“Data-driven predictions can succeed—and they can fail. It is when we deny our role in the process that the odds of failure rise. Before we demand more of our data, we need to demand more of ourselves.”
Excerpt From: Nate Silver. “The Signal and the Noise: Why Most Predictions Fail-But Some Don’t.”
“We forget—or we willfully ignore—that our models are simplifications of the world. We figure that if we make a mistake, it will be at the margin.”
Excerpt From: Nate Silver. “The Signal and the Noise: Why Most Predictions Fail-But Some Don’t.”
“You must know the big ideas in the big disciplines and use them routinely-all of them, not just a few. Most people are trained in one model-economics, for example-and try to solve all problems in one way. You know the old saying: ‘To the man with a hammer, the world looks like a nail.’ This is a dumb way of handling problems.”
– Poor Charlie’s almanack, Charles Munger
During the Gold Rush, most would-be miners lost money, but people who sold them picks, shovels, tents, and blue jeans (Levi Strauss) made a nice profit. Today, you can look for non-Internet companies that indirectly benefit from Internet traffic (package delivery is an obvious example)
Lynch, Peter. One Up On Wall Street: How To Use What You Already Know To Make Money
What is the difference between a gangster pulling out a gun and demanding you give him a thousand dollars of “protection money,” and that same gangster pulling out a gun and demanding you provide him with a thousand-dollar “loan”? In most ways, obviously, there is no difference. But in certain ways there is As in the case of the U.S. debt to Korea or Japan, were the balance of power at any point to shift, were America to lose its military supremacy, were the gangster to lose his henchmen, that “loan” might start being treated very differently.
-‘Debt‘ by David Graeber
To my mind, the stock price is the least useful information you can track, and it’s the most widely tracked.
Lynch, Peter. One Up On Wall Street
According to the modern version, commonly taught even in introductory economics, a competitive free-market equilibrium is “Pareto optimal.” That means that once such an economy is in equilibrium, it is impossible to improve the economic welfare of everyone. Any interference will make someone worse off. For graduate students, this conclusion is presented as a mathematical theorem of some elegance—elevating the notion of free-market optimality into a high scientific achievement.
Akerlof, George A.; Shiller, Robert J.. Phishing for Phools (p. 5). Princeton University Press.
“If (more) information was the answer, then we’d all be billionaires with perfect abs.”
– Derek Severs in conversation with Tim Ferris – ” It’s not what you know, it’s what you do consistently.
When you launch a new product, the first question to ask yourself is not “How is this new product better than the competition?” but “First what?” In other words, what category is this new product first in ? – Law of Category in the book Tools of Titan by Tim Ferris
“Spend each day trying to be a little wiser than you were when you woke up. Discharge your duties faithfully and well. Step by step you get ahead, but not necessarily in fast spurts. But you build discipline by preparing for fast spurts,” Charlie Munger says in “Poor Charlie’s Almanack.”
