Links

"For every asset, there’s a price that’s low enough to make the risk palatable . . . Low price is the remedy for everything." --Howard Marks [Source]

Bill Gates speaks with David Rubenstein (video) [H/T Will] (LINK)

Dara Khosrowshahi speaks with David Rubenstein (video) (LINK)

There And Back Again: A Value Investor’s Tale (LINK)

Facebook, Libra, and the Long Game - by Ben Thompson (LINK)

Lessons From the VC Who's Seen It All Before (LINK)

Invest Like the Best Podcast: Jesse Livermore – The Search for the Truth with the Anonymous Master (LINK)

Acquired Podcast: The Slack DPO (LINK)

Monarch Butterflies Reared in Captivity Lack a Crucial Ability - by Ed Yong (LINK)

The Last of Its Kind - by Ed Yong (LINK)

The biologist David Sischo has a tragic assignment: keeping vigil over a species’ sole survivor, then marking its extinction in real time.

Links

"A strategic buyer is some guy that pays too much. And he wants to justify it, so he says it’s strategic. I have never understood being a strategic buyer. Every time somebody calls me up and says, 'We think, maybe, you’re the logical strategic buyer for that,' I hang up faster than Charlie would.... The idea that we’re going to find a business to buy from some guy who, from the moment he bought it a few years ago, has been thinking, 'How do I get out of this thing?' 'What do I do to have...those figures for a couple years look a certain way so that I can get the maximum amount in a couple years?' We’re just not going to make any attractive buys there. We won’t trust the figures. What we like is a business where the guy before was running with the idea of running it a hundred years, and taking care of the business in every way possible and was not contemplating sale, but, for one reason or another, finally needs to monetize the company. " --Warren Buffett (2006)

Bill Gates on Startups, Investing and Solving The World's Hardest Problems (video) [H/T Linc] (LINK)

You know, in the software world, in particular for platforms, these are winner-take-all markets. So, you know, the greatest mistake ever is the whatever mismanagement I engaged in that caused Microsoft not to be what Android is, [meaning] Android is the standard non-Apple phone form platform. That was a natural thing for Microsoft to win. 

It really is winner take all. If you’re there with half as many apps or 90% as many apps, you’re on your way to complete doom. There’s room for exactly one non-Apple operating system, and what’s that worth? $400 billion that would be transferred from company G [Google] to company M [Microsoft]. 

And it’s amazing to me, having made one of the greatest mistakes of all time — and there was this antitrust lawsuit and various things that, you know, our other assets, Windows, Office,  are still very strong. So we are a leading company. If we got that one right, we would be the company. But oh well. 

So this idea that just small differences can magnify themselves doesn’t exist for a lot of businesses. You know, if you’re a service business, it doesn’t exist. But for software platforms, it’s absolutely gigantic. And so that’s partly where you have the mentality of every night you think, ‘Am I screwing this up?’ And eventually, we did screw up a super important one. [Source]

Leithner Letter No. 237-240 (26 July – 26 October 2019) (LINK)

Indexing Giant Vanguard Examines a Push Into Private Equity ($) (LINK)

SeriesFest: Season 5 | Innovation Talk with Ted Sarandos & Mike Fries (video excerpt) [H/T @GosaliaRishi] (LINK)

Picking content, and working with the creative community, is a very human function. The data doesn't help you on anything in that process. It does help you, like I said, size the investment.... It's 70-80% art, and 20-30% science in terms of sizing it.

The World Is Full of Innovation More Important Than Ad Algorithms - by Ashlee Vance (LINK)

How I Built This Podcast: Yelp: Jeremy Stoppelman (LINK)

Odd Lots Podcast: One of Hong Kong’s Most Famous Investors Gives His Vision of the City’s Future (LINK)

EconTalk Podcast: Eric Topol on Deep Medicine (LINK)

Related book: Deep Medicine: How Artificial Intelligence Can Make Healthcare Human Again

Jared Diamond on the Making Sense podcast (LINK)

Related book: Upheaval: Turning Points for Nations in Crisis

Curiosity Detects Unusually High Methane Levels (LINK)

Links

Tom Russo on WealthTrack (video) (LINK)

Bernard Arnault: ‘I always liked being number one’ ($) (LINK)

Why Investor Mario Cibelli Likes Grubhub Stock, Becle, and e.l.f. Beauty ($) (LINK)

Book review: “Merger Masters – Tales of Arbitrage” (LINK)

Grant’s Current Yield Podcast: Research Triangle (LINK)

Rob Arnott, founder and chairman of the board of Research Affiliates, LLC, calls in to assess conditions and opportunities around the world.

The Acquirers Podcast: Peter Rabover talks concentrated microcap investing and special situations (LINK)

Five Good Questions Podcast: Ashley Goodall - Nine Lies About Work (LINK)

Why You Should Study Philosophy - by Ryan Holiday (LINK)

TED Talk: The architectural secrets of the world's ancient wonders | Brandon Clifford (LINK)

Links

"Ben Graham said long ago that you’re neither right nor wrong because people agree with you or disagree with you. In other words, being contrarian has no special virtue over being a trend follower. You’re right because your facts and reasoning are right. So all you do is you try to make sure that the facts you have are correct.... And then once you have the facts, you’ve got to think through what they mean. And you don’t take a public opinion survey. You don’t pay attention to things that are unimportant. What you’re looking for [are] things that are important and knowable. If something’s important but unknowable, forget it. I mean, it may be important to know whether somebody’s going to drop a nuclear weapon tomorrow but it’s unknowable. And there are all kinds of things are that knowable but are unimportant. In focusing on business and investment decisions, you try to narrow it down to the things that are knowable and important, and then you decide whether you have information of sufficient value that—compared to price and all that—will cause you to act. What others are doing means nothing." --Warren Buffett (2006)

Unbreakable - by Ian Cassel (LINK)

Fraud in the Bull Market videos [H/T @colemanrhawkins] (LINK)

Bethany McLean Has Something To Say, and You Should Listen (video) (LINK) [The first episode of McLean's new podcast is free, HERE.]

Hayman’s Kyle Bass on trouble in Hong Kong (video) (LINK)

Your Employee Health Plan Could Soon Look Like Your 401(k) ($) (LINK)

Trump to Issue Executive Order on Health-Care Price Transparency ($) (LINK)

A candid conversation with EA's Andrew Wilson at E3 2019 (LINK)

Jeff Bezos took another veiled shot at Elon Musk, arguing that reaching Mars is an 'illusion' without going via the moon (LINK)

Are millennials really growing horns from using their phones? - by John Hawks (LINK)

Links

David Sackler Pleads His Case on the Opioid Epidemic - by Bethany McLean (LINK)

The Future Isn’t What It Used to Be ($) [H/T @BrentBeshore] (LINK)

Your Professional Decline Is Coming (Much) Sooner Than You Think [H/T @morganhousel] (LINK)

The Appeal of 21st Century Stoicism (LINK)

Related book: How to Think Like a Roman Emperor: The Stoic Philosophy of Marcus Aurelius

On Crypto and Its Implications for American Technology Innovation (LINK)

Editor’s Note: This testimony was delivered by a16z managing partner (and former chairman of the board of the National Venture Capital Association) Scott Kupor to the House Agriculture Committee as part of their public hearings on “Cryptocurrencies: Oversight of New Assets in the Digital Age” in July 2018. 

Stanford’s Robert Sapolsky Demystifies Depression, Which, Like Diabetes, Is Rooted in Biology (2009 video) (LINK)

Revisionist History Podcast: Puzzle Rush (LINK)

Stuff You Should Know Podcast: What happened to the Neanderthals? (LINK)

Narlugas Are Real - by Ed Yong (LINK)

Paul Volcker on the Fed's dual mandate

From his book, Keeping At It:

In 1977 the Federal Reserve Act was amended to require that the central bank "maintain long run growth of the monetary and credit aggregates commensurate with the economy's long run potential to increase production, so as to promote the goals of maximum employment, stable prices, and moderate long-term interest rates." Reasonable enough as an aspiration, but here we have the origin of what has since been interpreted as the "dual mandate." 

The following year, Congress passed the Full Employment and Balance Growth Act, known more widely as the "Humphrey-Hawkins Act" for the senator and congressman who sponsored the legislation. The new law had more than a bit of a monetarist flavor. It required the Federal Reserve chairman to report to the Congress twice a year on plans for monetary policy, setting out the board's targets for the growth in money and credit. That indeed was a specific mandate. It also went on to incorporate the previous less specific language about the "goals" of maximum employment, stable prices, and the now conveniently forgotten moderate long-term interest rates. A key issue for monetary policy is the degree to which that so-called dual mandate leads to clarity or confusion in the operating decisions of the Federal Reserve Board and Open Market Committee. I fear the latter.

Links

"You do not have to have tons of good ideas in this business. You just have a good idea that’s worth a ton, occasionally." --Warren Buffett (2006)

"The concept that you’re likely to find just one thing where it will make 20 percent per annum and you just sit back for the next 40 years, that tends to be dreamland. And in the real world, you have to find something that you can understand that’s the best you have available. And once you’ve found the best thing, then you measure everything against that because it’s your opportunity cost. That’s the way small sums of money should be invested. And the trick, of course, is getting enough expertise that your opportunity cost — meaning your default option, which is still pretty good — is very high... Most people aren’t going to find thousands of things that are equally good; they’re going to find a few things where one or two of them are way better than anything else they know. And the right way to think about investing is to act thinking about your best opportunity cost."  --Charlie Munger (2006)

Why The American Shoe Disappeared And Why It's So Hard To Bring It Back [H/T Linc] (LINK)

Acquired Podcast: The Zoom IPO (LINK)

a16z Podcast: The History and Future of Machine Learning (LINK)

Conversations with Tyler (podcast): Hal Varian on Taking the Academic Approach to Business (LINK)

TED Talk: How synthetic biology could wipe out humanity -- and how we can stop it | Rob Reid (LINK)

Two Earth-sized planets found in a nearby star's habitable zone! - by Phil Plait (LINK)

Links

"Investing is really not complicated. I mean, the basic framework for it is simple. Now, you have to work at it some to find the best pockets of undervaluation.... But you didn’t have to have a high IQ—you didn’t have to have lots of investment smarts to buy junk bonds in 2002 or even to do some of the stuff that was available when LTCM got in trouble. You really just had to have the courage of your convictions. You had to have the willingness to do something when everybody else was petrified. But that was true in 1974 when we were buying stocks at very, very, very low multiples of earnings. It wasn’t that anybody didn’t know that they were cheap. They were just paralyzed for one reason or another." --Warren Buffett (2006)

"When you have a huge convulsion...you get a lot of weird behavior.... And if you can be wise when everybody else is going crazy, sure, there will still be opportunities. But that may give you long, dull stretches if that’s your strategy." --Charlie Munger (2006)

Stay in the Game (LINK)

Buy and Hold: Simple, NOT Easy - by Vishal Khandelwal (LINK)

While Studying Bonds, Why Credit Rating Analysts Should Keep an Eye on the Stock Price (LINK)

Invest Like the Best Podcast: Chuck Akre – The Three-Legged Stool (LINK)

To Hack or Not To Hack - by Peter Zeihan (LINK)

The Knowledge Project Podcast: Leading Above the Line (LINK)

Revisiting Benjamin Franklin and Socrates (LINK)

"The investor trying to buy right and hold on could buy as many different stocks as appealed to him. The difference is not in the focussing of investment money but in the intent of the buyer. The trader believes that in a swift-moving, rapidly changing world, with visibility always limited, he can make a series of commitments with better chance of success than trying to decide which companies will do well for the next twenty years. The investor dedicated to buying right and holding on picks managements, products, and processes he thinks able to cope with the unforeseeable as it hoves into view. " --Thomas Phelps (via 100 to 1 in the Stock Market)

Links

"More money is made by thinking than is ever made by buying and selling." --Adrian Cantwell (via Asia's Investment Prophets)

Mohnish Pabrai’s Lecture and Q&A with students of Peking University (Guanghua School of Mgmt.): “Great Businesses vs. Great Investments” (video) (LINK)

Mohnish Pabrai's Webcast Q&A Session with Students at London Business School (video) (LINK)

What Yogi Berra Would Have Said About This Bull Market - by Jason Zweig ($) (LINK)

GE’s Larry Culp Faces Ultimate CEO Test in Trying to Save a Once-Great Company (LINK)

James Grant: The Fed will cut in June (video) (LINK)

Choosing the Wrong Lane in the Race to 5G (LINK)

A Few Thoughts On Public Speaking - by Morgan Housel (LINK)

What Really Happened to Malaysia’s Missing Airplane - by William Langewiesche (LINK)

32 Thoughts From a 32-Year-Old - by Ryan Holiday (LINK)

EconTalk Podcast: Anja Shortland on Kidnap (LINK)

Related book: Kidnap: Inside the Ransom Business

The Peter Attia Drive Podcast: #58 – AMA with sleep expert, Matthew Walker, Ph.D. (LINK)

Book of the day [H/T Claire Barnes]: The Purpose of Capital

David Abrams on catalysts and growth

Via his recent podcast appearance: 

We buy things with what we call a hard catalyst; so some kind of event that's going to close the gap between what you bought it at and what it's worth.  

We also buy things where there's no catalyst; so we're just owning businesses.  

In the first category, if there's a catalyst, we don't need that much growth. We need to buy it cheap and get out.  

In the second category, where there's no catalyst, we absolutely need growth. And now the growth can come in all kinds of ways. It doesn't have to come through increased revenues, although a lot of times it does. It can come from running operations more efficiently. It can come from acquisitions. It can come from buying back shares really cheap. But if there's no catalyst, we absolutely need growth.