Once upon a time I wrote a book on negotiation with my friend Russell Daggatt. The book is mostly a collection of real stories about our experiences working and living abroad. I lived in Seoul for four years and for a year in Sydney. Russell lived in Tokyo. The book was published by Harper Collins, but few years after the paperback was on the market we bought back the copyright. […]
This is my 200th blog post. I thought it would be most fitting given the milestone to write about a topic related to Munger and Buffett. One of the most important decisions in the history of Berkshire was the acquisition of See’s Candies in 1972. Buffett has called See’s Candies “the prototype of a dream business.” Berkshire’s purchase of a boxed candy business founded by the See family in California […]
Investing is about owning a partial stake in a real business. You must understand whether the actual businesses in which you own stock earns a return on capital to be a successful investor. The more different types of businesses you understand in this way, the more skill you will acquire in understanding another new business. The point I am making explains why Warren Buffett says: “I am a better investor […]
During a recent lunch meeting with a few friends I used the phrase “mo money, mo problems.” One of my friends responded by challenging me to do a Dozen Things post on Biggie Smalls similar to the one I wrote on Rza. My response to the throw down is the blog post for this week. I have made the point repeatedly on this blog that you can learn something from […]
1.Mark Cuban: “Don’t start a company unless it’s an obsession and something you love. If you have an exit strategy, it’s not an obsession.” No one should start a business if they are not obsessively committed to the mission of that business. Genuine obsession and passion are highly valuable since making the business a success will require overcoming significant obstacles. My most interesting experience with being obsessively committed to […]
Bill Gurley: “Being ‘right’ doesn’t lead to superior performance if the consensus forecast is also right.” Andy Rachleff elaborates on the point made by Gurley: “What most people don’t realize is if you’re right and consensus you don’t make money.” It is a bit strange that most people don’t realize this truth and yet it is common sense: you simply can’t be part of the crowd and at the same […]
Multi-sided markets bring together two or more interdependent groups who need each other in some way. Uber, eBay, and Airbnb are all multi-sided markets. A multi-sided market is sometimes called a “platform.” Hundreds of big and small firms fail trying to create multi-sided markets in different categories every year. Since the payoff from creating a significant multi-sided markets is so massive and the financial downside relatively small, founders and venture […]
I started my friendship with Bill Gurley in the mid-1990s soon after Bill Gates forwarded me a copy of Above the Crowd. I immediately signed up to receive it (by fax!). I then found a way to for us to start talking by phone and the Internet. Gurley was a sell-side analyst living in New York at that time. We kept talking when he moved to Silicon Valley, including […]
Professor Robert Cialdini first published his best-selling book Influence in 1984. Charlie Munger liked the book so much he sent Cialdini a thank you note and a share of Berkshire A stock then worth $75,000. Munger said in his famous The Psychology of Human Misjudgment speech at Harvard: “Cialdini does a magnificent job and you’re all going to be given a copy of Cialdini’s book. And if you have […]
Asking me to select my favorite book written by Michael Mauboussin is like asking me to pick my favorite child. I love them all the same. But if I had to choose one book it would probably be The Success Equation. There are lot of reviews of this book, all of them glowingly positive. The world doesn’t need another review of this great book so I will try to write […]