August 10, 2020: Starting with questioning the basics of small-cap, illiquid companies to Value vs. Growth, diversification and the concept of “moats”, I decided to think through what could actually be true about investing and how looking at companies as cities that develop people could be a pond to fish in

August 7, 2020: Learning from a series of episodes from the Tech Buzz China Podcast to learn about Tencent, BABA, Meituan Dianping and Bytedance. Expanding the depth (lack thereof) of my knowledge of the Chinese tech landscape from "1mm to 5cm”. Then, I get some perspective on the Big Tech hearings from Ben Thompson’s Stratechery summary.

August 6, 2020: One-Sentence Summary: It’s the one book everyone in the world should read, especially those in positions of power. It will make you live longer, perform better and make society better. Rating On Time Of Review: 10/10. This book should be required reading in every school, and for every adult…. It’s a travesty that it isn’t.

August 5, 2020: Learning about the perspective of value and growth investing through James Anderson’s 5 part series comparing the teachings of Ben Graham to the philosophy of growth investing he has developed at Baillie Gifford.

August 3, 2020: Discovering James Anderson, Joint Manager of Scottish Mortgage Investment Trust at Baillie Gifford. Looking into the approach of growth investing, margin of potential upside, how following Buffett may have stopped a generation of investors from learning and Growth at an Unreasonable Price.

July 30/31: A series of learnings over the last few days. A focus on breadth over depth from personal finance, traveling opportunity for Canadians and finding the real life reference for Nassim Taleb’s Fat Tony. Then, a detour to nuclear fusion for investments and a rabbit hole into Chamath’s early career to get some perspective for your late-20s and quick looks at Box and Slack.

July 29, 2020: Learning from Buffett's and Munger’s Q&A on management and culture with snippets on mistakes and businesses. Core to the learnings were their view on compensation, assessing CEOs, and the most important trait in management. All from the Buffett FAQ site that acts as a precursor to the CNBC archive of Berkshire videos. Special thanks to the Focused Compounding podcast for enlightening me to this wonderful site.

July 28, 2020: Short learning episode from Tim Ferriss’ interview with Brad Feld. Key learnings for me were on the idea of “Topaphillia” in picking a city to live in, perspective on the early part of his career that isn’t mentioned in pop-media, the difference between a coach and therapist with mentions of Jerry Colonna and the monthly system he uses with his wife and how I think that has a wider application in organizations

July 27, 2020: Thinking through the relationship of management and business model in creating upside potential and downside protection for various businesses, Maria Konnikova’s fascinating career and skill/people in poker, and David Epstein on accumulating diverse experiences for a fulfilling career, questioning the ‘grit’ research and stories on what makes a successful comic book creator and Nintendo’s Gameboy story.

July 20, 2020: Learning about, the newly IPO’d insurance company, Lemonade’s foray into pet insurance as a possible irrational competitor; Mark Seller’s famous ‘07 speech on what makes a ‘Great Investor’ (hint: writing is important); a story of Les Schwab Tires and common sense profit sharing.

July 17, 2020: A series of learnings from various sources/methods. Learning about the Indonesian e-Commerce landscape and its dominant Tokopedia platform from a conversation, Patagonia and The North Face’s founding stories and the power of their brand from the Business Wars podcast and thinking about Intuit’s business model after learning Scuttleblurb’s article.

July 16, 2020: Pulling out nuggets from reading through HEICO’s shareholder letters from 2011 - 2019. HEICO’s known as a popular “compounder” and “high-performing conglomerate” so the mission was to see if management shared lessons on their decentralized organization structure.

July 14/15, 2020: Looking into the company on a mission to unleash the potential of every team. Sharing high level thoughts on the culture, management and business model from shareholder letters and annual reports of Atlassian.

July 13, 2020: One-Sentence Summary: As the coach to the CEO/Founder of many world-changing companies, the book can be summarized by the introduction to Bill Campbell’s manifesto: People are the foundation of any company’s success. The primary job of each manager is to help people be more effective in their job and to grow and develop. Rating On Time Of Review: It’s one of the few books that define what I want to do with my life. A one of a kind book 10/10.

July 10, 2020: Summarizing learnings from three particular podcast series. First is the organization model of NBA vs. MLB and how a revenue-sharing model where incentives are aligned with stakeholders come to reckoning in times of crisis. Second is a series on WeWork’s founder and a look at what life was like in the fast-growth era of the business. Third is a series looking at the battle between Lyft and Uber… looking at the different founding stories, tactics by the founders to build the business and hints at what the cultural difference internally could’ve been like.

July 9, 2020: A day of podcast marathons and two took up significant mindspace for me. One was on learning about bundling from Shishir Mehrotra (Founder of Coda and Product at Youtube) interview on Invest Like The Best podcast. Though I learned a lot about bundling, the big trigger was that he was coached by Bill Campbell. The second was Chamath’s interview on the Odd Lots podcast. It’s always entertaining to hear Chamath’s views but the most insight was on his views on addressing racism and that took me down a rabbit hole reflecting on my own experience.

July 8, 2020: First look at Roku (ROKU). Learning about streaming platforms, the business model, market dynamics and my concerns with the business and management

July 7, 2020: High level look at the food delivery market with my ramblings, thoughts from reviewing my notes on Nomad Investment’s Nick Sleep, and learnings from Invest Like The Best interview with Charlie Songhurst on his learnings from angel investing in ~500 companies

July 6, 2020: One-Sentence Summary: A thought-provoking book on the value of radical self-inquiry for a person but also the organization he leads, through the coaching and story of the VC turned CEO whisperer. Rating On Time Of Review: A thinker. A reference book for the questions. It needs to be read at the right time, like most books. That’ll make the difference of whether it’s a 3/10 or a 8/10.

July 3, 2020: One-Sentence Summary: The story of an industrial conglomerate in Brazil with a leader using his uncommon sense to create an unconventional workplace that focuses on investing in quality of life for business success. Rating On Time Of Review: Best business book. 10/10. Just study this over and over again.

July 2, 2020: One-Sentence Summary: The story of an industrial conglomerate in Brazil with a leader using his uncommon sense to create an unconventional workplace that focuses on investing in quality of life for business success. Rating On Time Of Review: Best business book. 10/10. Just study this over and over again.

June 30, 2020: First look at Alphabet. Splitting the research into multiple parts. Continuing from yesterday, in this episode I’ll look into costs, margins, returns on capital, reinvestment, culture, management and the like.

June 29, 2020: First look at Alphabet. Splitting the research into multiple parts. Today I look into some elements that make GOOG "not a conventional company”, how it makes money, customers, and market position of its major product segments

June 26, 2020: An interview with Katie Wyka, Performance Coach at Clio. Learning about Clio’s culture/values, Katie’s role in talent acceleration as Clio’s first in-house coach, the frameworks for coaching, measuring ROI from coaching, building trust and everything to do with developing people.

June 24+25, 2020: One-Sentence Summary - A challenging set of essays that genuinely makes you “think” as it outlays the value of independent thought that is so rare in the world. Rating On Time Of Review - It was okay. It’s a classic so I’d like to revisit it again in the future. I think there is enough there to warrant a second try.

June 23, 2020: Talking through an essay I wrote on "How to Read a Book Every 2 Weeks”. Going over my system currently (my best one yet) and all the past systems that didn’t work.

June 22, 2020: One-Sentence Summary: A fictional tale that masterfully incorporates various mental models on the singular focus of embarking on the journey to live a life of purpose.

June 19, 2020: A narration of incoherent thoughts I had trying to grapple with why ROIC matters, its relationship with valuation (i.e. IRR) and trying to look at margin of safety differently. A revelation of how little I know and how I noodle investing concepts.

June 18, 2020: A curiosity-driven adventure took me down the rabbit hole of learning about Peter Diamandis’ 29 Laws and Maria Popova’s essay on Finding Purpose through 7 fascinating people. This started my annual pilgrimage to Paul Graham’s essays digging into various models for Doing What You Love.

June 17, 2020: Talking about a position I took that accounted for 40% of my portfolio and one I exited with losing 15% of my net worth. A reflection on how it started, what it was like as a quick post mortem from the 2 years of holding this position.