Music of the Week
Meute is an eleven-piece marching band from Germany blending techno, house, and deep house music by DJs overlaying electronic beats from marching band instruments. The music created by Meute is one of a kind.
Quotes of the Week
A good writer doesn’t just think, and then write down what he thought, as a sort of transcript. A good writer will almost always discover new things in the process of writing. — Paul Graham
You can’t go back and change the beginning, but you can start where you are and change the ending. — C.S. Lewis
If thou wouldst live long, live well; for Folly and Wickedness shorten life. — Benjamin Franklin
Mastery is the best goal because the rich can’t buy it, the impatient can’t rush it, the privileged can’t inherit it, and nobody can steal it. You can only earn it through hard work. Mastery is the ultimate status. – Derek Sivers
No man steps in the same river twice. – Heraclitus
Articles of the Week
“The past wasn’t as good as you remember. The present isn’t as bad as you think. The future will be better than you anticipate” ends the A Message From the Past (Thoughts on Nostalgia) article that resonated with me.
“Use the stress of this election to be the final push needed to step away from the exhausting digital chatter that’s been dominating your brain” is a line by Cal Newport in After You Vote: Unplug that could all serve us well by implementing.
Buffett “wants to invest every penny he can in businesses that provide Berkshire an advantage. But at the same time, he’s willing to do nothing,” is a quote from Berkshire’s cash soars to $325 billion, Buffett sells Apple, Bank of America that highlights what a patient investor looks like.
Niccol discussed his “Back to Starbucks” strategy, with the goal to simplify the Starbucks’ menu, fix pricing architecture, and “ensure that every customer feels Starbucks is worth it every single time they visit” from Your name could be hand-written on Starbucks cups again: Sharpies are returning, CEO says showing what the new Starbucks CEO has in store.
“If generation cannot connect to the grid fast enough because of the long interconnection study process, that just delays when we can get this new firm capacity onto the grid” as noted in Google’s head of data center energy on the urgency of expanding the grid brings to the surface what the renewables industry is facing.
“The capital needs are huge, and one of the big bottlenecks—maybe the bottleneck—is electricity availability,” quoted in Wall Street Giants to Make $50 Billion Bet on AI and Power Projects explains the opportunity that lies ahead for the power generation space.
“Developers could add batteries or other new energy capacity next to these power plants and make use of that surplus grid space” from Why won’t PJM let batteries and clean power bolster a stressed-out grid? makes you scratch your head on what grid operator PJM is thinking.
“The perpetual hunger to invent, the obsession with making customers’ lives easier and better every day, and the associated opportunities these priorities present” by Amazon CEO Andy Jassy in Message from CEO Andy Jassy: Strengthening our culture and teams shows how Amazon thinks about its business.
“WeWork burned through cash with an unclear path to profitability, which eventually proved disastrous for the company and its investors” is a lesson in what Charlie Munger calls ‘inversion’ (or what not to do) from the article Adam Neumann’s Latest Project Is a WeWork Competitor.
“A bottle so distinct that it could be recognized by touch in the dark or when lying broken on the ground” covers How To Write a Design Brief.
“One AI query consumes up to 10 times the energy of a standard Google search” opens your eyes to the amount of energy AI is consuming in Meta’s plan for nuclear-powered AI data centre thwarted by rare bees.
Book of the Week
All I Want To Know Is Where I’m Going To Die So I’ll Never Go There: Buffett & Munger – A Study in Simplicity and Uncommon, Common Sense by Peter Bevelin starts with the fictitious Seeker and the Seeker’s visit to the “Library of Wisdom” where the Seeker meets another fictitious character, the Librarian, along with Warren Buffett and Charlie Munger. The premise of the book is the Seeker learns how to make better decisions to help his children avoid the dumb things the Seeker has done in his life. Bevelin uses Buffett and Munger’s quotes from interviews, articles, and presentations to help us all become wiser. I may not read a more impactful book in 2024 than this book.
Podcasts of the Week
Invest Like the Best features conversations with the best investors and business leaders from across the globe. Recent episodes I enjoyed include Jeremy Giffon – Special Situations in Private Markets, A Conversation with Charlie Munger and John Collison, and Ric Elias – The Art of Living Well.
