How Darwin Though: The Golden Rule of Thinking
Charlie Munger had said in 1986 that there is a reason why Charles Darwin achieved extraordinary things without an extraordinary intellect:“Darwin’s result was due in large measure to his working method, which violated all my rules for misery and particularly emphasized a backward twist in that he always gave priority attention to evidence tending to […]
Traveling With Tagore
Ram Guha, himself a giant amongst contemporary scholars, makes a case for seeing Rabindranath Tagore as one of the ‘four founders of modern India’ alongside Gandhi, Nehru and Ambedkar. Guha begins by correctly noting that Bengalis and in particular the university that Tagore founded, Vishwa Bharati, have tried to appropriate for themselves this intellectual giant. “Ravi […]
Having Kids Is Terrible for Women’s Earning Power
This article quantifies what many of us have seen happening in our lives (or in the lives of our better halves). “At the beginning of their careers, men’s and women’s income are practically equivalent. By the time everyone’s in their mid-40s, women on average make as little as 55 percent of what men do. Claudia Goldin, […]
Netanyauism is Winning in Israel – and Globally
20 years ago for many non-Israelis, Israel looked like a strange country – a country created from the ravages of World War II by and for Jewish people, a country that seemed to be fighting the Palestinians almost perpetually. 20 years on Israel looks like everywhere else. The rest of the world seems to have […]
Elite men and inequality in the hedge fund industry
Megan Tobias Neely, a Postdoctoral Fellow at the Clayman Institute for Gender Research at Stanford University, tries to find the reason as to why firms run by white men manage 97 percent of hedge fund assets—a $3.55 trillion industry. Based on her work, Megan believes the answer lies in a system of patronage organizing the […]
How to Think About Taxing and Spending Like a Swede
Monica Prasad, a professor of sociology at Northwestern, discusses tax structures of various countries and its impact on reducing poverty and inequality. Sweden as a country has low poverty & inequality compared to other European countries and America. Whilst the average Swede falls under the high tax bracket (42.9%) compared to the average American (31.7%), […]
Marcellus: Our Habits, as Much as Our Brains, Drive Investment Decisions
Published on: 26 April, 2019 Even though habits account for 40% of the decisions that we make, the “thinking” part of the brain does NOT control our habits. Understanding the auto-reflex element of habit-driven decision making is central to nailing down why some promoters consistently allocate capital better than others. [Marcellus is offering internships to […]
How to Value a Pot Stock
After enough research to show marijuana or cannabis or good old pot is now less harmful than tobacco and alcohol, leading to legalisation in America, there is plenty of new business models emerging to capitalise on this trend. More intriguing now is how these businesses are valued given the absolute greenfield nature of this business. […]
The Moral Peril of Meritocracy
This remarkable article from the NYT raises a toast to those who first fail in the great capitalist race to become rich & famous but then lift themselves up to imbue their own lives and that of others with more meaning. These are people whose lives have been lived on what the author calls “two […]
Marcellus: Three Degrees of Disruption in Home Buying in India
Published on: 18 April, 2019 The rapidly growing sharing economy, and the availability of easy credit for pursuing ‘dreams’ and ‘desires’, together are shaping the attitude of young Indians towards buying assets. The impact is most visible in the waning demand for assets that demand long-term financial commitments and where options exist to delink usage […]
Marcellus: The Most Important Questions to Ask Your Fund Manager
Published on: 17 April, 2019 The clients who ask us the most probing questions tend to have well organised work lives and a fierce focus on doing what is most useful and most enjoyable for them. Everything else is edited out of their lives. Such clients are not just successful capital allocators, they are also […]
The Great Space Wait – How Virgin Galactic kept ticket holders’ interest and money
A beautiful piece on customer service, especially the role of customer communication when it comes to handling adversity and sustaining trust that underpins the relationship with the customer. Virgin Galactic’s multiple delays in its long anticipated retail space travel can be quite frustrating for customers who have signed up a long time ago, some as […]
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