The best performing ceos in the world

http://hbr.org/2014/11/the-best-performing-ceos-in-the-world

The stock market a look at the last 200 years

Interesting stats and analysis on the last 200 years of the stock market



http://basehitinvesting.com/the-stock-market-a-look-at-the-last-200-years/

Benedict Evans on Mobile is eating the world

There is no point in drawing a distinction between the future of technology and the future of mobile. They are the same. In other words, technology is now outgrowing the tech industry. - Benedict evans

http://a16z.com/2014/10/28/mobile-is-eating-the-world/

Damodoran on Amazon

At this stage, the value of Amazon rests on how much you trust the vision that Jeff Bezos has for the company and whether you believe in his capacity to fulfill that vision -Aswath Damodoran

http://aswathdamodaran.blogspot.ca/2014/10/if-you-build-it-revenues-they-profits.html

Interesting analysis of buffet's disney investment

The opportunity cost of keeping his disney stock would have been insane it compounded at 18.4% over the next 30 year instead of 24% for BRK.

http://basehitinvesting.com/some-thoughts-on-investment-strategies-and-buffetts-1966-disney-investment/

Chanos on shorting China

It's always good to listen to what the devil as to say.
He also has an interesting take on Valleant.
http://www.reuters.com/video/2014/10/28/brazil-and-china-have-been-best-shorts-t?videoId=346727228

Using google to determine people's insecurities
Men's insecurities : is my wife...
http://i.imgur.com/jnlHM4G.png
Women's insecurities : is my husband...
http://i.imgur.com/NG99Fhb.png

Controlling your behavior matters more than anything

“You can’t, as we’ve seen, build and hold wealth without equities. But the converse is even more importantly true: equities can’t do it without you.” Controlling your behavior matters more than anything."

-Patrick O’Shaughnessy

Graham & Doddsville

A must read as always

http://www8.gsb.columbia.edu/valueinvesting/sites/valueinvesting/files/Graham%20%26%20Doddsville_Issue%2022_Fall%202014.pdf

The problem with positive thinking

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/10/26/opinion/sunday/the-problem-with-positive-thinking.html?action=click&contentCollection=U.S.&module=MostEmailed&version=Full&region=Marginalia&src=me&pgtype=article

TLDR :What does work better is a hybrid approach that combines positive thinking with “realism.” Here’s how it works. Think of a wish. For a few minutes, imagine the wish coming true, letting your mind wander and drift where it will. Then shift gears. Spend a few more minutes imagining the obstacles that stand in the way of realizing your wish.

How to be build an antifragile career

Application of antifragility to career building

http://www.fastcompany.com/3003416/how-build-antifragile-career

To get a picture of how randomness plays a role in professional life, Taleb compares two brothers: one an office worker, the other a taxi driver. Volatility is present in the career of each: while the office worker has randomness “smoothed away” by the regularity of salary and employment, he is like a turkey in mid-November, fragile to risk presently out of view. On the other hand, the taxi driver--who Taleb describes as being of the class of artisan, much like a carpenter or plumber--experiences a natural randomness in his daily fluctuations of fares, but is less prone to large shocks. Indeed, Taleb writes, the self-employed artisan can be antifragile: a weeklong earnings decline tells the taxi driver to try a new part of town, while a mistake made in the cubicle farm will be kept on the permanent record. As well, the office worker has one main employer and thus rigidity, while the taxi driver has many--giving him more options, greater flexibility to adapt to his environment.

Capital Vs labor Who risks more?

http://yosefk.com/blog/capital-vs-labor-who-risks-more.html

The interesting part is on labor's risk

• The worker's big risk is choosing the profession. Higher-income professions often require a more expensive education. If the demand for the skills drops in the future, the income might fail to cover the worker's investment into acquiring these skills. Assuming that learning ability drops with age, the risk increases proportionately.
• Moreover, this risk is not diversified. Even a small-time investor can spread his risk using some sort of index fund, betting on many stocks at a time. For a worker, on the other hand, there's no conceivable way to be 25% lawyer, 25% carpenter, 25% programmer and 25% neurosurgeon.

Porsche: The Hedge Fund that Also Made Cars

http://priceonomics.com/porsche-the-hedge-fund-that-also-made-cars/

“We learnt the hard way that banks are there for you when you don’t need them, and when you do need them, they’re no where to be seen.” -Holger Härter

So it would be a pity if this David overreached himself and fell victim instead to another phenomenon, known as the Peter principle: promotion beyond one's level of competence. - The Economist 

Technology is changing product placement
http://www.engadget.com/2014/10/22/technology-changed-product-placement/

Is intelligence a thermodynamic process?
"[The paper] is basically an attempt to describe intelligence as a fundamentally thermodynamic process," said Wissner-Gross.
http://www.insidescience.org/content/physicist-proposes-new-way-think-about-intelligence/987

The structure of possibility (sop) emotion model allow us to map our conceptual flaws
http://markpneyer.me/2014/10/19/a-model-of-emotion/
emotional intensity corresponds to the magnitude of divergence of conceptual models
considering the possibility that your model is broken is an emotionally difficult thing to do
I have used this theory to help me greatly in my personal life. Whenever I experience intense emotions, I search for the possible outcomes that these emotions map to, and then try to address any flaws in my conceptual model that were highlighted by the emotion.

Gene Pool engineering

You become who you hire. -Vinod Khosla

Blueprint on team building

http://www.khoslaventures.com/wp-content/uploads/Gene_Pool_Engineering.pdf

Isaac Asimov on creativity

http://www.technologyreview.com/view/531911/isaac-asimov-mulls-how-do-people-get-new-ideas/

Warren Buffet on investment strategy

How oil Ruined the soviet empire


http://www.aei.org/issue/foreign-and-defense-policy/regional/europe/the-soviet-collapse/

“The quality of a decision cannot be solely judged based on its outcome.”

Nassim Taleb on alternative histories

http://www.farnamstreetblog.com/2014/03/nassim-taleb-alternative-history/

America rarely uses an apprenticeship model to teach young people a trade. Could such a system help the unemployed?
Why Germany Is So Much Better at Training Its Workers
http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2014/10/why-germany-is-so-much-better-at-training-its-workers/381550/?single_page=true

A good resume of Alexis de Tocqueville, De la democratie en Amérique

Interesting take on happiness in a democracy

‘When all the prerogatives of birth and fortune have been abolished, when every profession is open to everyone, an ambitious man may think it is easy to launch himself on a great career and feel that he has been called to no common destiny. But this is a delusion which experience quickly corrects. When inequality is the general rule in society, the greatest inequalities attract no attention. But when everything is more or less level, the slightest variation is noticed… That is the reason for the strange melancholy often haunting inhabitants of democracies in the midst of abundance and of that disgust with life sometimes gripping them even in calm and easy circumstances.

http://www.theschooloflife.com/blog/2014/10/the-great-philosophers-alexis-de-tocqueville/

why is a minute 60 seconds long? Super article on the history of timekeeping

http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/experts-time-division-days-hours-minutes/

The skunk work team at lockheed just revealed they're working on fusion... only good news coming from that company in a while ...

http://aviationweek.com/technology/skunk-works-reveals-compact-fusion-reactor-details

Why inequality matter and why we should measure consumption to get a better picture of wealth
https://www.linkedin.com/today/post/article/20141015002149-251749025-why-inequality-matters

An old article on Nassim Taleb

http://gladwell.com/blowing-up/

“We cannot blow up, we can only bleed to death,” Taleb says, and bleeding to death, absorbing the pain of steady losses, is precisely what human beings are hardwired to avoid. “Say you’ve got a guy who is long on Russian bonds,” Savery says. “He’s making money every day. One day, lightning strikes and he loses five times what he made. Still, on three hundred and sixty-four out of three hundred and sixty-five days he was very happily making money. It’s much harder to be the other guy, the guy losing money three hundred and sixty-four days out of three hundred and sixty-five, because you start questioning yourself. Am I ever going to make it back? Am I really right? What if it takes ten years? Will I even be sane ten years from now?”

How buffet's proteges are doing... pretty damn goood

http://fortune.com/2014/10/14/buffett-proteges-ted-weschler-todd-combs/?xid=nl_termsheet

Companies relying on squeezing cost rely on deflation,  energy cost are killing their business model

http://np.reddit.com/r/energy/comments/2j3g14/walmart_proving_once_again_that_they_are_the/cl87fnr

The impact of self driving cars

http://peterdiamandis.com/post/99913955283/self-driving-cars-are-coming?utm_content=bufferbc6c6&utm_medium=social&utm_source=twitter.com&utm_campaign=buffer

Transcript of peter thiel's lecture on competition
http://tech.genius.com/Peter-thiel-lecture-5-business-strategy-and-monopoly-theory-annotated
I think all happy companies are different because they're doing something very unique. All unhappy companies are alike because they failed to escape the essential sameness in competition.

So if you are trying to analyze any of the tech companies in Silicon Valley, AirBnB, Twitter, Facebook, any emerging Internet companies, all the ones in Y Combinator, the math tells you that three quarters, eighty-five percent of the value is coming from cash flows in years 2024 and beyond. It's very far in the future and so one of the things that we always over value in Silicon Valley is growth rates and we undervalue durability.

How a trillion dollar market is hidden in plain sight

Borrowers on marketplace platforms pay closer to 10% interest, a third less than the average of what is paid to banks or credit card companies. And instead of receiving 1% interest for keeping their money in a CD, active lenders on marketplace platforms receive, on average, an 8% return on their investments.

http://techcrunch.com/2014/10/05/how-a-trillion-dollar-market-remains-hidden-in-plain-sight/?ncid=rss&utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+Techcrunch+%28TechCrunch%29

A Capitalist’s Dilemma By CLAYTON M. CHRISTENSEN

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/11/04/business/a-capitalists-dilemma-whoever-becomes-president.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0
Interesting part on how we should change capital tax gains to maximise long term investment in empowering tech :
We should instead make capital gains regressive over time, based upon how long the capital is invested in a company. Taxes on short-term investments should continue to be taxed at personal income rates. But the rate should be reduced the longer the investment is held — so that, for example, tax rates on investments held for five years might be zero — and rates on investments held for eight years might be negative.