Thursday, February 28, 2013

Gladwell at U Penn



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Out of office [ comic ]

PHD

 

 

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Thursday Links




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Wednesday, February 27, 2013

Public service announcement on dates[xkcd]

Via: xkcd

 

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Global Mobile sales[chart]

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Wednesday Links


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Tuesday, February 26, 2013

Tuesday Links




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Monday, February 25, 2013

You've been hacked[graphic]

Via : Economist                

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Britian's Ratings cut

Via: Reuters

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Monday Links




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Friday, February 22, 2013

Links




via: Economist
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Thursday, February 21, 2013

Links

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Thursday, February 7, 2013

FW: The price is height[chart]

View article...

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Thursday Links



And some not so business reads: 

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Out of the office

I'll be out of the country travelling to India for a wedding for the next two weeks so excuse my shortage of postings, but here's some life lessons to keep you going:
  1. Continue to read and learn and always be genuinely interested in people. You'll be surprised how fascinating life is when you exchange ideas with others. 
  2. Have the courage to pursue what you want. You've probably heard this one before and probably have thought of it at one point at the other, but its worth re-enforcing  The most common regret people have about their careers is about not taking 'that chance.'
  3. Nothing in the life is useless. That being said, doing menial tasks everyday isn't going to teach you a lot, but if you add some learning to it via some form of media(pop you're headphones in and listen to a podcast or something) you might just become a better person.
    And if you see others pursuing things that you might think are useless then remember what Abraham Flexner said, "you merely have to find the catalyst or be the catalyst to the useless to become the useful." 
  4. Find an alternative purpose - The most successful and happy people I've met in life are the ones who weren't obsessed with their careers or anything for that matter, but were the ones who always found other interests in hobbies or their family lives to accentuate their primary passions.
    That being said, here's something interesting on happiness:
    "It is[happiness], in large part, about giving something to the world that makes the world a better place. That could be goods or services or your time or something else. Who knows? But happiness is not merely the pursuit of personal happiness, but providing something to your surroundings that gives other people reason to value your contribution." - Cullen Roche
  5. Friendship is the rum of life, pursue it. It's also a lot different than family relationships because friends are not held by obligations but by shared interests.
  6. Listen to your parents but take their advice with a grain of salt. Parents want what's good for you, but not what's best for you - they don't understand that sometimes the path to what's best for you is through pain,suffering and self-actualization. 
  7. Write more - you'll be surprised how much more you remember from writing than just by reading or listening. 
  8. Keep Fit - Not only is this good for you're body and will keep your healthcare costs down when you get old(yes, we all get there someday), but it will also be essential to become a leader. Think of you're body as a business - if people observe you and see you as someone who can't even execute their life in order, why would they trust you with a company?
  9. Always be anti-fragile. 
  10. The world runs on the premise of social proof. Kitty Genovese was murdered in public with 38 witnesses and no one helped her. Society is just like that where people see others and act / don't act based on what others think. Don't succumb to mass-hysteria and make decisions that are independently thought out by you. 
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Wednesday, February 6, 2013

Religion timeline

source

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Price per gallon [ chart ]

Via: cp

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Wednesday Links


  1. NASA's History of Organizational Problems | History News Network
  2. Confessions of a Corporate Spy | Inc.com
  3. A meeting with Bill gates marg revolution
  4. TEDx goes to Vancouver Vancouver sun
  5. Upside of Distraction -  
  6. Why Michael Dell Really Had to Take Dell Private - Businessweek
    also Be suspicious of Dells buyout Dealbook
  7. The New Neurosis of a Netflix Marathon - Entertainment-The Atlantic Wire 
  8. The Nordic countries: The next supermodel | The Economist
  9. The Rise of the C-section Harvard mag
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Tuesday, February 5, 2013

Corporate bond issuance[chart]

Global Corporate Bond Issuance is skyrocketing…Perhaps it's time to pull money out of debt and put it back into equities.

 


View article...

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Beauty of the Irrational



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Tuesday Links


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Monday, February 4, 2013

Monday Links




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Sunday, February 3, 2013

Weekend Long Reads




And some shorter ones: 



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Friday, February 1, 2013

Wriston's Law of Capital


Wristons law of capital is named after Walter Wriston(1919-2005). He was a banker, and former chairman of Citicorp. He was widely regarded as the most influential commercial banker of his time(at least according to Wikipedia).
The law states that:
“Capital will always go where its welcome and stay where its well treated…Capital is not just money. It’s also talent and ideas. They, too, will go where they’re welcome and stay where they are well treated”
The key here is that capital is not just money, but its people and ideas too. For most of the short history of the US, it has attracted capital ruthlessly. People who work hard, people who study hard, ideas, patents, talents, especially people who were unwelcome elsewhere with their ideas. The world would have been a very different place if events in Germany hadn’t unfolded as they did.
The ‘welcome’ and ‘well treated’ parts are very important as well. Essentially,being nice to foreigners was critical(well, at least from an economic standpoint). Germany and Japan weren’t particularly nice or ‘tolerant’ to their neighbors in the first halve of the 20th century, so the smart ones, just left. Or as Amy Chua, Yale law professor said:
“Nazi intolerance caused the loss of incalculable scientific talent. The list of brilliant physicists and mathematicians who fled Hitler is astounding, including Edward Tellar, known as the “father of the hydrogen bomb”; the aeronautical genius Karman, John von Neumann, Lise Meitner, after whom element 109 is named; Eugene Wigner; Niels Bohn; Albert Einstein…”
The key word here was tolerance. But tolerance comes and goes. It is essential in the beginning of attracting capital but eventually wanes. The rise and fall of Europe’s history is based on tolerance but actually, relative tolerance. Jewish and Asian immigrants in the 1930’s, might or might not have been welcome in the US, but they were more welcome than elsewhere.
But in the current scenario, Wristons Law allows us in making educated guesses about the movement of capital and about future prosperity. Certain patters are recognizable, or as Einstein put it, “Insanity is doing the same things over and over again, expecting different results”.
What happened in the Dutch republic as Spain fell is a perfect example from history. The Dutch inherited all the Spanish capital(human and physical) and this eventually led to the establishment of the Amsterdam Stock Exchange.
But eventually, in 1688, when the Dutch William of Orange became a king of England, he brought over from Holland the financing and the people for the English Army. And so, it was soon enough that immigration followed and England became the new capital magnet.
Currently, the US is exporting its business too. However, Chua argues that China is unlikely to became a hyperpower like the US. China is not a human capital magnet since it is, to some extent, still a closed society. Chinese PhD’s(poor, hungry, and devoted) want to move to the US, rather than the other way around. But does that mean the US will not lose capital to some other country eventually, I’ll leave that for you to deice.
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Friday Links

Abraham Lincoln, as Management Guru - NYTimes.com

Are Airports What’s Wrong With Travel — And A Symbol of What’s Wrong Everywhere? - View from the Wing

The Secret To Being Creativebclund
How Productivity Tools Can Waste Your Time - WSJ.com

The Aleph Blog » Blog Archive » How to Become Super-Rich?

A Letter To The Guy Who Harassed Me Outside The Bar

Italy’s Billion-Dollar Gambling Epidemic - The Daily Beast

Stumbling and Mumbling: Socialism, institutions & human nature

12 Business Lessons You Can Learn from Amazon Founder and CEO Jeff Bezos

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