Charlie Munger & Li Lu Interview by Weekly in Stocks (Parts 1, 2 & 3)

Link to Part 1


Link to Part 2


Link to Part 3

Links

"We generally believe you can just see anything in markets. I mean, it's just extraordinary what happens in markets over time. It gets sorted out eventually, but we have seen companies sell for tens of billion dollars that are worthless. And at times, we have seen things sell for...literally 20 percent or 25 percent of what they were worth. So we have seen and will continue to see everything. It’s just the nature of markets. They produce wild, wild things over time. And the trick is, occasionally, to take advantage of one of those wild things and not to get carried away when other wild things happen because the wild things create their own truth for a while." --Warren Buffett (2000)

Links to some old Ben Graham articles (via Twitter) [H/T @jasonzweigwsj] (LINK)

Mohnish Pabrai interview in The Economic Times (LINK)

The checklist that I created came out of looking at mistakes made by great investors. The single biggest reason why investments don’t work out for investors is leverage. The second biggest reason has to do with a misunderstanding of the comparative advantage of the moat. Then you get to management and ownership and other issues. You might get to environmental or unions and labour and that sort of things. The three really big things are — leverage, moats and management, probably in that order. 

More than money, Berkshire’s Todd Combs coming on Paytm board is the best outcome (LINK)

The Race of Our Lives Revisited (in a nutshell) - Jeremy Grantham (LINK)

In this abridged version of “The Race of Our Lives Revisited” Jeremy Grantham provides a detailed discussion of the long-term, slow-burning problems that threaten us today: climate change, population growth, increasing environmental toxicity.

Citron Research's short thesis on Wayfair (LINK)

Akimbo Podcast: Ignore sunk costs (LINK)

Radiolab Podcast: Baby Blue Blood Drive (LINK)

Does Our Cultural Obsession With Safety Spell the Downfall of Democracy? (LINK)

Fred Rogers: a quiet psychological revolution in children’s television (LINK)

Related book: The Good Neighbor: The Life and Work of Fred Rogers  

Related documentary: Won't You Be My Neighbor?

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"The very best businesses, the really wonderful businesses, require no book value...We want to buy businesses, really, that will deliver more and more cash and not need to retain cash, which is what builds up book value over time. Admittedly, the prices of marketable securities, at any given time, are not a great indication of their intrinsic value. They are far better, though, than the book value of those companies in indicating intrinsic value.... It’s a factor we ignore. We do look at what a company is able to earn on invested assets and what it can earn on incremental invested assets. But the book value, we do not give a thought to." --Warren Buffett (2000)

A Jolt To The Jugular! You’re Insured But Still Owe $109K For Your Heart Attack [H/T @RosenthalHealth] (LINK)

Submerging Markets Got You Down? Reflexivity Explains Why (LINK)

Uber’s Bundles - by Ben Thompson (LINK)

Charles Wagner’s 100-Year-Old Warning About Social Media - by Cal Newport (LINK)

Invest Like the Best Podcast: Elad Gil – How to Identify Interesting Markets (LINK)

Related book: High Growth Handbook

The Art of Manliness Podcast: How to Achieve Hyperfocus – Chris Bailey (LINK)

Related book: Hyperfocus: How to Be More Productive in a World of Distraction

5 decades after his death, George Gamow’s contributions to science survive (LINK)

Related book: My World Line: An Informal Autobiography - by George Gamow

When Conservation Backfires - by Ed Yong (LINK)

Links

Berkshire Hathaway buys a stake in India's largest digital payments company (LINK)

A Primer on Utilities (LINK)

How TripAdvisor changed travel (LINK)

10 Things You May Not Know About the Great Depression - by Ben Carlson (LINK)

Dear Investor, That Cocky Voice in Your Head Is Wrong - by Jason Zweig (LINK)

Chicago’s New Idea to Fix Its Pension Deficit? Take On More Debt ($) (LINK)

How Two Musk Decisions in 2016 Put Tesla Into Trouble - by Charley Grant ($) (LINK)

Never Mind, Tesla’s Not Going Private (LINK)

(I Can’t Get No) Satisfaction and Negative Churn - by Tren Griffin (LINK)

Small-town Ingenuity Is Making Gigabit Broadband a Reality (LINK)

What Is Quantum Computing? The Complete WIRED Guide (LINK)

Drew Houston, co-founder and CEO of Dropbox, on The Tim Ferriss Show (podcast) (LINK)

Online Bettors Can Sniff Out Weak Psychology Studies - by Ed Yong (LINK)

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For Audible members, Audible's latest sale has some titles of note for $5.95 [And if you're not a member, and haven't yet done a free trial, you can get a free trial and 2 free audiobook credits by signing up HERE.]. The titles that stood out to me in this sale:

The Everything Store

Sam Walton: Made in America

When Breath Becomes Air

Option B

Originals

Everything Happens for a Reason: And Other Lies I've Loved

Smarter Faster Better

So Good They Can't Ignore You

Deep Work

How to Fail at Almost Everything and Still Win Big

The Four

Political Order and Political Decay

Discrimination and Disparities

Abundance

Tribe

Make Your Bed

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"I think if you have very unreasonable expectations of life, it makes life much more miserable. Much better to get your expectations within reason. It’s much easier to reduce expectations to some reasonable level than it is to get superhuman achievements." --Charlie Munger

It’s Not Supposed to be Easy: How Oaktree Strives to Add Value in Uncertain Times (LINK) [From a couple of months ago.]

Who Killed Toys ‘R’ Us? Hint: It Wasn’t Only Amazon ($) (LINK)

The Yield of an Empire - by Jamie Catherwood (LINK)

A Brief Summary of the Social Media Reform Movement - by Cal Newport (LINK)

American Innovations Podcast: The Future Of | Predicting the Future | 4 (LINK)

Legendary Coach John Wooden’s Secrets of Leadership (The Art of Manliness podcast) (LINK)

Neil deGrasse Tyson talks with Joe Rogan (podcast) (LINK)

A Blended Family: Her Mother Was Neanderthal, Her Father Something Else Entirely (LINK)

In a limestone cave nestled high above the Anuy River in Siberia, scientists have discovered the fossil of an extraordinary human hybrid. 

The 90,000-year-old bone fragment came from a female whose mother was Neanderthal, according to an analysis of DNA discovered inside it. But her father was not: He belonged to another branch of ancient humanity known as the Denisovans. 

Scientists have been recovering genomes from ancient human fossils for just over a decade. Now, with the discovery of a Neanderthal-Denisovan hybrid, the world as it was tens of thousands of years ago is coming into remarkable new focus: home to a marvelous range of human diversity.

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"We don’t understand what currencies are going to do week-to-week or month-to-month or year-to-year. And we always try to figure on what — focus on what’s knowable and what’s important. Now, currency might be important, but we don’t think it’s knowable. Other things are unimportant, but knowable. But what really counts is what’s knowable and important." --Warren Buffett (2000)

Looking back at Warren Buffett's March 9, 2009 comments on Wells Fargo and American Express (LINK)

What I learned from a teacher of refugees - By Bill Gates (LINK)

Venezuelans Skeptical of Maduro’s Latest Measures to Salvage Economy ($) (LINK)

Radiolab Podcast: Post No Evil [H/T @antoniogm] (LINK)

Back in 2008 Facebook began writing a document. It was a constitution of sorts, laying out what could and what couldn’t be posted on the site. Back then, the rules were simple, outlawing nudity and gore. Today, they’re anything but. 

Why Everyone Should Watch Less News - by Ryan Holiday (LINK)

Rare Earth Elements are Crucial to Modern Society. So, What Are They? (LINK)

"We have a willful agnosticism on all kinds of things. And that makes us concentrate on certain other things. This is a very good way to think, if you’re as lazy as we are." --Charlie Munger

Links

"[Charlie and I] don’t consider ourselves...richer or poorer based on what the stock does. We do feel richer or poorer based on what the business does. So we look at the business as to how much we’re worth. And we do not look at the stock price, because the stock price doesn’t mean a thing to us....  We think of it as a private business, basically, for which there’s a quotation. And if it’s handy to use that quotation, either in buying more stock or something of the sort, we may do it. But it does not govern our ideas of value." --Warren Buffett

Paul Singer, Doomsday Investor [H/T Linc] (LINK)

JP Morgan to unveil new investing app with an eye-catching, disruptive price: Free (LINK)

Steven Romick's Q2 Letter (LINK)

Invest Like the Best Podcast: What You Learn About Business After 12,000 Deals Reviewed, 1,500 Deep Dives, 125 Site Visits, and 7 Portfolio Companies, w/ Brent Beshore (LINK)

Evanescent boundaries - by Seth Godin (LINK)

"Generally, I would say that if you have a lot of lovely wealth in a form that makes you comfortable, and somebody down the street has found a way to make money a lot faster, in a way you don’t understand, you should not be made miserable by that process. There are worse things in life than being left behind in possession of a lot of lovely money." --Charlie Munger

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"We will never buy anything we don’t think we understand. And our definition of understanding is thinking that we have a reasonable probability of being able to assess where the business will be in 10 years." --Warren Buffett

A Short History of Emerging Market Corrections & Bear Markets - by Ben Carlson (LINK)

Thoughts from my recent Beijing trip - by Bill Bishop (LINK)

What Your Car Knows About You ($) (LINK)

Venezuela Adds to Chaos With One of Biggest Currency Devaluations Ever (LINK)

Turkey, Emerging Markets, and Your Portfolio (LINK)

Elad Gil on the Recode Decode Podcast (LINK)

Related book: High Growth Handbook

Links

"A business with something glorious underneath, disguised by terrible numbers that cause cutoff points in other people’s minds, is ideal for us, if we can figure it out." --Charlie Munger

Elon Musk Details ‘Excruciating’ Personal Toll of Tesla Turmoil (LINK)

The Art of Self-Control - by Ben Carlson (LINK)

Raoul Pal on Turkey (podcast) (LINK)

Two billion years ago, Andromeda ate the Milky Way’s sibling - by Phil Plait (LINK)

Links

"I think it’s the nature of things that some businesses die. It’s also in the nature of things that, in some cases, you shouldn’t fight it. There is no logical answer, in some cases, except to wring the money out and go elsewhere." --Charlie Munger

Baupost's Tesla Convertible Bonds Are Said to Be Bearish Wager [H/T Linc] (LINK)

‘Mega-Round’ investors shower start-ups with millions [H/T Matt] (LINK)

A trade war won’t fix Turkey - by Sebastian Mallaby (LINK)

Deja Vu In Turkey: Currency Crisis and Corporate Insanity! - by Aswath Damodaran (LINK)

The Bank for International Settlements has an interesting tool: Which banks are the largest creditors to a particular country? (video) (LINK)

Breakfast With a Dose of Roundup? (LINK)

Joe Moglia: Double Reinvention: From Football Coach to CEO of TD Ameritrade & Back to Football (The James Altucher Show) (LINK)

Ryan Holiday's Ultimate List Of Books To Base Your Life On (LINK)

Elephants Have a Secret Weapon Against Cancer - by Ed Yong (LINK)

Scientists Finally Crack Wheat’s Absurdly Complex Genome - by Ed Yong (LINK)

An Unprecedented Look at a Young Woman’s Face Transplant [H/T @Atul_Gawande] (LINK)