Spotlight

This is the second episode of the series I started last month. The idea is to share with you those essays, articles, and speeches that pass the Lindy Filter.

Inventing on Principle

Bret Victor is an interface designer and computer scientist. In January 2012 he delivered a speech titled Inventing on Principle at CUSEC (Canadian University Software Engineering Conference).

It’s perhaps one of the most remarkable talks on design, creativity, and how one should decide the work which is worth doing. Bret spends an hour advocating for a career built not on a craft or a process, but guided by a principle. In the process, he explains his own guiding principle, looks at examples from history and lays out the case for discovering one’s own guiding principle.
[Read more…] about Spotlight: Lindy Beyond Books – Part 2

A question to all the avid book readers —

Of all the newly released bestselling books you’ve read, how many of those are still in the bestseller list?

You don’t need to answer it. With this rhetorical question I want to draw your attention towards a fascinating phenomenon. Nassim Taleb calls it the Lindy Effect.

People have listened to Beethoven for two centuries, argues John Cook, “the Beatles for about four decades, and Beyoncé for about a decade. So we might expect Beyoncé to fade into obscurity a decade from now, the Beatles four decades from now, and Beethoven a couple centuries from now.”
[Read more…] about Spotlight: Lindy Beyond Books – Part 1

Michael Schumacher is widely regarded as the greatest Formula One driver of all time. In his career, he has under his belt the most number of World Championship titles, the most number of Grand Prix wins, and the most number of fastest laps.

You could call him the Sachin Tendulkar of racing, which brings me to the fact that Tendulkar himself has been a long time fan of Michael Schumacher. In 2002, Sachin met with Schumi. Both being sportsmen, they must have exchanged a few notes about keeping fit.

Sachin came back astounded with the amount of time that Schumi devoted to just one part of his body: the neck. “He exercises it for one-and-half hours. Can you believe it?” he marvelled.
[Read more…] about Spotlight: The Illiterate of the 21st century

“Never put all your eggs in one basket.” ~ Proverb

“Concentrate your energies, your thoughts and your capital. The wise man puts all his eggs in one basket and watches the basket.” ~ Andrew Carnegie

The fight of putting all your eggs in one basket and not doing so seems as old as the egg itself.

The story is the same when it comes to diversifying (eggs in many baskets) or concentrating (eggs in very few baskets) your investment portfolio.

So if you are grappling with this question – “How many stocks should I own to make a diversified portfolio?” – don’t worry for you are not alone in struggling with this question.
[Read more…] about Spotlight: How Many Stocks Should You Own?

One of Warren Buffett’s all-time great investments is Coca-Cola, and it just happens to be the stock Berkshire Hathaway has held the longest. There is no other holding that better exemplifies his investing skill, patience, and temperament than this one.

Buffett first started buying shares of Coca-Cola in 1988, and seemingly paid around $2.5 per share (adjusted) for his purchase. In 2019, the company paid a dividend of $1.6 per share, thus taking Buffett’s dividend yield from the stock to 64%!

Effectively, whether Coke’s stock goes up or down in any given year, Buffett is certainly earning his 64%.
[Read more…] about Spotlight: Stocks for the Long Run