invest in a low growth world (Part 2 of 2) (LINK)

Ray Dalio on The David Rubenstein Show (video) (LINK)

Value Investing with Legends Podcast: Leon Cooperman - Looking For More For Less (LINK)

a16z Podcast: Come for the Games, Stay for the Party (LINK)

Think Again Podcast: 218. Bill Bryson – the most extraordinary machine (LINK)

Related book: The Body: A Guide for Occupants 

A ‘Horror Movie’ Fish That Moves on Land—Or Does It? (LINK)

Links

"Most powerful is he who has himself in his own power." --Seneca

A Few Gentle Thoughts on Journalism - by Jason Zweig (LINK)

What You Gain—and Lose—When You Lock Money Up for the Long Run - by Jason Zweig ($) (LINK)

America’s Public Pensions Are Stuck In The Clouds ($) (LINK)

Beyond Ridiculous (LINK)

Oaktree Insights: Structured Credit Primer & Commentary (LINK)

Paradigm Shifts - by Ray Dalio (LINK)

Kyle Bass on CNBC last week (video) (LINK)

Value Investing with Legends Podcast: Connecting Theory and Practice Through The 5x5x5 Student Investment Fund (LINK)

Today’s conversation is with Tom Russo, the master of consumer brand investing, and two of our best students, Jeffrey Johnson '19 and Michael Allison '19. We’re talking about the 5x5x5 Student Investment Fund and having a deep discussion about some of the specific stocks in the portfolio. The concept for the 5x5x5 fund came out of Tom’s concern that conventional investment funds for students offered limited learning potential due to their short-term nature and was made possible by a generous gift given by him and his wife, Georgina.

a16z Podcast: The Search for the Secret Metal that Powers All Our Devices (LINK)

Revisionist History Podcast: Dr. Rock’s Taxonomy (LINK)

Radiolab Podcast: G: Unnatural Selection (LINK)

This past fall, a scientist named Steve Hsu made headlines with a provocative announcement. He would start selling a genetic intelligence test to couples doing IVF: a sophisticated prediction tool, built on big data and machine learning, designed to help couples select the best embryo in their batch. We wondered, how does that work? What can the test really say? And do we want to live in a world where certain people can decide how smart their babies will be?

Should the Rich Be Allowed to Buy the Best Genes? - by Walter Isaacson (LINK)

What Tick Saliva Does to the Human Body - by Sarah Zhang (LINK)

The Stump That Didn’t Die - by Ed Yong (LINK)

Through underground connections with its neighbors, it somehow stays alive. What does that say about the concept of a tree, or the future of forests?

Book of the day: The Bubble that Broke the World - by Garet Garrett

Audible also has some notable titles currently on sale for $5....

The Fifth Risk - by Michael Lewis

Skunk Works - by Ben R. Rich and Leo Janos

The Crusades - by Thomas Asbridge

The Invention of Nature: Alexander von Humboldt's New World - by Andrea Wulf

The Sixth Extinction - by Elizabeth Kolbert

Cosmos - by Carl Sagan

Links

"The nature of the private equity activity is such that it really isn’t a bubble that bursts. Because if you’re running a large private equity fund and you lock up $20 billion for five or longer years and you buy businesses which are not priced daily, as a practical matter — even if you do a poor job, it’s going to take many years before the score is put up on the score board, and it takes many years, in most cases, for people to get out of the private equity fund even if they wished to earlier.... The investors can’t leave and the scorecard is lacking for a long time. What will slow down the activity — or what could slow down the activity — is if yields on junk bonds became much higher than yields on high-grade bonds. Right now the spread between yields on junk bonds and high-grade bonds is down to a very low level, and history has shown that periodically that spread widens quite dramatically. That will slow down the deals, but it won’t cause the investors to get their money back." --Warren Buffett (2007)

Jony Ive Leaves Apple, Ive’s Legacy, The Post-Ive Apple - by Ben Thompson (LINK)

Nudgestock 2019: Gerd Gigerenzer - Less is more: Decision making under uncertainty (video) [H/T @mikedariano] (LINK)

Related book: Risk Savvy: How to Make Good Decisions

Oaktree Insights: Are There Still Winners in a Maturing Real Estate Cycle? (LINK)

Have Power, Respect Power, and Use Power Wisely - by Ray Dalio (LINK)

The Massive ‘Pig Ebola’ Epidemic Will Give Trump Big Leverage In His Trade Standoff With China - by J. Kyle Bass and Daniel Babich (LINK)

The Attention Diet - by Mark Manson (LINK)

The side of Paul Allen I wish more people knew about - by Bill Gates (LINK)

The Tim Ferriss Show (podcast): #375: Josh Waitzkin — How to Cram 2 Months of Learning into 1 Day (LINK)

Revisionist History Podcast: The Tortoise and the Hare (LINK)

Value Investing with Legends Podcast: Investing with Curiosity [with Christopher Davis] (LINK)

Five Good Questions Podcast: Gautam Baid - The Joys of Compounding (LINK)

EdgeCast (podcast): Barbara Tversky - The Geometry of Thought (LINK)

Related book: Mind in Motion: How Action Shapes Thought

Nature Podcast: Nature PastCast, June 1876 (LINK)

According to the fables of early explorers, the gorilla was a terrible, man-eating monster. It was also thought to be man’s closest relative in the animal kingdom. Naturally, scientists and the public alike wanted to see these fierce beasts for themselves. But in the mid-nineteenth century, as the evolution debate heated up, getting a live gorilla to Europe from Africa was extremely difficult. In 1876, the pages of Nature report the arrival in England of a young specimen.

North Atlantic Right Whales Are Dying in Horrific Ways - by Ed Yong (LINK)

Notes on the book Endurance: Shackleton’s Incredible Voyage by Alfred Lansing (LINK) [This book is also fantastic as an audiobook.]

 "Man has known for a long time that getting too enchanted with the trappings of power is counterproductive. The Roman emperor that’s most remembered as presiding over a period of great felicity was Marcus Aurelius, who was totally against the trappings of power even though he had them all — he had all the power. So I think all these things can be abused, and I think the best way to tackle a subject is to provide examples of contrary behavior." --Charlie Munger (2007)

Links

"Inflation destroys value, but it destroys it very unequally. The best business to have during inflation is one that retains its earning power in real dollars without commensurate investment to, in effect, fund the inflation-produced nominal growth. The worst kind of business is where you have to keep putting more and more money into a lousy business. In effect, the airlines have been hurt by inflation over the last 40 years, because now they have to put a whole lot of money in a lousy investment, which is a plane, compared to 30 or 40 years ago. And they have to stay in the game. They have to keep buying new planes. And the new planes cost far more now, and the returns continue to be inadequate. So the best protection is a very good business that does not require big capital investment...  Inflation is always a factor in calculating the kind of investment, the kind of business, that we want to buy. But it isn’t like it crowds out all other factors. I mean, it’s always been with us. We’ll think about it always." --Warren Buffett (2005)  [Related link: Warren Buffett’s Comments on Inflation]

Geographic Diversification Can Be a Lifesaver, Yet Most Portfolios Are Highly Geographically Concentrated [H/T @MebFaber, whose Twitter thread is worth reading as well] (LINK)

Ray Dalio at Stanford (video) (LINK)

Value Investing with Legends (a new podcast): Mario Gabelli (LINK)

Invest Like the Best Podcast: Josh Wolfe – The Tech Imperative (LINK)

Against the Rules with Michael Lewis (podcast): The Hand of Leonardo (LINK)

Decrypted Podcast: As Amazon Gets Bigger, Sellers Feel the Squeeze (LINK)

WorkLife with Adam Grant (podcast): When Strength Becomes Weakness (LINK)

Lifesaving Forecasts Start Here: Inside the Storm Prediction Center [H/T @pcordway] (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

"It’s hard to know just which companies can pass through the increases in costs that come from higher commodity prices. And it’s also important to know." --Charlie Munger (2005)

"We like buying businesses where we feel that there’s some untapped pricing power.... One of the questions we asked ourselves [when we bought See's], and we thought the answer was obvious, was: if we raised the price 10 cents a pound, would sales fall off a cliff? And of course, the answer, in our view at least, was that no, there was some untapped pricing power in the product. And it’s not a great business when you have to have a prayer session before you raise your prices a penny. You are in a tough business then. And I would say you can almost measure the strength of a business over time by the agony they go through in determining whether a price increase can be sustained." --Warren Buffett (2005)

Masters in Business Podcast: Michael Lewis Discusses the Culture of Finance (LINK)

Against the Rules with Michael Lewis (podcast): Ref, You Suck! (LINK)

Sam Walton Stole All His Best Ideas From This Guy [Sol Price] (video) (LINK)

Related books: 1) Sol Price Retail Revolutionary & Social Innovator; 2) Sam Walton: Made In America; 3) Intelligent Fanatics Project

The Brooklyn Investor blog on JP Morgan, and other things (LINK)

Why & How Capitalism Needs to be Reformed - by Ray Dalio (LINK)

Apple Plus - brand versus subscription - by Benedict Evans (LINK)

Does Ridesharing Increase Traffic Deaths? - by Russ Roberts (LINK)

Ford CTO Ken ​Washington on AI and self-driving | Recode Decode Live | Full interview (video) (LINK)

Exponent Podcast: YouTube and the End of Friction (LINK)

oGoLead Leadership Podcast: Jack Nicklaus (Part 1, Part 2)

Here’s Why You’ve Never Heard Of the Most Successful People In The World - by Ryan Holiday (LINK)

Paul Volcker & Ray Dalio | State of the US Economy & Government

Link to video

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

Related book: Keeping At It: The Quest for Sound Money and Good Government

Links

Seth Klarman: A Bleak Warning on Global Division and Debt (LINK) [I haven't seen Klarman's letter yet, but if anyone happens to have a copy they'd be willing to share, it would be greatly appreciated (valueinvestingworld@gmail.com).]

CNBC's Davos interviews with Ray Dalio, David Rubenstein, Steve Schwarzman, Jeff Ubben, and Marc Benioff.

Dalio, Weber on Rethinking Global Financial Risk: Davos Panel (video) (LINK)

Survival is the Ultimate Performance Measure of a Business - by Ian Cassel (LINK)

Invest Like the Best Podcast: Eugene Wei – Tech, Media, and Culture (LINK)

The Knowledge Project Podcat: Shane Parrish chats with Josh Wolfe (LINK)

Netflix Flexes - by Ben Thompson (LINK)

Yuval Noah Harari: Why We Dominate the Earth (LINK)

Sir David Attenborough discusses his life's work at Davos 2019 (video) (LINK)

Spectacular 3D simulation of a massive solar flare… from start to finish (LINK)

Links

"When things go bad, all kinds of things correlate that no one ever dreamed correlated.... And there’s nothing more deadly than unrecognized concentrations of risk, but it happens all the time." --Warren Buffett (2003)

Only two things matter for the stock market. Donald Trump is not one of them. - by Roger Lowenstein (LINK)

Have I Got a Fund For You! Why Brokers Push Some Investments - by Jason Zweig (LINK)

The 20%-a-Year Stock Picker Who Wishes His Edge Would Disappear (LINK)

Jeff Bezos and Jamie Dimon: Best of Frenemies (LINK)

How to Lose Tens of Thousands of Dollars on Amazon (LINK)

A growing number of self-proclaimed experts promise they can teach anyone how to make a passive income selling cheap Chinese goods in the internet's largest store. Not everyone’s getting rich quick.

The $9 Billion Upcharge: How Insurers Kept Extra Cash from Medicare (LINK)

The Race to Diagnose Cancer With a Simple Blood Test (LINK)

The Bond That’s Still Paying Interest, 280 Years Later (LINK)

Looking Back on the Last 40 Years of Reforms in China - by Ray Dalio (LINK)

A Dearth of Physician Innovators Can Derail New Biomedical Startups (LINK)

Naval Ravikant and Kapil Gupta: The truth about hard work (podcast) (LINK)

How Millennials Became The Burnout Generation (LINK)

Three big insights into our African origins - by John Hawks (LINK)

Links

"There are three words which are among the most important words in our business: I don't know. And if you don't know something...you should admit it—to yourself and to everybody around you. And I think personally that it's very freeing to say 'I don't know.' I think it's very, almost depressing, to feel that you have to have an opinion on every subject, even the ones where by definition you can't have superior knowledge." --Howard Marks (Hong Kong, October 26, 2018)

A good compilation of papers related to valuation [H/T @NeckarValue] (LINK)

Notes from Value Invest NYC - by Chris Mayer (LINK)

Reflections On Cash As An Option - by Frank K. Martin (LINK)

To Help Put Recent Economic & Market Moves in Perspective - by Ray Dalio (LINK)

Sen. Johnny Isakson Called FBI on Behalf of MiMedx Group - by Gretchen Morgenson and Charley Grant (LINK)

In Defense of Laziness - by Charles Chu [H/T @jposhaughnessy] (LINK)

What’s Changed Since My First Column for Scientific American - by David Pogue [H/T Linc] (LINK)

The Woolly Mammoth Lumbers Back into View (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

"You may delay, but Time will not." --Ben Franklin

Berkshire invests in JPMorgan, Oracle as Buffett puts cash to work (LINK)

The GE End Game: Bataan Death March or Turnaround Play? - by Aswath Damodaran (LINK)

CNBC's full interview with Ray Dalio (~16 minutes) (LINK)

Short-seller Bass says China needs 'reset' as Trump talks tariffs (LINK)

Is there a financial time bomb in sight? - by Sebastian Mallaby (LINK)

Delay, Deny and Deflect: How Facebook’s Leaders Fought Through Crisis (LINK)

Who does Facebook fire after a bombshell New York Times investigation? (LINK)

Michael Lewis, whose books often highlight the growing role of data, sees the opportunity in trucking [H/T Linc] (LINK)

4 Strategies For Becoming a Master Persuader - by Robert Greene (LINK)

Deep freeze impact: Scientists find a huge asteroid impact crater under Greenland’s ice (LINK)

A Bold New Strategy for Stopping the Rise of Superbugs - by Ed Yong (LINK)

"A Change of Fortune hurts a wise Man no more than a Change of the Moon." --Ben Franklin

Links

How an Intelligence Expert Helps Wall Street Mavens Think Smarter (LINK)

Defensive Decision Making: What IS Best v. What LOOKS Best (LINK)

Balance Is Underrated - by Sean Iddings (LINK)

How One Family Built $8 Billion Startup Far From Silicon Valley (LINK)

The Experience Economy - by Ben Thompson (LINK)

Inside John Malone’s World ($ Barron's) (LINK)

Productivity Growth II: Can the U.S. Economy Stay Airborne Without It? - by Frank Martin (LINK)

Marathon's Richards Has a Recession Warning for Overleveraged Companies (video) [H/T @valueshadow] (LINK)

Has the “Everything Bubble” begun to deflate everything? (LINK)

Be Afraid of Economic ‘Bigness.’ Be Very Afraid. - by Tim Wu (LINK)

Related book (just released): The Curse of Bigness: Antitrust in the New Gilded Age

Ray Dalio on the Masters in Business podcast (LINK)

Ray Dalio reflects on today’s great powers and how they will handle their deep-seated differences (LINK)

Inside Bill Browder’s War Against Putin (LINK)

The next great war - by Graham Allison (LINK)