Monday 27 January 2020
Friday 24 January 2020
Weekend Reading
1) Now an electric car on
subscription
Canoo thinks the
tides are changing and a subscription-based car-buying model is the future.
Canoo subscribers pay a monthly fee for a bundle that includes a Canoo EV,
maintenance, registration, access to insurance, and charging. The service
launches next year. Canoo calls its vehicle an "urban loft on
wheels." With a wraparound bench, the Canoo’s inside is designed to feel
like a living room.
2) Yuval Noah Harari warns
that companies and governments can "hack" humans
For Harari, the age
of rival investment between the US and China in Artificial Intelligence should
worry us all.
"On the most
shallow level it could be a repeat of the nineteenth century industrial
revolution, when the leaders had the chance to dominate the world economically
and politically," he said. "I understand the current arms race as an
imperial arms race...You don't need to send the soldiers in if you have all the
data on a country."
From the
geopolitical to the personal, the age of digital surveillance also threatens
what it means to be human and free, Harari warned.
"The point is
when you gather enough data on people, you get to know people better than they
know yourself. Are we at the point where companies or governments can hack
millions of people, that means they know my medical history, personal
weaknesses?"
But how do you hack
a human being?
"You need a lot
of biological knowledge, enough computer power, and enough data about me. You
can hack my body, my brain, my life, you can reach a point where you know me
better than I know myself," he said.
In his view, there
is state surveillance in China, surveillance capitalism in the US, and no
serious third player in the arms race for tech dominance.
3) They know where you were
last summer!! ;-)
Clearview AI, a
relatively unknown tech company, has devised a ground-breaking facial
recognition app. You take a picture of a person, upload it and get to see
public photos of that person, along with links to where those photos appeared.
The system — whose backbone is a database of more than three billion images
that Clearview claims to have scraped from Facebook, YouTube, Venmo and
millions of other websites — goes far beyond anything ever constructed by the
United States government or Silicon Valley giants.
Federal and state
law enforcement officers said that while they had only limited knowledge of how
Clearview works and who is behind it, they had used its app to help solve
shoplifting, identity theft, credit card fraud, murder and child sexual
exploitation cases.
4) Is there a case for
central bank digital currency (CBDC)?
Money, as we know,
has three functions. It’s a unit of account, a medium of exchange and a store
of value. Money issued by central banks, which is the norm around the world,
performs all these three functions. Such money is uncontested legal tender. A
central bank digital currency (CBDC) is a different proposition, different from
these commercial cryptocurrencies because a CBDC will be able to perform like
money. It will be able to perform all the three functions of money that I
listed above. It will be like traditional money except that it will be in a
digital form. The main advantage will be that a CBDC will make payment systems
more efficient.
5) A new book walks through
business failures
While much can be
learned from business success stories, there is a lot to learn from mistakes,
failures, blunders, errors, lapses, traps, snags, bad judgment, mistiming,
malpractice, deceit, fraud, and foibles as well, Robin begins. Forewarned is
forearmed, and the lessons of hindsight and research can help avoid failures on
your part as well, and prevent the destruction or erosion of value.
Thursday 16 January 2020
Weekend Reading
A peek into biohacking - trying to extend human lifespan to beyond 100 years
Silicon Valley pros
see a century of human life as a 20th-century limitation. If we went from a
TRS-80 to an iPhone in 30 years, we can surely double human life using big data
and self-quantification. What is the body if not another piece of hardware waiting
to be hacked? Isn’t it time that death got disrupted?
Renting clothes - the next
big disruption!! ;-)
Rental is going
strong, with Rent the Runway, the pioneer in this area, now 10 years old and
profitable. The global online clothing rental market is expected to grow
annually by over 10% for the next four years, according to MarketWatch. And the
fashion resale market has been expanding a breathtaking 21 times faster than
traditional retail over the past three years, Fortune reports. Millennials and
Gen Zers, in particular, enjoy frequenting thrift and consignment stores,
shredding the last remnants of social embarrassment about such places and
remaking their image into trendy shopping destinations.
Rent the Runway, an
online service that rents out designer clothes and accessories, was a major
leap toward bringing the sharing economy into the fashion business. Today, the
company’s subscription base has crossed 11 million members.
How Technology is Hijacking
Your Mind — from a Magician and Google Design Ethicist
Magicians start by
looking for blind spots, edges, vulnerabilities and limits of people’s
perception, so they can influence what people do without them even realizing
it. And this is exactly what product designers do to your mind. They play your
psychological vulnerabilities (consciously and unconsciously) against you in
the race to grab your attention.
Here is another reason for
trying to be wealthy ;-)
According to a new
study, wealthy men and women don’t only live longer, they also get eight to
nine more healthy years after 50 than the poorest individuals in the United
States and in England. Though education level and social class had some effect,
neither was found to be nearly as significant as wealth. Additional study is
required to understand why wealth in particular is such a strong indicator of
how long someone lives unimpaired, but it was most likely a function of having
access to funds when you have ill health. Additionally, poverty has been linked
to higher stress levels, which has implications for health.
How to lose a monopoly?
Learn from Microsoft and IBM
A big rich company,
a company that dominates the market for its product, and a company that
dominates the broader tech industry are three quite different things. Market
cap isn’t power.
IBM ruled mainframes
and Microsoft ruled PCs, and when those things were the centre of tech, that
gave them dominance of the broader tech industry. When the focus of tech moved
away from mainframes and then PCs, IBM and then Microsoft lost that dominance,
but that didn’t mean they stopped being big companies. We just stopped being
scared of them.
For both IBM and
Microsoft, market power in one generation of tech didn’t give them market power
in the next, and anti-trust intervention didn’t have much to do with it. It
doesn’t matter how big your castle is if the trade routes move somewhere else.
Thursday 9 January 2020
Weekend Reading
Reading
across disciplines is one of the best ways to improve our investment acumen.
Here is a summary of some of the best articles I read this week.
Retailers are fighting back
online returns
Some in the industry
that created the monster are trying to put it back in its cage. They’re taking
baby steps—not providing pre-paid mailing labels, requiring a receipt unless an
unwanted item is carried to a store—but also threatening to cut off serial
returners, the most troublesome of the offenders. Among the others: people who
wait months (or more) before returning and the so-called wardrobers, who wear
articles of clothing and then ship them back.
Reverse logistics —
the transport from buyers to sellers — is not only costly on its own but
creates a need for lots of room for storage. Return stock is thrown into an
empty space in a warehouse to pile up until someone can get to it.
And fintech startups are
getting into the space to facilitate returns
Consulting firm
Newmine launched its Chief Returns Officer product. Newmine says that it
processes data from multiple sources and uses “data science and AI principles”
to determine the cause of returns in near real time. Retailers using the
service receive actionable recommendations for resolving problems during the
selling season.
Supply.ai’s ReturnSense is a returns prevention platform that
learns customer behavior, detects the likelihood of returns, alerts the
retailer and intervenes in the purchase process to mediate with customers about
their product choices. The firm says its algorithm draws from over 1,000 data
variables to predict which orders are likely to be returned. The company says
that its service prevents returns and makes shoppers feel more confident in
their purchase choices.
Other technology
providers include Returnly, a fintech platform that turns product returns into
repurchases by enabling customers to buy again with instant exchanges and
refunds, before they have even returned their items. Appriss Retail’s Verify
service is a consumer-based returns authorization system that uses predictive
algorithms and statistical models to distinguish those engaged in fraudulent
and abusive behavior and deny them the ability to make returns.
A real-life thriller in the
making - the escape of Carlos Ghosn
One of the country’s
most famous criminal suspects had slipped past the cameras trained on his
house, past the police and border guards and the Japanese citizens who for the
past year have followed his every move.
Carlos Ghosn, the
deposed chief of the Nissan and Renault auto empire facing charges of financial
wrongdoing, had fled to Lebanon, and no one in Japan — not the authorities, the
media or even the auto executive’s own lawyer — could explain how it had happened.
It was a cinematic
escape, carried out just before New Year’s Day, Japan’s most important holiday,
when government agencies and most businesses close for as long as a week.
The search for a distraction
free environment goes back centuries!
Medieval monks had a
terrible time concentrating. And concentration was their lifelong work! Their
tech was obviously different from ours. But their anxiety about distraction was
not. They complained about being overloaded with information, and about how,
even once you finally settled on something to read, it was easy to get bored
and turn to something else. They were frustrated by their desire to stare out
of the window, or to constantly check on the time (in their case, with the Sun
as their clock), or to think about food or sex when they were supposed to be
thinking about God.
Understanding the US-Iran
conflict through the lens of history
From the
CIA-orchestrated overthrow of Iran's prime minister in 1953, to tension and
confrontation under President Trump, a look back over more than 65 years of
tricky relations between Iran and the US.
Monday 30 December 2019
Presentation in MDI Gurgaon
Earlier this month I had the absolute privilege of addressing Prof Bakshi's class at MDI Gurgaon. Attached is the presentation I shared in the session. I made this presentation specifically keeping in mind students who may not be seasoned investors and for whom, the meta-skills are more important to learn.
Thursday 26 December 2019
Weekend Reading
Wishing you all a Merry Christmas and a wonderful New Year Ahead.
Reading
across disciplines is one of the best ways to improve our investment acumen.
Here is a summary of some of the best articles I read this week.
The economics of the
"young old"
The year 2020 will
mark the beginning of the decade of the yold, or the “young old”, as the
Japanese call people aged between 65 and 75.
Health worsens with
age, but the yold are resisting the decline better than most: of the 3.7 years
of increased life expectancy in rich countries between 2000 and 2015, says the
World Health Organisation, 3.2 years were enjoyed in good health. The yold are
also better off: between 1989 and 2013, the median wealth of families headed by
someone over 62 in America rose by 40% to $210,000, while the wealth of all
other age groups declined.
The yold are busier,
too. In 2016 just over a fifth of people aged 65-69 were in work in rich
countries, a figure that is rising fast. Working is one of the factors that are
helping people stay healthy longer. A German study found that people who remain
at work after the normal retirement age manage to slow the cognitive decline
associated with old age and have a cognitive capacity of someone a year and a
half younger.
8 ways financial statements
are manipulated
Every company
manipulates its numbers to a certain extent to make sure budgets balance,
executives score bonuses, and investors continue to offer up funding. Such
creative accounting is nothing new. However, factors such as greed,
desperation, immorality, and bad judgment can cause some executives to cross
the line into outright corporate fraud. Investors should know how to recognize
the basic warning signs of falsified statements. While the details are
typically hidden, even from accountants, there are red flags in financial
statements that can point to the use of manipulating methods.
Reducing noise helps in
forecasting better
In a digital world
swarming with fake news and sensationalist content, those who cast about widely
for information are sure to reel in some strange fish. To extrapolate,
superforecasters’ true edge may be more about discipline – the mental rigour
required to distinguish random from revealing data – than innate wisdom or
intellectual objectivity.
Whatever the reason,
investing in noise reduction may not be a bad idea. One proven, if drastic,
noise-reduction solution is to assign predictions to algorithms rather than
humans. Bots are programmed to pay attention to patterns in data and discount
random information.
The silent mobile revolution
in India
There are now more
than 450 million mobile internet users in India, a number that is expected to
grow to 667 million by 2022. Not so surprising considering that India has the
lowest data costs in the world and its fixed-line download speeds continue to rise.
It’s not just the urban middle class who have benefitted. Nearly half of
India’s 250,000 village councils are now connected by fibre optic networks,
with the other half scheduled to come online in the next two years. More than
300,000 so-called common service centres have been set up around the country to
provide even impoverished villagers with access to digital services.
Always average up
Never double down,
always double up. And here’s the interesting thing, so most people think if
you’ve done the work and you buy something and it goes against you, you should
buy more. And what Julian would say is no, we’re just wrong. Made a mistake and
the market’s right, the market’s … this goes back to the efficient markets.
It’s not that the market’s always efficient, but when it’s telling you you’re
wrong you should listen to it. And there’s the famous picture of Paul Tudor
Jones in his dorm room with the losers average losers sign.
Now most people
would say, “Well wait a minute, that’s not a value investor.” Well think about
it, is it or is it not? So what he’s saying is when he had edge, when he had
knowledge about an area, an asset, a company and they made an investment and
now the market is coming around to your view, rather than do what most human
beings do, which is pull their flowers. They’re so happy to have a win they
take profits. He’s like, “Well let’s buy more because it’s working.” And
there’s the simple statement of let’s do more of what’s working and less of
what’s not. Most of us don’t do that, we do more of what’s not working and less
of what’s working, which is why the average person underperforms.
Friday 20 December 2019
Weekend Reading
Reading
across disciplines is one of the best ways to improve our investment acumen.
Here is a summary of some of the best articles I read this week.
The last decade in pictures
A peek into the
happenings of the last decade through the lens. Some stunning pictures remind
us of the good, bad and ugly events that shaped the world.
Zanshin - Focus on the process more than the results
We live in a world
obsessed with results. Like Herrigel, we have a tendency to put so much
emphasis on whether or not the arrow hits the target. If, however, we put that
intensity and focus and sincerity into the process—where we place our feet, how
we hold the bow, how we breathe during the release of the arrow—then hitting
the bullseye is simply a side effect.
The point is not to
worry about hitting the target. The point is to fall in love with the boredom
of doing the work and embrace each piece of the process. The point is to take
that moment of zanshin, that moment of complete awareness and focus, and carry
it with you everywhere in life.
It is not the target
that matters. It is not the finish line that matters. It is the way we approach
the goal that matters. Everything is aiming. Zanshin.
The wisdom of Nemish Shah
Investing, according
to him, is simple and complicated at the same time, in a sense a lot like art.
He says while investing in India follows the same rules as elsewhere, there is
one crucial difference—here, the quality of the management has to be considered
closely. “Abroad one can go by what is there in the books, but here you have to
add one additional layer—the management,” says Shah. But as long as the
management is focussed and understands allocation of capital, he is comfortable
with the business. What he isn’t comfortable with are companies that are hasty
and raise capital regularly. In fact, Shah has ignored many companies where the
management did not give him the right vibe.
How to read news
Rather than reading
less, portfolio managers must learn to rapidly detect what is nonsense and move
on. It’s a necessary skill when confronted with the hype and sensationalism now
masquerading as news. Pseudo news and pseudo analysis clutters the web, making
it harder to stay well informed.
Turn off your
political bias when you read and interpret the news, and be wary of
commentators who have political agendas.
Before you read the
news, you must have your own framework in place for decision-making. Otherwise,
you’ll be unduly influenced by what you read. As Ed Stavetski, founder of PCM
Partners LLC, put it, “You must have an independent view of the markets or the
media will force a view upon you.”
How to Read: Lots of Inputs and a Strong Filter
Most books don’t
need to be read to the end, but some books can change your life – means you
need two things to get a lot out of reading: Lots of inputs and a strong
filter.
If you only pick up
books you know with certainty you’re going to like you’ll confine yourself to
reading the same authors on the same topics. It gives fresh oxygen to
confirmation bias and limits your ability to connect the dots between different
fields and different cultures. It’s better to have a low bar in what books
you’re willing to try, and even the faintest tickle of interest should be
enough to make the cut. Kindle samples are free so excuses are minimal.
Once you’ve flooded
your desk with inputs comes the filter. It should be ruthless, taking no
prisoners and offering no mercy.
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