How Warren Buffett’s Son Would Feed the World (LINK)
The Ideal Investment: Companies That Don’t Invest [H/T @jasonzweigwsj] (LINK)
Related book: Capital ReturnsHedge-Fund Star Kyle Bass Slips on Oil [H/T Will] (LINK)
Jim Grant: No rate hike this year (video) [H/T ValueWalk] (LINK)
a16z Podcast: Automation, Jobs, & the Future of Work (and Income) (LINK)
The Curse of Culture - by Ben Thompson (LINK)
The implications of this definition are profound: culture is not something that begets success, rather, it is a product of it. All companies start with the espoused beliefs and values of their founder(s), but until those beliefs and values are proven correct and successful they are open to debate and change. If, though, they lead to real sustained success, then those values and beliefs slip from the conscious to the unconscious, and it is this transformation that allows companies to maintain the “secret sauce” that drove their initial success even as they scale. The founder no longer needs to espouse his or her beliefs and values to the 10,000th employee; every single person already in the company will do just that, in every decision they make big or small.
As with most such things, culture is one of a company’s most powerful assets right until it isn’t: the same underlying assumptions that permit an organization to scale massively constrain the ability of that same organization to change direction. More distressingly, culture prevents organizations from even knowing they need to do so.
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Related book: Organizational Culture and Leadership
Malcolm Gladwell at TIBCO NOW 2014: The Right Attitude (video) [H/T David] (LINK) -- [I don't think I'd seen this before. As usual, Gladwell tells his story featuring a real person, in this case Malcolm McLean. To hear more about McLean from someone who knew him, see the 4th question in the video Five Good Questions for Gene Hoots.]
The Deliberate Creative (LINK)
Monkeys can run up vertical cliffs on just their hind legs (video) (LINK)