For Google’s New CEO Sundar Pichai, a Low-Key Style Pays Off (LINK)
Buried in the Wordplay: Life Sciences Graduates From Google X - by Steven Levy [author of In The Plex: How Google Thinks, Works, and Shapes Our Lives] (LINK)
Buried in the Alphabet announcement was a significant piece of news: one of the new portfolio companies in Larry Page’s Scrabble game is Life Sciences. Until yesterday, the medical research operation had been one of the major initiatives inside of Google X. So Page’s declaration is the de-facto “graduation” of this enterprise from the moonshot-loving research division.Michael Mauboussin - Investing: The Art of Paying Attention (video) [H/T ValueWalk] (LINK)
Aswath Damodaran revisits Apple, Facebook and Twitter (LINK)
Mark Spitznagel on the Paradox of Higher Returns with Lower Risk (video) [H/T Zero Hedge and James, for earlier post of this video] (LINK)
The Lens of Ken Burns: A Conversation on History, Storytelling, and the Power of Film (video) (LINK)
The Aspen Institute’s 22nd Annual Summer Celebration Conversation, featuring Ken Burns: Filmmaker and 2015 Public Service Award Honoree. Moderated by Walter Isaacson, President and CEO of The Aspen Institute.Now THAT'S a Supernova (LINK) [Related video: The Most Astounding Fact About the Universe]
Supernovae are terrifying. But they’re also important; we literally owe our existence to them. They create heavy elements in the blast, then fling them for dozens of light years around. This can then seed other clouds of gas, which then make stars, planets… and you. Nearly every element in the Universe other than hydrogen and helium was forged in the heart of an exploding star like the one that created the Vela nebula, including the iron in your blood and the phosphorus in your DNA.
So when you look on this picture, you’re seeing death and destruction on a soul-crushing scale, but you’re also seeing the factory in which the ingredients of life itself are made.