Influential Reads – October 2021 - Something For The Effort

Reading Time: 2 minutes

October 2021

“There is a meaningful opportunity in the dispersion of HQ, education, and healthcare.” – No Mercy, No Malice

Finished the book, That Wild Country, by Mark Kenyon. Enjoyed learning about the history of U.S. public lands. More on that to come…I am a bit behind in my writing.

Here are my most influential reads – in no particular order:

This Market Makes No Sense – “The only thing I know for sure is there is a lot of money sloshing around in just about everything these days — stocks, bonds, savings accounts, start-ups, crypto, NFTs, collectibles and housing — and that makes this a difficult market to analyze.”
I Collect Cashflows – “I like to collect the cashflows of the best businesses in the world. I pile them up high in my accounts, adding to them when values fall, automatically buying more when dividends and distributions are paid out.”
Foreign Stocks’ Lost Decade – “Across the board, U.S. companies outperformed their overseas counterparts in every sector.”
David Tepper shuns stock market – “Sometimes there’s times to make money…sometimes there’s times not to lose money.” SMS: I ran into David Tepper in the hallway of my business school once. Tepper had just made a large donation and the school was being renamed and they were holding a celebration at our Friday Beers. I had a buddy visiting from NYC who had just turned down a job with Appaloosa and had said on the way there, “I hope I don’t run into David Tepper”. And first thing, we ran into him. I had a mortified look on my face and David Tepper made some off hand remark about that, that I am sure he doesn’t recall at all. When I started to write that, I felt that would be a better story than it turned out to be. Longer too.
Understanding the Monty Hall Problem – “Here’s the general idea: The more you know, the better your decision.”
Colin Powell’s 13 rules for how to lead – “It ain’t as bad as you think. It will look better in the morning. Leaving the office at night with a winning attitude affects more than you alone; it also conveys that attitude to your followers.”
A Pastor Embraces Slowness – “She forwarded all work calls to voicemail and put in place a rule saying she must wait 24 hours before replying to any message that either made her upset or elated.” SMS: Great rule. I wish Outlook would let me put more than a two hour delay on my emails.
Carcinogens – “Measurements of the impact are all over the map, but we know fraud is pervasive. By one estimate, 88% of digital ad clicks are fake.” SMS: Makes me feel even less good about my company’s digital advertising spend.
Why You Should Stop Reading News – “To be completely cured of newspapers, spend a year reading the previous week’s newspapers.” SMS: Yes, yes, I know.
How the Bobos Broke America () – “A third rebellion is led by people who are doing well financially but who feel culturally humiliated—the boubour rebellion.”

Note: This is based on when I read the article, not necessarily when it was first published. Unfortunately, my backlog of things I would like to read always seems to dwarf the amount of time I can devote to reading.

Top clicks across the site last month:

Updated stats through October: