Circle of Competence Issue #52

QUOTE OF THE WEEK

"Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity" - Robert Hanlon (Hanlon's Razor)

FOOD FOR THOUGHT

This week marks the 52nd issue (and 1 full year) of Circle of Competence, and per request (H/T Jorian H.), I wanted to share my top ten pieces of content from the last year. I chose each piece based on the amount of information that can be gained by reading or listening as well as the 'timelessness' of the content. Enjoy!

Top reads:

1. How Brent Beshore evaluates investments and buys small businesses (and generally anything written by Brent!)

2. How China is engineering the human soul (Sinocism)

3. Trammell Crow Company circulated memo on mistakes and failures (H/T John A.)

4. Alice Schroeder's original 1999 Berkshire Hathaway research report (H/T Neil O.)

5. Safal Niveshek's Wall of Ideas for life and investing

6. Howard Marks' memo, "Political Reality Meets Economic Reality"

7. Mary Meeker's 2018 internet trends report

Top listens:

1. Patrick O'Shaughnessy interviews Will Thorndike on compounding capital (H/T Neil O.)

2. Ted Seides interviews Brent Beshore on buying small businesses

3. 2012 John Malone lecture on strategic finance in the cable industry

4. Kiril Sokoloff interviews Stanley Druckenmiller on global investing

5. Tom Gayner - evolution of a value investor

6. Charlie Munger on the psychology of human misjudgement

7. Warren Buffett's advice for entrepreneurs

WRITTEN WORD

- TOP READ: Aligning business models with markets (kwokchain, H/T Brent B.)

- Why companies like Uber and Lyft are going public without having any profits (Recode)

- Chris Leithner's letter on household debt loads in Australia

- Is this what peak car looks like? (Bloomberg)

- What would the green new deal look like for businesses (HBR)

- Second patient cured of HIV after stem-cell therapy

- Is this the end of recycling? (The Atlantic)

- Charlie Munger Daily Journal annual meeting transcript

- Stock buybacks help the economy, not hurt it (New York Times Op-ed)

SPOKEN WORD

- How to analyze an IPO (Odd Lots)

- How we can store digital data in DNA (TED talks)

Have a great week!

-Benton