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The Strength of Being Misunderstood

Another excellent (and short) piece from Sam Altman. This quote sums it up well:

The most impressive people I know care a lot about what people think, even people whose opinions they really shouldn’t value. But what makes them unusual is that they generally care about other people’s opinions on a very long time horizon — as long as the history books get it right, they take some pride in letting the newspapers get it wrong.

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How Venture Capitalists are Deforming Capitalism

A longer form read from the New Yorker describing how a flood of cash can hide innumerable issues in both strategy and execution. The example given is everyone’s favorite company to pick on, WeWork.

When you get involved in the startup world, you meet all these amazing entrepreneurs with fantastic ideas, and, over time, you watch them get pushed by V.C.s to take too much money, and make bad choices, and grow as fast as possible. And then they blow up. And, eventually, you start to realize: no matter what happens, the V.C.s still end up rich

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Can Shopify Compete With Amazon Without Becoming Amazon?

A great summary of the current state and potential future of Shopify. The progress they have made over the course of the pandemic, and the decade prior, really is astounding. For those looking for some more good Canadian (and German) content, this is an incredible interview with founder Tobi Lütke.

“Amazon is trying to build an empire, and Shopify is trying to arm the rebels.”

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Earnestness

An uplifting piece describing something we place great value on, earnestness. This essay also gives great credit to nerds so it was probably a foregone conclusion we would like it!

When you call someone earnest, you're making a statement about their motives. It means both that they're doing something for the right reasons, and that they're trying as hard as they can. If we imagine motives as vectors, it means both the direction and the magnitude are right.

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SHIFTING SANDS

This chart continues a theme we have touched on a few times – what does work look like post-pandemic? It is admittedly a small sample size, but the data is also reflective of the anecdotal evidence we are hearing from business owners. White collar workers want flexibility; lower wage workers want their share of the economic pie.

We continue to believe it will be many months before a true “new normal” surfaces. Knowledge-based businesses are still working to find the right balance of flexibility vs. the reality of their particular operating environment, while service businesses are striving to balance automation and efficiency with economics and worker demands (not to mention ever-changing rules).

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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How Big Is Your Frying Pan?
 

A quick hitter on eliminating negative beliefs and self-imposed restrictions to attain performance.

…another angler just upstream was pulling in fish after fish.

Saban noticed he was releasing the big fish and keeping the small ones.

Curious as to what was going on, he approached the angler asked him why he was only keeping the smallest fish. The angler replied with a straightforward explanation: he only had a nine-inch frying pan at home.

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Inflation for Whom?

An interesting, if somewhat technical, explanation of the complexities in measuring inflation. The article focuses on the discrepancies in inflation between high- and low-income households. One can only assume that recent price increases have also changed behaviours in such a way that stressed households are seeing less inflation due to shifting lifestyle choices (which is likely still a bad thing).

…there is not, even in principle, a true inflation rate. Pick any basket of goods and measure their prices over time; that is an inflation rate. The “all urban consumers” basket used by the BLS for the headline CPI inflation rate is a useful benchmark, but it’s just one basket among others. Any individual household or subgroup of households will have its own consumption basket and corresponding inflation rate.

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The Unbearable Summer

We have found that many of our deckside summer conversations inevitably turn to climate change, or more specifically, a particular ongoing fire, flood, or other extreme event. We get a strong sense that through 2020/21 the world has finally awakened to the scale of the risk we are facing. This article is a good summary of some of the recent events and trends.

From a business perspective, we are spending more and more time on sustainable investment themes, a trend we do not expect to reverse in the near future.

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The Mystery of the Missing Workers, Explained

A different angle on the current state of the workforce. This is less about individuals considering leaving their job for another, and more about the decline in overall labour force participation.

The labor force participation rate—a measure of the share of working-age Americans who are employed or looking for work—which has been stuck near its lowest level since the 1970s for almost a year.

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