Money and Finance
- Harari On Hindsight...
From Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind: "...the better you know a particular historical period, the harder it becomes to explain why things happened one way and not another…In fact, the people who knew the period best – those alive at the...
- Learning To Love Volatility – By Nassim Taleb
Several years before the financial crisis descended on us, I put forward the concept of "black swans": large events that are both unexpected and highly consequential. We never see black swans coming, but when they do arrive, they profoundly shape our...
- Nassim Taleb Quote
“The problem here is the notion of “better,” this focus on skills as leading to success. Random outcomes, or an arbitrary situation, can also explain success, and provide the initial push that leads to a winner-take-all result. A person can get...
- Nassim Taleb Quote
“Seize any opportunity, or anything that looks like opportunity. They are rare, much rarer than you think. Remember that positive Black Swans have a necessary first step: you need to be exposed to them. Many people do not realize that they are getting...
- Nassim Taleb Quote
“Don’t look for the precise and the local. Simply, do not be narrow-minded. The great discoverer Pasteur, who came up with the notion that chance favors the prepared, understood that you do not look for something particular every morning but work...
Money and Finance
Michael Burry's 2008 1st Quarter Letter
Thanks to Dang for reminding me about these letters being online, which prompted me to go back and read this one, which is full of great insights.
Earlier this month, I took my family on our first extended vacation far away from California, and we ran headlong into a flock of black swans. Real, breathing black swans. You’ve got to be kidding me. One cannot make this stuff up. Or so I thought.
But, of course, this was indeed predictable. We were visiting Leeds Castle in Kent, England, and if I had done the work, I would have known about the flock of black swans that reside at this castle. And that is about how I view Mr. Taleb’s premise of the Black Swan. I have found markets to be anything but random, and I find many of the future events that are bound to be dismissed as random or explainable only in hindsight in fact can be foretold in time with the rhythm of history. If one does the work.
My father, a mechanical engineer, used to dismiss random chance. The harder you work, the luckier you get, he’d say. I am convinced there is hardly a better rule by which to live.
- Harari On Hindsight...
From Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind: "...the better you know a particular historical period, the harder it becomes to explain why things happened one way and not another…In fact, the people who knew the period best – those alive at the...
- Learning To Love Volatility – By Nassim Taleb
Several years before the financial crisis descended on us, I put forward the concept of "black swans": large events that are both unexpected and highly consequential. We never see black swans coming, but when they do arrive, they profoundly shape our...
- Nassim Taleb Quote
“The problem here is the notion of “better,” this focus on skills as leading to success. Random outcomes, or an arbitrary situation, can also explain success, and provide the initial push that leads to a winner-take-all result. A person can get...
- Nassim Taleb Quote
“Seize any opportunity, or anything that looks like opportunity. They are rare, much rarer than you think. Remember that positive Black Swans have a necessary first step: you need to be exposed to them. Many people do not realize that they are getting...
- Nassim Taleb Quote
“Don’t look for the precise and the local. Simply, do not be narrow-minded. The great discoverer Pasteur, who came up with the notion that chance favors the prepared, understood that you do not look for something particular every morning but work...