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Misc
Miscellaneous is often where the gems are.
Property Tech
- Big read from the Economist on how technology is changing property.
- Lots of areas to improve how people buy and sell homes. $4bn has been invested in this space by VCs.
- This chart for one shows the commission taken by brokers in different countries. The US stands out.
Venture Boom
Tech 2020
- Really amazing presentation from Ben Evans and arguably rivals this.
- This chart shows for example shows a huge untapped potential for Amazon.
- Other amazing stat – Netflix spends more on content than all of UK, Spain, France, Italy and Germany. Bad as it goes direct and doesn’t distribute via others.
Weather
- Data to show that indeed the number of extreme weather events is on the rise.
Concrete
- A really fascinating article about concrete.
- “China consumes more of it in any two years than the United States used throughout the entire 20th century“
Viruses & Bats
- Fascinating article about why viruses, like the current Corona virus outbreak, tend to come from bats.
- Why Bats? They are mammals, so sufficiently close to us, not domesticated, and live in huge flocks
- Bracken Cave, in Texas, is home to roughly 20 million breeding Mexican free-tailed bats, similar to the (human) population of the Mexico City urban area. In places there are 500 bat pups per square foot on the wall. To a virus that represents a tasty buffet.
Lambda School Cont.
Bedside MRI
- FDA approves the first portable Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) machine.
- “According to Connecticut-based Hyperfine, their machine will cost $50,000, which is 20-times cheaper than traditional systems, runs on 35-times less power and weighs 10 times less than normal 1.5T MRI machines.“
Adjusted EBITDA
- This chart, from FTAlphaville, shows the distribution of the number of words used to describe adjusted EBITDA by different companies.
- In some cases running longer than the Declaration of Independence text.
Creative Idea Generation
- This is an interesting list from Rory Sutherland’s new book.
- The concept is how one should let go of logic in order to generate brilliant ideas.
- An interesting exercise is to think how these ideas can help in investing.
- “Being logical makes you predictable, and your competitors will know what you’re going to do before you do. This is because using logic will very likely land you in the same place as everyone else, and sharing a market space with competitors this way creates a race to the bottom. Instead, figure out the logic model of your competitor, find where their use of it is too narrow and exploit this.“
- h/t The Browser.
Quant Private Equity
- The quant hedge fund Two Sigma is moving into private equity.
- They have raised a $1.2bn fund.
- Will be interesting to see if quant methods can be applied to private markets.
Guiding Principles
- A bit off topic for Snippet but these guiding principles from Jim Simons, the founder of one of the most successful funds ever – Renaissance Technologies, are worth a quick absorb.
FundSmith Letter
- The latest letter from FundSmith is worth a read.
- Wide ranging discussion including thoughts on trading charges (see table page 5), tirade against value investing (page 7), and comment on Woodford (page 10) .
Global Patent Applications
- We showed how research spending in China now rivals US.
- China is also on its way to overtaking US in patent applications.
Last names
- Most popular last names in every country and what they mean.
- Picture shows Europe but link has the entire world.
How Things Change
Free Coding Classes?
- Check out 42 Silicon Valley.
- “42 Silicon Valley is a college-level, tuition-free, computer programming school with a peer-to-peer learning environment. Learn the skills you need here to begin your career as a Software Engineer, for free.“
- It was started French billionaire Xavier Niel.
How to Invest in Start-ups
- A really great article by Sam Altman.
- An interesting perspective on how to invest in winners.
- “There is a lot of advice about how to be a good startup founder. But there isn’t very much about how to be a good startup investor. Before going any further, I should point out that this is a particularly hard time to invest in startups—it’s easier right now to be a capital-taker than a capital-giver.”
- h/t The Browser.
North vs South of England
- Funny chart from FT giving us a way to tell the North from the south of England.
