The Business of Investing in Great Companies
Don Valentine, a venture capital investing legend (Sequoia), gave this interesting lecture at Stanford. I especially like his blunt criticism of the boards of large companies.
Don Valentine, a venture capital investing legend (Sequoia), gave this interesting lecture at Stanford. I especially like his blunt criticism of the boards of large companies.
Another great video from the Royal Society for the encouragement of Arts, Manufactures and Commerce (RSA) on how, especially in contemporary American (corporate) culture, there is this extreme demand for positivism. Now, that is not to say we should all start complaining or become extremely depressed, but at the same time we do not have to all continuously bury are heads in the sand and pretend everything is hunky dory all the time. Without a critical (and vigilant) attitude we can never challenge ourselves and our society to improve on things.
Latest Internet trends from Mary Meeker of Morgan Stanley, dated 7 June 2010. Notice how Apple users are leading the way in Internet Consumption. Is this because the more "connected" people (heave information consumers) prefer Apple devices or is it because Apple device owners turn into more "connected" people because of the devices they own? Interesting material....
Darn...they deleted the presentation (Copyright infringement). Oh well - too bad.
This is an amazing animated adaption of Dan Pink's talk at the Royal Society for the encouragement of Arts, Manufactures and Commerce (RSA). The talk in itself is amazing. The accompanying animation beats any PowerPoint slides by a million.
I highly recommend anyone to watch this video completely. For everyone working in a high-skilled profession it is particularly relevant. In my field of work - IT, Internet, creative technology business - there are plenty of examples of companies who manage to motivate their employees in different ways besides monetary rewards.
My short conclusion: to get outstanding results from an individual or group of individuals, you need to:
These are some things that caught my attention in the past few days. I am really in a doom and gloom mood about the (economic) situation of the world. People have been referring to all the negative news and comments on the economy as "Recession Porn". Here is some to satisfy your needs:
To close of, watch this short video on "off balance sheet" accounting. This sort of thing can really get me upset/angry. Especially in light of the recent stream of news events on Lehman Brother's accounting practices.
Frank Partnoy on Off-Balance Sheet Transactions (MMBM) from Roosevelt Institute on Vimeo.
I really enjoyed watching this lecture by Jonah Lehrer - he is a gifted speaker with a very interesting subject. It will give you some insights into how our human brain works and help you in to getting to know yourself a little better.
Lately, I have been wondering why the US banks suddenly seemed "healed" from all there problems. You hear a lot of noise in the market that the banks have simply "written off" all their bad debt and are now able to look at a future with record profits on the horizon (for eternity). As I believe the economy in the US (and the rest of the world) is still deteriorating. Housing, commercial real-estate, business and private loans, and most other forms of lending have not stabilized yet (though in some areas things might be "bottoming" out slowly). So how is that these banks are suddenly turning record profits, paying out million dollar bonuses again, and are acting like the "sky is the limit" - continuing the same game that actually lead us (the whole world) into this mess. All that with a little bit of TARP money. Not to say that 700 billion is not a lot of money but it seems hardly enough to deal with all the toxic stuff that banks have on their balance sheets. Especially since those assets are still decreasing in value.
I know that the US government put some other things in place to support the financial system (mostly the Big banks). I also know that they conveniently decided to change the accounting rules last spring - something that somewhat coincided with the start of the stock market rally. Banks do have have to "mark-to-market" their assets anymore. They can now "mark-to-preference" their assets. Personally, I would call that lying and cheating. If someone asked you how much your house or car is worth, are you also prone to add about 40-60 percent to the actual value?
This week I finally found an article that explains more about the "total bail out" the banks received from the US taxpayers. A large chunk of it is in the form of "guarantees" and it will take years to figure out what the actual cost of these guarantees will be and for how much "risk" the taxpayers have been put on the line - without any compensation I must add. But still, the sum of this bail out is staggering. Yet it is all for the "greater good" is it not? Does it not benefit everyone if you make a bunch of rich people a lot richer on the accounts of the underprivileged, underpaid and under-insured? If I did not know better, I would think I am starting to sound like a socialist.
I advise everyone to read Meet the Hazzards.
I spent a good deal of my Saturday morning reading an elaborate rant by James Quinn titled "The Burning Platform".
Here are some of my thoughts (while reading the article):