I have been reading Buffet’s early letters (pre-Berkshire) and this value investing story was in there. “In 1956, the Buffett Partnership began acquiring Dempster Mill Manufacturing Co., a producer of windmills and farm equipment in Beatrice, Nebraska, about 100 miles south of Omaha. The investment was recorded as a "general" because the stock was selling at $18 a share but had a book value of about $72.” ~ learn more
“I suppose the test would be: what are you hoping to end up making? If it’s a puddle of water: you are desalinating. If it’s a pile of salt: you are desalinizing.” ~ learn more
“The research paper‘s title is apt: ‘Consequences of Erudite Vernacular Utilized Irrespective of Necessity: Problems with Using Long Words Needlessly.’” ~ learn more
“U.S. dynamism is in the dumps: Americans are less likely to switch jobs, move to another state, or create new companies than they were 30 years ago (or 100 years ago). What’s going on?” ~ learn more
Nothing, of course. But some fMRI scans might show things anyway. This study warns researchers to beware of false positives. ~ learn more
“Approaching its seventh anniversary, the “Attention” paper has attained legendary status. The authors started with a thriving and improving technology—a variety of AI called neural networks—and made it into something else: a digital system so powerful that its output can feel like the product of an alien intelligence. Called transformers, this architecture is the not-so-secret sauce behind all those mind-blowing AI products, including ChatGPT and graphic generators such as Dall-E…
“I was recently introduced to the idea of tarpit ideas. These are essentially startup ideas that seem like a great opportunity and have been tried many times before but end with the company not working out.” FYI: Scroll down a bit as there’s lots of preamble before the post. ~ learn more
“YC taught us to outsource very little. Own the problem. Own the outcome. And if you do, you get to be stupidly ambitious.” ~ learn more
I enjoyed listening to this interview with John Wilson, who took over his family’s small and very stable HVAC business and used it as a launchpad to quickly expand. ~ learn more
The PHTI is a new independant nonprofit that, “aims to provide independent, evidence-based assessments of emerging products, something that is currently lacking in the market.” Their first “blistering” report concluded that diabetes monitoring apps "do not deliver meaningful clinical benefits, and result in increased healthcare spending." ~ learn more