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Book Worm

When I (Almost) Dumped Ben Graham’s Intelligent Investor

November 30, 2020

It was sometime in 2005 when a close friend of mine gifted me Ben Graham’s The Intelligent Investor, knowing that I was working as a stock analyst and aspired to become a sensible investor (aspirations are always sensible, you see).

“Is this a good book?” I asked him.

“Seek for yourself,” he told me.

I read through the first few pages of the book, and it didn’t seem to catch hold of my attention, forget captivating me to any extent.

I realized Graham was the teacher of Warren Buffett, whom I’d first read about during my MBA in 2003 (not in the class, but in the library). But the book still did not interest me.

[Read more…] about When I (Almost) Dumped Ben Graham’s Intelligent Investor

📚 The Psychology of Money

September 30, 2020

Have you heard of Kent Evans? No?

Okay, have you heard of Bill Gates? Yes?

Let me spill the beans here. Kent Evans was Bill Gates’ first best friend, his classmate at Lakeside School in Seattle, and a co-member of a school-sanctioned computer club called the Lakeside Programmers Group.

In the documentary Inside Bill’s Brain, Bill Gates described Kent as extremely clever, carrying a briefcase with all kinds of gadgets and magazines everywhere he went.

The two self-proclaimed geeks loved scheming about what they would be doing in the future, much to the eye rolls of their classmates who were more concerned with the activities of that moment, the upcoming school dance.

Together, they would read Fortune Magazine and imagine, “If you went into the civil service, what did you make? Should we go be CEOs? What kind of impact could you have? Should we go be generals? Should we go be ambassadors?”

Bill and Kent believed they would go on to do extraordinary things.

Just one of them did it. Bill Gates went on to start Microsoft and the rest, we know, is history.

What happened to Kent Evans?

[Read more…] about 📚 The Psychology of Money

📚 The Lessons of History

August 22, 2020

At the beginning of the First World War, 27-year-old British soldier Henry Tandey was serving with the 5th Duke of Wellington’s Regiment. On September 28, 1914 a weary German soldier wandered into Tandey’s line of fire. The German soldier was wounded and did not even attempt to raise his own rifle. Tandey chose not to shoot. The German soldier saw him lower his rifle and nodded his thanks before wandering off.

The German soldier was Adolf Hitler.

Historical research throws serious doubts on whether the incident actually ever occurred. Question is how do you even prove or disprove it? And that’s the dilemma every historian faces — what to accept as historical facts and what to discard as apocryphal account.
[Read more…] about 📚 The Lessons of History

📚 Guns, Germs, and Steel

July 29, 2020

None of the history classes in my school answered what is thought to be one of the biggest and most important questions about human civilization —

Why do some societies advance so much faster and further than others? In other words —

…why were Europeans, rather than Africans or Native Americans, the ones to end up with guns, the nastiest germs, and steel?

Jared Diamond, in his book, argues that societies that had a head start in food production advanced beyond the hunter-gatherer stage, and then developed writing, technology, government, and organized religion. These were the people who developed potent weapons of war and adventured on sea and land to conquer other cultures.

And this early advantage in food production was conferred to these societies because of their geographical milieu. Which means the sequence of events that eventually shaped the modern world, can all be tied back to environmental factors.
[Read more…] about 📚 Guns, Germs, and Steel

📚 Summerhill

June 24, 2020

What’s your favourite book?

I found one of the best ways to answer this question is to recall which book you have gifted the most.

I always have three copies of Summerhill sitting on my bookshelf waiting to be gifted. The book came as a recommendation from Naval Ravikant — a silicon valley entrepreneur.

The methods suggested in the book will make you uncomfortable because few parents have the courage and independence to care more for their children’s happiness than for their success.
[Read more…] about 📚 Summerhill

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