Misc

Miscellaneous is often where the gems are.

Misc

Vanderbilt

  • Business lessons from a man who at one point commanded one in every nine dollars in the United States.
  • “Vanderbilt’s legacy provides timeless and universal lessons in business success. He thrived in an era of enormous technological change as railways revolutionised the American economy. Yet his approach to business is evident in many of the successful businesses we see today; tapping new markets through lower prices, respecting shareholders, sharing scale advantages and sacrificing short term profits for long term gains.“
Misc

Corporate Climate Goals

  • Bloomberg analysed how well companies fared against their 2020 climate goals (set in 2015).
  • “The good news is that most of these pledges—138, so far—have already been met or appear on track by year-end, in part because many companies set modest goals.“
  • Worryingly, data disclosure remains a big issue as many companies either don’t report or do so unevenly.
  • Looking forward many are now making stand out statements.
  • Microsoft has not just committed to going carbon negative (by 2030) they will, by 2050, remove from the environment all the carbon the company has emitted either directly or by electrical consumption since it was founded in 1975.
Misc

The Brain

  • This story of how brains evolved, while admittedly just a sketch, draws attention to a key insight about human beings that is too often overlooked. Your brain’s most important job isn’t thinking; it’s running the systems of your body to keep you alive and well. According to recent findings in neuroscience, even when your brain does produce conscious thoughts and feelings, they are more in service to the needs of managing your body than you realize.
  • Interesting thought for investors.
Misc

NBA and Start-Ups

  • Just as in tech companies, many sports franchises are trying to answer a basic question: what do the numbers today tell us about the possible outcomes of tomorrow — and what (or who) do we need to get to a winning outcome?
  • In basketball and tech in particular, a deeper understanding of efficiency — both in how to measure it and how to leverage that to build winning teams — and usage has changed the game in the last decade.
  • A great piece applying NBA sports metrics to Start-ups.
Misc

52 Things 2020 Edition

  • We previously covered this brilliant list of 52 things learnt for 2019 and 2018.
  • Here is the 2020 edition – full of gems. A few choice examples:
  • Most cities plant only male trees because it’s expensive to clear up the fruit that falls from female trees. Male trees release pollen, and that’s one of the reasons your hay fever is getting worse. 
  • For VC companies in 2004, the average time from first contact to funding was 90 days. Today, it’s just nine days
  • Car safety laws in the US make it more expensive to have three children — women in states with mandated car seats are 0.7% less likely to have a third child. The safety measures may have saved 57 car crash fatalities each year, but caused 145,000 fewer births since 1980.
  • Developing and launching the iPod in 2001 took just 41 weeks, from the very first meeting (no team, no prototype, no design) to iPods shipping to customers.
  • References to each found in the link.
Misc

Analysing Impact of Covid – Habits

  • One interesting approach to understanding if things will change is to look at scientific research.
  • In this paper – How are habits formed: modelling habit formation in the real world – researchers measured how long it took to form a habit.
  • They found that the median time was 66 days ranging from 15 – 254 days.
  • Exercise habits took longer to form.
  • The longer it took to form the stronger the habit was.
  • With lockdowns now lasting longer than 66 days real habit change is likely.
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