The moats created by dominant franchises in India differ from their counterparts in the West due to differences in the underlying structure of the respective markets. We use Asian Paints and Sherwin Williams as examples of how two equally dominant companies in the same industry have followed completely different paths to dominance. The case study […]
A couple of years ago we published a book called “The Victory Project: Six Steps to Peak Potential in which we discussed, amongst other things, steps that all of us can take to improve our ability to focus, to concentrate and to be super-productive. Now Nandan Nilekani and Tanuj Bhojwani have written an entertaining book […]
The previous piece segues into this piece. Coming from the editor of Science, the most authoritative of scientific journals, this is a timely warning for many of us (including the team at Marcellus) not to get carried away by overhyped technologies. Whilst Holden Thorp focuses on Elizabeth Holmes, the now convicted CEO of Theranos (the […]
In this day and age of unrelenting hype around cryptocurrency, it is easy to lose sight of some basic facts. In this opinion piece in the Indian Express, Yogesh Gupta, formerly of the CBI and the Enforcement Directorate, reminds us of a coupe of straightforward facts around cryptocurrency.Firstly, by no stretch of the imagination is […]
Vladimir Putin is going eyeball-to-eyeball with America and Western Europe in Ukraine and this article in Atlantic explains why countries China (and therefore countries neighbouring China) are looking at the situation with a lot of interest. Why? Because it will give them a measure of whether the Americans and the Europeans have it in them […]
You might want to have a strong drink before you read this hard hitting piece in The Guardian. This long read comes from Dr Simukai Chigudu, a Zimbabwean academic in Oxford University. It talks about the world from the perspective of an affluent black Zimbabwean but this piece is just as relevant for Indians struggling […]
If you are investing in tech companies you should read “The Platform Delusion”. You might disagree with some of the arguments made in the book but you will also find that the core proposition of the book – that the competitive position of the FAANG stocks (and companies similar to them elsewhere in the world) […]
As we now have six quarters of reported financials since the pandemic began, we are getting a clearer picture of the impact of Covid induced disruptions on lenders. Despite the severe second Covid wave, the increase in GNPAs i.e. net slippages for KCP lenders such as HDFC Bank, Kotak Bank and Bajaj Finance during the […]
The rise of artificial intelligence has raised concerns that as computers get smarter they will replace humans in most activities. However, this piece shows that is still a long way off. It focuses on the field of chatbots – an automated helpdesk of sorts that otherwise would have been manned by a human being typically […]
Mostly one would have brushed aside the NFT mania as yet another bubble humanity has created and will eventually burst in its natural course. Except for two differences – first, in support of NFT, there are some genuinely useful applications of NFTs and the second, a shortcoming – the energy intensity of NFTs. Hence this […]
We began 2021 with perhaps one of Howard Marks’ most remarkable memos – Something of Value, where the great man showed why humility is the hallmark of a successful investor by acknowledging the shift in what value investing means i.e, it is simply not about low multiples. We start this year with another remarkable piece by the […]
In this superb guest post for the Collaborative Fund, Ted Lamade explains – using examples from sports and business – why teams with less talented players often triumph over teams comprised of superstars. The first interesting point that Ted makes – and you should pay close attention to this if you are, like many of […]
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