Links

"Put yourself in situations where favorable consequences are much larger than unfavorable ones.... Indeed, the notion of asymmetric outcomes is the central idea of this book: I will never get to know the unknown since, by definition, it is unknown. However, I can always guess how it might affect me, and I should base my decisions around that." --Nassim Taleb, "The Black Swan"

Robert Vinall's Annual Q&A (video) (LINK)

What qualities do Endowments and Family Offices look for in young managers? A panel (video) (LINK) [More related videos, HERE.]

Intuitive Surgical – The Journey of the $70 billion Robotic Surgery Giant - by Ian Cassel (LINK)

Cash, Plastic or Hand? Amazon Envisions Paying With a Wave ($) (LINK)

DoubleLine Round Table [incl. Steven Romick] (videos) (Segment 1 [Macro], Segment 2 [Markets])

The Acquirers Podcast: Supermugatu: Tyro’s Dan McMurtrie (LINK)

The McKinsey Podcast: The future of air travel (LINK)

The Inner Game of Tennis: Why Trying Too Hard Can Be Counterproductive (LINK)

Why You Should Quit the News - by Mark Manson (LINK)

Related previous links: 1) Avoid News: Towards a Healthy News Diet - By Rolf Dobelli; 2) Dylan Grice Explains Why Reading The News Won't Help You; 3) Lose the News - by Chris Mayer 

Links

Released today: The Great Mental Models: General Thinking Concepts

A Regulatory Framework for the Internet - by Ben Thompson (LINK)

Frackers, Chasing Fast Oil Output, Are on a Treadmill ($) (LINK)

Why is a good management so important? A talk with Robert Vinall on his approach (video) (LINK)

Against the Rules with Michael Lewis (podcast): The Seven Minute Rule (LINK)

The Tim Ferriss Show: Eric Schmidt — Lessons from a Trillion-Dollar Coach (LINK)

WorkLife with Adam Grant (podcast): How to Remember Anything (LINK)

Venture Stories Podcast: Tyler Cowen On His New Book: “Big Business: A Love Letter To An American Anti-Hero” (LINK)

Invest Like the Best Podcast: Geoffrey Batt – The Nature of Transformational Returns (LINK)

The Investing City Podcast: Portfolio Manager, Gautam Baid: Joyful Compounding (LINK)

Related book: The Joys of Compounding

Links

"It makes more sense...to buy a wonderful business at a fair price, than a fair business at a wonderful price.... I’ve changed my focus...over the years in that direction.... It’s not hard when you watch businesses for 50 years...to learn a few things about them, as to where the big money can be made. Now, you say when did it happen? It’s very interesting on that. Because what happens, even when you’re getting a new, important idea, is that the old ideas are still there. So there’s this flickering in and out of things. I mean, there was not a strong, bright red line of demarcation where we went from cigar butts to wonderful companies.... But we moved in that direction, occasionally moved back, because there is money made in cigar butts. But overall, we’ve kept moving in the direction of better and better companies." --Warren Buffett (2003)

Rob Vinall's 2018 investor letter [registration required] (LINK)

Brent Beshore on the Tropical MBA Podcast (LINK)

Related book: The Messy Marketplace

David Marcus: Great Owner-Operators in Europe (audio) (LINK)

Notes From Sohn London Investment Conference (LINK)

Why Some Platforms Thrive and Others Don’t [H/T @FourFilters] (LINK)

Blockchain Can Wrest the Internet From Corporations' Grasp - by Chris Dixon (LINK)

Misunderstanding Liquidity, Misunderstanding QT [H/T @modestproposal1] (LINK)

You Can’t Debunk MMT - by Cullen Roche (LINK)

Bob Rodriguez: Recent Market Turmoil a 'Preamble' to Bigger Crisis [H/T @jessefelder] (LINK)

RA Conversations: The Flattening Yield Curve (LINK)

Chris Cole on the Macro Voices Podcast (LINK)

Exponent Podcast: Episode 158 — A Significant Shift (LINK)

What’s Next for Education Startups (LINK)

Recode Media with Peter Kafka: Harvard’s Susan Crawford on the importance of fiber internet (podcast) (LINK)

Related book: Fiber: The Coming Tech Revolution―and Why America Might Miss It

High-performance medicine: the convergence of human and artificial intelligence - by Eric J. Topol (LINK)

Edge #525: Judith Rich Harris: 1938 - 2018 (LINK)

Plants Can Hear Animals Using Their Flowers - by Ed Yong (LINK)

Links

"I do find that most creative people end up applying different rules to their lives—in terms of how their lives are managed—because creativity doesn't necessarily conform to more traditional boundaries; whether their hours of work, places of work, circumstances. What you have to accept with creators and creativity is that one rule doesn't apply. It's whatever works for them." --Bob Iger

Bob Iger’s Bets Are Paying Off Big Time for Disney (LINK)

Howard Marks talks with Barry Ritholtz (podcast) (LINK)

Related book: Mastering the Market Cycle

Robert Vinall with an excellent letter on the 10-year anniversary of his fund [registration required] (LINK)

A great list of Investment Resources [H/T Linc] (LINK) [It may be especially worthwhile to read THIS, 10 years after the event.]

JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon doesn't think he has too much power in this economy (Corner Office podcast) (LINK)

Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, Investor Sentiment and the Housing Market -  by John Huber (LINK)

Risk Management - by Morgan Housel (LINK)

How Humans Get Hacked: Yuval Noah Harari & Tristan Harris Talk with WIRED (video) (LINK)

Yuval Noah Harari, historian and best-selling author of Sapiens, Homo Deus and 21 Lessons for the 21st Century, and Tristan Harris, co-founder and executive director of the Center for Humane Technology, speak with WIRED Editor in Chief Nicholas Thompson.

Lawrence Burns: "AUTONOMY: The Quest to Build the Driverless Car" | Talks at Google (LINK)

Yale Is Said to Invest in Crypto Fund That Raised $400 Million (LINK)

The Fed on Unemployment and the Future - by Frank K. Martin (LINK)

Jim Grant on CNBC yesterday (video) (LINK)

Michael Lewis calls Trump's approach to staffing the government 'insane' (video) [H/T Linc] (LINK)

Related book: The Fifth Risk

For Real Vision subscribers, Kyle Bass sits down with Graham Allison, author of Destined for War: Can America and China Escape Thucydides’s Trap?, to chat about China, geopolitics, history, and more (LINK) [If you're not a subscriber and would to join or take a free trial, you can sign up HERE.]

Human Action: A Chapter-by-Chapter Summary (LINK)

Four roads we call customer service - by Seth Godin (LINK)

On the Law of Diminishing Specialization - by Cal Newport (LINK)

Your Work Is the Only Thing That Matters - by Ryan Holiday (LINK)

A Controversial Virus Study Reveals a Critical Flaw in How Science Is Done - by Ed Yong (LINK)

Slightly More Than 100 Fantastic Articles [H/T Phil] (LINK)

A list of nonfiction journalism from 2017 that will stand the test of time.

Links

The Science Of Thinking (video) [H/T Linc] (LINK)

Lessons from Phil Knight about Business and Being an Entrepreneur - by Tren Griffin (LINK)

Related book: Shoe Dog

IP Capital Partners' Q4 report discussing Danaher (LINK)

China's BYD wins second electric bus order in tough to crack Africa market [H/T Linc] (LINK)

RV Capital's Emerging Managers Meeting, January 2018 (video) (LINK)

Tom Gilovich on the Masters in Business podcast (LINK)

Dale Carnegie: Coming to grips with a shaper of modern American culture [H/T Linc] (LINK)

Related books: 1) Self-Help Messiah: Dale Carnegie and Success in Modern America; 2) How to Win Friends & Influence People

As Cape Town water crisis deepens, scientists prepare for ‘Day Zero’ (LINK)

Ingvar Kamprad, founder of Ikea, dies at 91 (LINK)

Related book: Leading By Design: The Ikea Story

Links

“Buy not on optimism but on arithmetic.” – Ben Graham

Jeremy Grantham on WealthTrack (video) (LINK)

Feed the Ducks While They Are Quacking: Time to Reduce Lower Quality Bond Positions - By Lewis Johnson (LINK)

Rob Vinall's year-end letter for RV Capital [registration required] (LINK)

RV Capital's Annual Investors Conference 2018 (video) (LINK)

The Fantastic Four That Make FANG Look Tame (LINK)

Words From the Wise: An AQR Interview with Ed Thorp (LINK)

We sat down with Ed Thorp, a pioneer in the mathematical analysis of casino games and investing, to get his insights on an array of topics from casino gambling to quantitative investing. [Interview conducted December 2, 2015]

Sir Isaac Newton: Scientific Genius, Investing Fool - by Jason Zweig (LINK)

The physicist fell even harder than previously thought for one of the worst speculative bubbles of all time

Exponent Podcast: Episode 138 — A Moat Too Far (LINK)

Why I Urge You to Watch Planet Earth: Blue Planet II - by Ray Dalio (LINK)

Related previous link: Blue Planet II Is the Greatest Nature Series Of All Time - by Ed Yong

Links

Warren Buffett Shares the Secrets to Wealth in America [H/T Matt] (LINK)

Bracing Yourself for a Possible Near-Term Melt-Up (A Very Personal View) - by Jeremy Grantham (LINK)

December 2017 Issue of Value Investor Insight (LINK)

The Cashless Society Has Arrived—Only It’s in China [H/T Matt] (LINK)

The Knowledge Project Podcast -- The Art of Letting Other People Have Your Way: Negotiating Secrets from Chris Voss (LINK)

Related book: Never Split the Difference

Aubrey de Grey, PhD: "The Science of Curing Aging" | Talks at Google (LINK)

What’s the difference between stoicism and Stoicism? (LINK)

Book of the day (released this week): The Elephant in the Brain: Hidden Motives in Everyday Life

Links

"The great lesson in microeconomics is to discriminate between when technology is going to help you and when it's going to kill you." - Charlie Munger

Five Things I Am Doing Differently Today vs. Five Years Ago - by Robert Vinall [registration required] (LINK)

Paul Johnson and Paul Sonkin on the Capital Allocators Podcast (LINK)

Related book: Pitch the Perfect Investment

Business Lessons from Katrina Lake of Stitch Fix - by Tren Griffin (LINK)

The regulatory case against tech giants (continued): Why concerns about information overload could cripple the platform-monopoly model. (LINK)

TED Talk -- The science of cells that never get old | Elizabeth Blackburn (LINK)

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Audible added another 100 books to its current $4.95 sale (which ends November 28, 2017 @ 11:59 PM PT). Here are a few of the new titles that stood out to me (see the previous post for the other notable titles):

The Wizard of Menlo Park: How Thomas Alva Edison Invented the Modern World

Tribes: We Need You to Lead Us

An Anthropologist on Mars: Seven Paradoxical Tales

Economic Facts and Fallacies

The Greatest Story Ever Told - So Far: Why Are We Here?

***

"Success is not final, failure is not fatal: it is the courage to continue that counts." - Winston Churchill     [H/T Fred Wilson]

Autonomy, mastery, and purpose...

From Drive: The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us:

The best use of money as a motivator is to pay people enough to take the issue of money off the table: Pay people enough so that they’re not thinking about money and they’re thinking about the work. Once you do that, it turns out there are three factors that the science shows lead to better performance, not to mention personal satisfaction: autonomy, mastery, and purpose.

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

H/T Rob Vinall of RV Capital on the above, which I had read before, but I enjoyed reviewing Pink's ideas, as well his TED Talk, RSA Animate video, and an old HBR podcast. I also enjoyed what Vinall wrote about the idea in his latest investor letter:

According to Dan what motivates people is autonomy (the sense of freedom to do what you want), mastery (the sense of getting better at something through practice), and, above all, purpose (the sense that there is a point in what you are doing). If you are still sceptical, imagine your parents’ reaction if you tossed them a tip after they finished preparing dinner for the family. 

A quick aside: if you are wondering which career path to go down or advising a younger person on the same question, I believe Dan´s mental model is a far more actionable one than the more traditional advice of “follow your passion”. If you have been playing the violin since the age of 5 and it is all you ever wanted to do, that is great. Back in the real world, if you have not got a clue what you want to do, look for a company that gives you autonomy, the opportunity to learn, and is doing something meaningful. Irrespective of what the company makes or what service it provides, the passion will come.