Books
Poor Charlie’s Almanack — We lost Charlie Munger in November 2023, just weeks shy of his 100th birthday. His passing also nearly coincided with the republication of this book. For those of you who haven’t read the original, which is large and cumbersome and full of odd illustrations, this is a text-only reprint from Stripe Press that I recommend. For some reason my order via Amazon kept getting pushed back, but it finally arrived in mid-February and I assume it’s more available now. If anyone hasn’t read this book, or even if you’ve read it multiple times but it’s been a few years, make it a priority.
Quoted
"No more rats.” — J.C. Tretter, President of the National Football League Player’s Association, on why the Jacksonville Jaguars jumped from number number 28 to number five in the annual survey of player satisfaction. (The Jaguars opened a new clubhouse and training facility last year, replacing the previously rat-infested building.) Other mind-blowing tidbits from the survey:
Despite massive operating budgets, billionaire owners, etc., some teams still require younger players to share hotel rooms on the night before games. But the Tampa Bay Buccaneers offer players a “buy out” of the mandatory roommate for $1,750 per season.
In a violent game where physical ability and wellness is paramount, many teams are apparently understaffed with athletic trainers, dieticians, etc.
The Chiefs are two-time defending champs and had the highest-rated coach in the league, but came in almost dead last overall due to abysmal marks on ownership, nutrition, training room, and training staff.
Facts and Figures
60% — the percentage of luxury goods sold to people who spend less than $2,000 per year on luxury goods.
60% and 8% — the rate of annual employee turnover at average U.S. retailers and at Costco, respectively.
More fun facts from the same article: in the ~40 years since the Economist started its Big Mac index, the price of the McDonald’s flagship burger has tripled while Costco’s hot dog combo has been dead flat at $1.50. Over the same period, Costco’s stock has appreciated ~430x, or >17% per year.
115% — the growth in circulation of $100 bills between 2012 and 2022, to 18.5 billion notes, with more than half of them held outside the U.S.
0.5% — the percentage of VIP sports bettors who generated more than 70% of the revenue for Points Bet, as of 2019 and 2020.
A Psychiatrist Tried to Quit Gambling. Betting Apps Kept Her Hooked. This entire article is worth reading, although it is extremely depressing. It details a woman who lost hundreds of thousands of dollars over two years to the sharp knives of psychology-based marketing at DraftKings, despite knowing she had a gambling problem and trying unsuccessfully on four different occasions to enable the self-banning feature of the app.
21 years — the length of time scaffolding (aka a “sidewalk shed”) was installed in front of one NYC building, one of 8,300 such structures in the city.
38,000 — the growth in demand for electric power in megawatts on peak summer days over the coming five years, according to one estimate. (38,000 MW is the equivalent of adding another California to the grid.)
Articles
Tech Leaders Fled San Francisco During the Pandemic. Now, They’re Coming Back. – “In 2020, venture capitalist Keith Rabois urged startup founders to join him in ditching San Francisco for Miami, touting the city’s relative safety, lower taxes and tech-friendly mayor. The self-proclaimed contrarian investor, who made a fortune backing companies such as Airbnb and DoorDash, once tweeted that San Francisco was “miserable on every dimension.” The hard pivot to Miami has faltered. Several of the startups that Rabois backed are relocating or opening offices elsewhere to better attract engineering talent. Late last year, he was pushed out of his old venture firm, Founders Fund, after falling out with some colleagues. Now, he plans to spend one week a month in San Francisco for a new employer, Khosla Ventures, and is busy renovating a house there.”
“During the pandemic, scores of Silicon Valley investors and executives such as Rabois decamped to sunnier American cities, criticizing San Francisco’s government as dysfunctional and the city’s relatively high cost of living. Tech-firm founders touted their success at raising money outside the Bay Area and encouraged their employees to embrace remote work. Four years later, that bet hasn’t really worked out. San Francisco is once again experiencing a tech revival. Entrepreneurs and investors are flocking back to the city, which is undergoing a boom in artificial intelligence. Silicon Valley leaders are getting involved in local politics, flooding city ballot measures and campaigns with tech money to make the city safer for families and businesses. Investors are also pushing startups to return to the Bay Area and bring their employees back into the office.”
Why are Americans so displeased with the economy? Measuring whether economic news has become more negative — “The seeming disconnect between consumer sentiment and the state of the macroeconomy has been a defining characteristic of the post-COVID economy. By most widely accepted measures, the state of the macroeconomy is historically robust: The topline unemployment rate has remained below 4% for the past two years, economic growth has been steady and recovered pandemic-era losses, and inflation has retreated to historical norms. This apparent strength notwithstanding, various measures of household and consumer sentiment suggest a persistent dissatisfaction with the state of the economy…The disconnect between sentiment and macroeconomic performance has given rise to a host of plausible explanations…A third set of explanations relates to economic perception and the influence of negatively biased news sources. …In the analysis below, we offer a complementary explanation related to perception: that the tenor of economic news has become systemically more negative over time…Our analysis suggests that over the past six years, tone has shifted more negative, with an increase in the magnitude of negative tone over the past three years.”
Global Investment Returns Yearbook 2024 — Credit Suisse may be dead, but the Yearbook lives on (at least in summary form; UBS clients get full access).