En "Seeking Wisdom", Peter Bevelin desentraña la filosofía de inversión de Charlie Munger, explorando sus principios clave y su enfoque multidisciplinario. El libro analiza cómo Munger integra ideas de diversas áreas del conocimiento, como la psicología, la historia y la ciencia, para tomar decisiones de inversión. Bevelin presenta una colección de anécdotas y ejemplos que ilustran la aplicación práctica de estos principios. La obra destaca la importancia del pensamiento crítico, la humildad intelectual y la búsqueda constante de conocimiento. El libro es una guía valiosa para inversores que buscan un enfoque más profundo y holístico.
This book provides a rich and revealing account of Steve Jobs' life, drawing on exclusive access to his family, former inner circle executives, and top people at Apple, Pixar, and Disney. It humanizes Jobs by explaining his behavior and highlighting his growth from a brash founder to a mature and effective leader. The narrative includes stories never told before and offers a fresh perspective on Jobs' career, particularly his time at NeXT and Pixar, and his return to Apple. The authors, who had close relationships with Jobs, detail how he learned to trust his inner circle, became more patient, and developed a more mature management style, ultimately transforming the daily life of billions of people.
This biography, based on more than 40 interviews with Steve Jobs and over 100 interviews with family members, friends, adversaries, competitors, and colleagues, provides a riveting story of Jobs' roller-coaster life and intense personality. It highlights his passion for perfection, his ferocious drive, and how he revolutionized six industries: personal computers, animated movies, music, phones, tablet computing, and digital publishing. The book explores Jobs' contradictions, his 'reality distortion field,' and the lessons about innovation, character, leadership, and values that can be drawn from his life and career.
This book provides a comprehensive and detailed account of Warren Buffett’s life, from his early days to his ascension as one of the most successful investors in history. Written by Roger Lowenstein, the book is based on three years of research and includes interviews with Buffett’s family, friends, and business associates. It explores Buffett’s investment strategies, his long-term philosophy of buying undervalued stocks, and his role in transforming Berkshire Hathaway into a highly successful corporation. The book also delves into Buffett’s personal life and the influences that shaped his investment approach, including his mentor Benjamin Graham and his partnership with Charlie Munger.
In 'Fooled by Randomness', Nassim Nicholas Taleb discusses the pervasive influence of chance and randomness in our lives and financial markets. The book argues that humans tend to underestimate the role of luck and overestimate the role of skill, leading to biases such as hindsight bias, survivorship bias, and the narrative fallacy. Taleb emphasizes the importance of recognizing and coping with uncertainty, and he critiques the tendency to seek deterministic explanations for random events. The book is part of Taleb's Incerto series, which also includes 'The Black Swan', 'The Bed of Procrustes', 'Antifragile', and 'Skin in the Game'.
The Bed of Procrustes is a philosophical book by Nassim Nicholas Taleb, written in an aphoristic style. It contrasts classical values like courage and elegance with modern issues such as nerdiness and phoniness. The book critiques how modern society often forces reality into preconceived frameworks, much like the mythological figure Procrustes who adjusted his guests to fit his bed. It offers insights into human delusions and the importance of understanding uncertainty and complexity.
In 'Antifragile', Nassim Nicholas Taleb delves into the concept of antifragility, arguing that some systems not only withstand stress and disorder but actually benefit from them. The book builds on ideas from his previous works, such as 'Fooled by Randomness' and 'The Black Swan', and is part of his five-volume philosophical treatise on uncertainty, 'Incerto'. Taleb provides examples from various fields, including science, economics, and history, to illustrate how antifragility can be achieved and how it contrasts with fragility and robustness. He also discusses strategies like the barbell strategy and optionality, and critiques modern society's attempts to eliminate volatility, which he believes are harmful. The book is praised for its revolutionary ideas and multidisciplinary approach, though it has also received criticism for its style and some of the author's views on mental health and other topics.
This book is a detailed account of how Henry Singleton created and built the Teledyne Corporation. Written by George A. Roberts, who was with Singleton every step of the way, it describes the first decade of aggressive acquisitions and diversification, the addition of financial institutions to the company's technical mix, and the controversial program of aggressive stock buy-backs. The memoir also covers the spin-off of certain entities to shareholders, whistle blower suits, hostile takeover attempts, and the friendly merger with Allegheny Steel Company. The book includes a CD with stories intended to explain the company's technologies to non-technical shareholders.
In 'Zero to One,' Peter Thiel argues that true innovation comes from creating something entirely new, going from 'zero to one,' rather than incrementally improving existing ideas. He emphasizes the importance of vertical progress through technology and the benefits of monopoly in driving innovation. Thiel also discusses the need for long-term planning, the importance of finding the right co-founders, and the power law in startup success. The book challenges conventional wisdom and encourages readers to think critically and aim big to build the future[2][3][5].
This book provides a deeply reported and vividly drawn portrait of how Amazon expanded exponentially since the publication of Stone's previous book, 'The Everything Store'. It covers the invention of novel products like Alexa, the disruption of countless industries, and the significant growth of Amazon's workforce and valuation. The book also delves into the evolution of Jeff Bezos, from a geeky technologist to a disciplined billionaire with global ambitions, and explores the trade-offs between efficiency and market dominance.
In 'Skin in the Game', Nassim Nicholas Taleb argues that having personal stakes in the outcomes of decisions is crucial for fairness, commercial efficiency, and risk management. The book highlights how individuals and systems that are insulated from the consequences of their decisions often make poor choices. Taleb draws on historical and contemporary examples to illustrate the importance of symmetry in risk and reward, and how this principle affects various domains, including politics, economics, and personal life. The book emphasizes that true learning and improvement come from experiencing the consequences of one's actions, a concept encapsulated in the Greek idea of 'pathemata mathemata' or 'guide your learning through pain'.
The Black Swan is a landmark book by Nassim Nicholas Taleb that investigates the phenomenon of highly improbable events with massive impacts. These events, termed Black Swans, are unpredictable, have a significant impact, and are rationalized after the fact to appear less random. Taleb argues that humans are hardwired to focus on specifics rather than generalities, leading to a failure to consider what we don’t know. The book delves into cognitive biases, the limitations of mathematical models, and the importance of robustness and antifragility in navigating a world filled with uncertainty. The second edition includes a new essay, 'On Robustness and Fragility,' offering tools to navigate and exploit a Black Swan world.
Montaigne's *Essays* are a seminal work that introduced the essay as a literary form. The book is a personal and introspective exploration of various subjects, including the human condition, skepticism, and the importance of concrete experience over abstract learning. Montaigne's skepticism is reflected in the title *Essais*, meaning 'Attempts' or 'Tests', indicating a project of trial and error and tentative exploration. The essays cover topics such as the education of children, the role of the body, illness, aging, and death. Montaigne's writing style is characterized by multiple digressions, anecdotes from ancient and contemporary sources, and quotations that reinforce his critical analysis of reality[2][5][4].
This book compiles timeless wisdom from Warren Buffett's annual reports and public speeches, focusing on business valuation, corporate governance, risk management, and the importance of trust and culture. It offers practical advice for managers and investors to think more like each other, enhancing success and reducing harm.
Peter Bevelin's "A Guide to Both Wisdom and Sherlock Holmes" uniquely blends the detective's sharp intellect with timeless wisdom. The book extracts relevant passages from Conan Doyle's stories, applying them to modern-day challenges in business and life. Bevelin's insightful analysis offers practical lessons on observation, deduction, and critical thinking. Readers gain a fresh perspective on Sherlock Holmes's methods while acquiring valuable tools for problem-solving and decision-making. The book's concise and engaging style makes it accessible to a wide audience.
A Few Lessons from Sherlock Holmes by Peter Bevelin presents timeless methods and quotes from Arthur Conan Doyle's iconic detective, offering insights applicable to life and business. The book encourages readers to draw their own conclusions and apply Sherlock's principles to improve their thinking.
This book provides a panoramic view of financial crises from the Middle Ages to the modern era, covering government defaults, banking panics, inflationary spikes, and other financial catastrophes. The authors, Carmen Reinhart and Kenneth Rogoff, argue that financial crises are universal rites of passage for both emerging and established markets, and that the notion 'this time is different' is a recurring misconception. They document that financial crises occur in clusters and strike with consistent frequency, duration, and ferocity, emphasizing the importance of historical perspective in understanding and mitigating future financial crises.
What I learned from reading A Few Lessons for Investors and Managers From Warren Buffett by Warren Buffett and Peter Bevelin.
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Big opportunities come infrequently. When it’s raining gold, reach for a bucket, not a thimble.
Speculation is most dangerous when it looks easiest.
Now it is a funny thing about life; if you refuse to accept anything but the best you very often get it. —W. Somerset Maugham
"Moats" —a metaphor for the superiorities they possess that make life difficult for their competitors.
Business history is filled with "Roman Candles," companies whose moats proved illusory and were soon crossed.
When a company is selling a product with commodity-like economic characteristics, being the low-cost producer is all-important.
In a business selling a commodity-type product, it's impossible to be a lot smarter than your dumbest competitor.
As a wise friend told me long ago, "If you want to get a reputation as a good businessman, be sure to get into a good business."
The truly big investment idea can usually be explained in a short paragraph.
Our managers have produced extraordinary results by doing rather ordinary things—but doing them exceptionally well.
If we are delighting customers, eliminating unnecessary costs and improving our products and services, we gain strength.
On a daily basis, the effects of our actions are imperceptible; cumulatively, though, their consequences are enormous. When our long-term competitive position improves as a result of these almost unnoticeable actions, we describe the phenomenon as "widening the moat."
We always, of course, hope to earn more money in the short-term. But when short-term and long-term conflict, widening the moat must take precedence.
Charlie and I are not big fans of resumes. Instead, we focus on brains, passion and integrity.
It's difficult to teach a new dog old tricks.
Investors should understand that for certain companies, and even for some industries, there simply is no good long-term strategy.
Most of our directors have a major portion of their net worth invested in the company. We eat our own cooking.
Our trust is in people rather than process. A “hire well, manage little" code suits both them and me.
Just run your business as if: (1) You own 100% of it; (2) It is the only asset in the world that you and your family have or will ever have; and (3) You can't sell it for at least a century.
We believe in Charlie's dictum-“Just tell me the bad news; the good news will take care of itself".
We do have a few advantages, perhaps the greatest being that we don't have a strategic plan. Thus we feel no need to proceed in an ordained direction but can instead simply decide what makes sense for our owners.
We always mentally compare any move we are contemplating with dozens of other opportunities open to us. Our practice of making this comparison- acquisitions against passive investments –-is a discipline that managers focused simply on expansion seldom use.
We have no master strategy, no corporate planners delivering us insights about socioeconomic trends, and no staff to investigate a multitude of ideas presented by promoters and intermediaries. Instead, we simply hope that something sensible comes along-and, when it does, we act.
Loss of focus is what most worries Charlie and me.
Charlie and I know that the right players will make almost any team manager look good. We subscribe to the philosophy of Ogilvy & Mather's founding genius, David Ogilvy: “If each of us hires people who are smaller than we are, we shall become a company of dwarfs. But, if each of us hires people who are bigger than we are, we shall become a company of giants."
Our experience has been that the manager of an already high-cost operation frequently is uncommonly resourceful in finding new ways to add to overhead, while the manager of a tightly-run operation usually continues to find additional methods to curtail costs, even when his costs are already well below those of his competitors.
A compact organization lets all of us spend our time managing the business rather than managing each other.
Thirty years ago Tom Murphy, then CEO of Cap Cities, drove this point home to me with a hypothetical tale about an employee who asked his boss for permission to hire an assistant. The employee assumed that adding $20,000 to the annual payroll would be inconsequential. But his boss told him the proposal should be evaluated as a $3 million decision, given that an additional person would probably cost at least that amount over his lifetime, factoring in raises, benefits and other expenses (more people, more toilet paper). And unless the company fell on very hard times, the employee added would be unlikely to be dismissed, however marginal his contribution to the business.
In both business and investments it is usually far more profitable to simply stick with the easy and obvious than it is to resolve the difficult.
The most elusive of human goals- keeping things simple and remembering what you set out to do.
Stay with simple propositions.
Nothing sedates rationality like large doses of effortless money.
Tomorrow is always uncertain.
The less the prudence with which others conduct their affairs, the greater the prudence with which we should conduct our own affairs.
In allocating capital, activity does not correlate with achievement.
The roads of business are riddled with potholes; a plan that requires dodging them all is a plan for disaster.
Unquestionably, some people have become very rich through the use of borrowed money. However, that's also been a way to get very poor.
The trick is to learn most lessons from the experiences of others.
When a problem exists, whether in personnel or in business operations, the time to act is now.
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Founders Notes gives you the ability to tap into the collective knowledge of history's greatest entrepreneurs on demand. Use it to supplement the decisions you make in your work. Get access to Founders Notes here.
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