Isaav Asimov Asks, “How Do People Get New Ideas?
Author: Isaac Asimov Source: MIT Technology Review (https://www.technologyreview.com/s/531911/isaac-asimov-asks-how-do-people-get-new-ideas/) A 1959 essay by Isaac Asimov about Creativity -what makes creative people succeed, how to identify people with a creative bent of mind, how to form a team of creative people and how to incentivise such teams. From creating new art forms to new scientific discoveries, the […]
How To Use Technology And Not Be Used By It: A Psychologist’s Reading List
Author: Margaret Morris Source: Fivebooks.com (https://fivebooks.com/best-books/how-to-use-technology-margaret-morris/) Psychologist Margaret Morris talks about the five books that shaped her approach to technology. These books are: · The Saturated Self by Kenneth Gergen; · The Stories We Live By: Personal Myths And The Making Of The Self by Dan McAdams; · How Emotions Are Made: The Secret Life […]
The Mahabharata and the Ethics of Investing
(Pictured above: The Panchachuli peaks photographed from Saurabh’s decrepit phone) Published on:23 July, 2019 As investment managers, can we morally justify earning healthy returns year after year from investing in companies which generate supernormal returns from monopolising the sale of essential products to millions of Indians? The Mahabharata provides guidance on this troublesome ethical question. […]
The Generosity Of True Sportsmen
Author: Rohit Brijnath Source: The Mint (https://www.livemint.com/mint-lounge/features/the-generosity-of-true-sportsmen-1563513345806.html) Just as last Sunday’s double sport madness in London culminated with the insane end to the cricket world cup finals and the rivetting five-setter Wimbledon men’s singles finals, one could crave for how Rohit Brijnath, one of the best writers of sport prose, capture this on paper. Unsurprisingly, […]
Elon Musk wants to link brains directly to machines
Author: The Economist Correspondent Source: The Economist (https://www.economist.com/science-and-technology/2019/07/18/elon-musk-wants-to-link-brains-directly-to-machines) The Economist calls him the “world’s most famous entrepreneur” given his desire to solve the world’s problems, be it climate change, mobility, space travel, urban transportation. Yet his most progressive project, in terms of potential impact on humanity could be Neuralink, his company which last week announced […]
Singapore Sends an Alert to the Investing World
Author: Andy Mukherjee Source: Bloomberg (https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2019-07-10/singapore-s-temasek-revives-specter-of-secular-stagnation) Temasek, Singapore’s state investing firm, has in its annual report raised the spectre of “secular stagnation”: “The concept of a persistent downturn that doesn’t respond to easy money featured in the Singapore state investment firm’s annual report for the first time since 2016, one of three possible troubling scenarios […]
How Norway turns criminals into good neighbours
Author: BBC Correspondent Source: BBC (https://www.bbc.com/news/stories-48885846) It is no surprise that Scandinavian countries often find themselves atop most rankings for human development indices or happiness quotients. Yet this is a fascinating story in the BBC about how Norway treats its prisoners or rather prepares its convicted citizens while in prison to resume a normal life […]
‘I couldn’t handle being the best because the only way was down’
Author: Annesha Ghosh Source: The Cricket Monthly (http://www.thecricketmonthly.com/story/1194801/-i-couldn-t-handle-being-the-best-because-the-only-way-was-down) Even as men’s cricket has made significant strides over the years especially in terms of players’ fitness reflecting in the general athleticism on the field or the power hitting, the gap between men’s and women’s cricket has remarkably narrowed in recent years. Adam Gilchrist’s quote in this […]
Martina Navratilova on Megan Rapinoe and the Trajectory of Gay Women in Sports
Author: Masha Gessen Source: New Yorker (https://www.newyorker.com/news/our-columnists/martina-navratilova-on-megan-rapinoe-and-the-trajectory-of-gay-women-in-sports) The unwinding of prejudice – whether it is around race, caste or sexuality – is not just a socially relevant issue, it is also fascinating for investors to watch given the insights it provides into how “consensus” on a given subject evolves the course of 20-30 years. Hence, […]
Small Data is More Important than Big Data
Published on:18 July, 2019 In the context of investing, the current fad for big data and machine learning seems overblown. Successful investing entails understanding basic probabilities well and whilst machines can be used to crunch these probabilities, to date the old fashioned method of reading annual reports to calculate these probabilities has worked pretty well. […]
Hedge Funds Are Tracking Private Jets to Find the Next Megadeal
Author: Justin Bachman Source: Bloomberg (https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-07-02/hedge-funds-are-tracking-private-jets-to-find-the-next-megadeal) That hedge funds are always data hungry is not surprising but the new ways they find to satiate their hunger surprises us. Justin Bachman in his article shows how hedge fund managers track private jets to predict the next big M&A in the USA. He gives a recent example […]
China and new tech generation shake old notions of good branding
Author: John Gapper Source: FT (https://www.ft.com/content/4ba8c746-7bc4-11e9-8b5c-33d0560f039c) Only 22% of Searches on Amazon Include a Brand Name Author: Juozas “Joe” Kaziukėnas Source: Market Place Pulse (https://www.marketplacepulse.com/articles/only-22-of-searches-on-amazon-include-a-brand-name) John Kay, a British economist in his brilliant book on corporate strategy – “The Foundations of Corporate Success” cites among the most sustainable sources of competitive advantages as Brand, Architecture […]
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