"There’s a huge difference in the business that grows and requires a lot of capital to do so, and the business that grows, and doesn’t require capital. And I would say that, generally, financial analysts do not give adequate weight to the difference in those. In fact, it’s amazing how little attention is paid to that. Believe me, if you’re investing, you should pay a lot of attention to it.... Some of our best businesses that we own outright don’t grow. But they throw off lots of money, which we can use to buy something else. And therefore, our capital is growing, without physical growth being in the business. And we are much better off being in that kind of situation [than] being in some business that, itself, is growing, but that takes up all the money in order to grow, and doesn’t produce at high returns as we go along. A lot of managements don’t understand that very well, actually." --Warren Buffett (1994)
Roger Lowenstein reviews John Carreyrou's book Bad Blood [H/T Phil] (LINK)
Revisionist History Podcast: “Burden of Proof” (LINK)
In 2013, Malcolm gave a talk at the University of Pennsylvania on the subject of proof. How much evidence do we need of the harmfulness of some behavior, before we act? The lecture was about the long-ago fight over miner’s asthma — and about the unexpected death of a Penn student named Owen Thomas. Revisionist History returns to the question at the heart of the the talk, with a visit to Owen Thomas’s family.American Innovations Podcast: DNA - Testing Times (Part 5) (LINK)
Elizabeth Gilbert talks with Krista Tippett (podcast) (LINK)
Edge #515: Sexual Double Standards - A Conversation With Martie Haselton (LINK)
Vaccines Alone Won’t Beat Ebola - by Ed Yong (LINK)
The Asteroid That Smote the Dinosaurs Burned the Birds Out of Trees - by Ed Yong (LINK)