Ed Thorp talks with Meb Faber (podcast) (LINK)
Related book: A Man for All MarketsVacuum up those pennies – and let Warren Buffett invest them for you! - by Mohnish Pabrai (LINK)
The Broyhill Book Club 2016 (LINK)
Oaktree's Howard Marks Is Cautious, But Still Investing (video) [H/T ValueWalk] (LINK)
Interview with Jeff Bezos and Steve Boom, VP of Amazon Music, about the music industry, Echo and Alexa's place in it [H/T Techmeme] (LINK)
Alphabet opts to spell out its stock options (LINK)
Google is about to go cold turkey on Silicon Valley’s favourite financial drug.
Issuing mountains of stock to employees — and then turning a blind eye to the impact on profits — has been a not-so-secret dirty habit of the US tech industry for years.
But the times are changing. In a little-noticed announcement, the internet company’s parent, Alphabet, let slip on its last earnings call that it is about to alter its treatment of stock-based compensation — a $6.7bn cost last year. From this quarter, it will stop presenting a view of its earnings that ignores stock costs.
Had that been applied in 2016, the earnings figure that Wall Street used to judge the company would have been nearly 20 per cent lower. Its trailing price/earnings ratio would be 34, not the 27 seen through more rosy spectacles.
Alphabet’s rethink is a watershed moment in the financial maturity of Google’s parent and the evolution of the Valley. The giant companies that dominate today’s tech landscape are finally feeling the financial self-confidence to deal with mainstream investors on their own terms. What this means for the next generation of up-and-coming tech companies is another matter.
A16z: What Happens When Mobile (Really) Hits the Wallet? (video) (LINK)
A16z Podcast: Cars and Cities, the Autonomy Edition (LINK)
The Production of Money: how to break the power of bankers (audio) (LINK)
Deep Work vs. Messy: How to Balance Productivity and Creativity [H/T @TimHarford] (LINK)