Special Report

Heraclitus, the Greek philosopher who lived during 5th century BC, said –

A man can never step into the same river twice, for it’s not the same river and he’s not the same man.

I would like to posit that Heraclitus’ observation applies to books also. Unlike the river, a book doesn’t change much but the reader does.

When you reread a book, what you see and understand is very different from what you saw when you read it the first time. It’s true for the good books as well as the bad ones. In your second reading, you may realize that the book you initially thought as amazing wasn’t really so and vice versa.

[Read more…] about Real Reading is Rereading

In our VIA Investor Insight section, recently we’ve started asking interviewees about their favourite business person (apart from Buffett and Munger). The last two people who we interviewed (Saurabh Madaan and Jana Vembunarayanan) unanimously agreed on their choice. Here’s what they said –

Jana:

Jeff Bezos. He’s extremely focused, super-rational, and contrarian (right more often). Some examples of being a contrarian and right are free shipping for prime, kindle, and AWS. There were times he was wrong. For example, he didn’t like the idea of launching Amazon Studios. Even though Bezos disagreed, he committed to the plan. Writing about it openly requires a lot of humility, and Bezos scores full marks on that.

Saurabh:

By far my favourite is Mr. Bezos. If you read his annual letters, they are also just like Mr. Buffett’s letters. They have a lot of lessons about life and thinking in life in general. When he says long term, he really means long term. It’s not even five or ten years. It’s really long term.
[Read more…] about Lessons From Jeff Bezos’ Letter to Shareholders

Recently I started reading a book called The Moral Saying of Publius Syrus. There were two reasons I picked it up. First, it came as a recommendation from multiple places. When a book name starts popping up numerous times, I move its rank up in my to-read list. Second, it was a small book. The thought of finishing a book in 1-2 hours is very enticing. But it’s deceiving too and I’ll circle back to this thought later in the post.

As I patiently worked my way through the first few pages of Publius Syrus’ book, it was clear that I wasn’t enjoying it. But the more boring it became the more I took it on my ego. I didn’t want to give up on a supposedly great classic. I just wanted to finish the book and heave a sigh of relief.

[Read more…] about Reading isn’t a Race

Note: This post was originally published in the Sept 2015 issue of Value Investing Almanack. To read more such posts and other deep thoughts on value investing, business analysis and behavioral finance, click here to subscribe to VIA.

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In the controversial movie, The Social Network, which supposedly portrayed Mark Zuckerberg’s Facebook journey, Sean Parker’s character famously quipped –

“A million dollars isn’t cool. You know what’s cool? A billion dollars.”

It’s probably the most favourite problem that majority of the individuals in the world are trying to figure out i.e., how to get rich?

So let’s investigate this problem by using Charlie Munger’s most cherished mental model i.e., inverting the problems to solve them.

One of the ways to invert the question of “How to Get Rich?” is to ask, “Is getting rich worth it?”

Before you decide to skip this article thinking that it’s another one of those “money can’t buy happiness” rant, just stick with me for few more minutes and I promise that you won’t regret it.

[Read more…] about Inverting the Money Problem