Special Report

On August 5, 1949, at 4.10 pm local time, a crew of fifteen Smokejumpers — United States Forest Service’s elite airborne firefighters — parachuted into Helena National forest in the state of Montana.

The fire started when lightning struck the south side of Mann Gulch at the Gates of the Mountains, a canyon over five miles, running along the Missouri River. A gulch is a topographic structure with slopes on both sides running down to a ravine.

First spotted by Jim Harrison, a firefighter himself, the fire was spread over an area of 50-60 acres wide.

By the time the smokejumpers landed on the top of the north side hill, Harrison had been fighting the fire alone for the past four hours.
[Read more…] about Special Report: Of Desperate Times and Creative Desperation

This is the seventh and the last post of the multi-part series based on Peter Bevelin’s book — All I Want to Know is Where I’m Going to Die, So I’ll Never Go There.

My favourite author Nassim Taleb is not very generous when it comes to praising other authors but when he does, you can be sure that Taleb means it and not doing it out of politeness. And this is what Taleb says about Bevelin —

Peter Bevelin is one of the wisest people on the planet.

[Read more…] about Special Report: 27 Ideas on What Doesn’t Work — Part Seven

This post is the sixth episode of the multi-part series based on Peter Bevelin’s book — All I Want to Know is Where I’m Going to Die, So I’ll Never Go There.

So why are we talking about ideas on what doesn’t work rather than ideas on what works? Isn’t it a negative approach to talk about what doesn’t work? I’ll let Nassim Taleb explain why this works. In his book Antifragile, Taleb writes —

The greatest — and most robust — contribution to knowledge consists in removing what we think is wrong — subtractive epistemology…we know a lot more what is wrong than what is right…negative knowledge (what is wrong, what does not work) is more robust to error than positive knowledge (what is right, what works). So knowledge grows by subtraction much more than by addition — given that what we know today might turn out to be wrong but what we know to be wrong cannot turn out to be right, at least not easily…disconfirmation is more rigorous than confirmation.

Charlie Munger, while wearing his curmudgeon hat, declared, “All I want to know is where I am going to die, so I’ll never go there.” And that’s his way of driving home Taleb’s point about focusing on the negative knowledge.

Bevelin’s book is dedicated to Charlie Munger’s philosophy. Here are a few more insights from the book on what doesn’t work.
[Read more…] about Special Report: 27 Ideas on What Doesn’t Work — Part Six

This post is the fifth edition of the multi-part series based on Peter Bevelin’s excellent book — All I Want to Know is Where I’m Going to Die, So I’ll Never Go There. Here are the links to the previous parts —

Part 1
Part 2
Part 3
Part 4

For a long-time Charlie Munger’s insights have remained a secret known only to a small group of value investors and hardcore disciples of Warren and Charlie. Although, there’s no hush-hush about Munger’s teachings, it hasn’t reached the wider audience it deserves to reach. The book Poor Charlie’s Almanack came out in 2005 and since then it has gained more popularity in India and China than the US. But that’s changing now. The rest of the world is beginning to notice the wisdom in Charlie’s teachings.
[Read more…] about Special Report: 27 Ideas on What Doesn’t Work — Part Five

This is the fourth leaf of the multi-part series based on Peter Bevelin’s excellent book — All I Want to Know Know is Where I’m Going to Die, So I’ll Never Go There. The goal is to cover 27 insights on “what should be avoided” in business, investing, and in life.

The greatest — and most robust — contribution to knowledge consists in removing what we think is wrong — subtractive epistemology, writes Nassim Taleb in his book Antifragile.
[Read more…] about Special Report: 27 Ideas on What Doesn’t Work — Part Four