Mike's Notes

What happened to Yahoo? Taking notes from Kara Swisher and Eric Jackson, there were five things I noticed: 1/ Beware of executives that succeed because of rising tides and tailwinds. 2/ Don’t forget about the MIT 3/ Built up experiences (or read books for a shortcut) to help you recognize patterns. 4/ Know your strengths and your weaknesses. Punt what you don’t do well. 5/ Reduce stakeholders to get more options. You need a long runway to experiment. the more career capital you have, easier cutting down will be. Intro: BenSound.com Outro:K-391 Inspiration: http://www.recode.net/2016/7/29/12314580/yahoo-verizon-kara-swisher-marissa-mayer-recode-podcast & http://www.recode.net/2016/8/1/12339366/yahoo-verizon-aol-deal-explained-podcast

Inspiration from Jack Schwager's podcast with Barry Ritholtz. Here we talk about: 1/ Plan B (Kahneman and Fast & Furious) 2/ Rising tides and Buffett's ducks 3/ Patience for fat pitches. What Louis CK hit but Mark Zuckerberg missed. Intro: BenSound.com Outro: K-391

Another Warren Buffett episode. This one focuses on his early (pre-1976) writings. We’ll examine: 1/ How Buffett used red flags to tell people when to switch investments. 2/ How Buffett focused like a flashlight. 3/ Buffett’s advice for “turning over a lot of rock,” and three ways to encourage your search. 4/ Buffett was like a pirate. A good haul and he’d be rich, a poor captain and the crew could take over. These are win win situations. 5/ Buffett knew he was dealing with people, and acted accordingly. 6/ Ducks? Yes. Intro: BenSound.com Outro: K-391 Inspiration: http://amzn.to/2aqi4ya Donation: cash.me/$mikedariano

Neville Isdell was the former chairman and CEO of Coca Cola. I found his book on accident, happily. Isdell's story isn't well known - or at least to me - and so his 'off the beaten track' experiences are extra valuable. What helped a kid born in Ireland, who grows up in Africa, starts his career in white South Africa and goes on to work in the Philippines and German succeed? There were five themes in my notes: 1/ Isdell was motivated by more than money. Once we take care of our basic needs (not our basic wants) we can focus on only the most important things. 2/ Isdell was "there." Being there is crucial to certain jobs. 3/ Isdell married the right person. I loved the story he told about the trip to their honeymoon destination. 4/ Isdell had clever red flags (though not as clever as David Lee Roth, who makes an appearance). 5/ Isdell ran red team meetings. Intro: BenSound.com Outro: K-391 Inspiration: http://amzn.to/29oOXcD Donation: http://cash.me/$mikedariano

Nothing new here, just a reminder -- which we all need. Buffett isn't brilliant because he's rich. Fellow billionaire Seymour Schulich wrote, "The word ‘billionaire’ is a very crude and inaccurate measure of how well I have played the game of life.” Buffett is popular because of how he did it, not what he did. This episode looks at 5 ways. 1/ Buffett seeks few possessions. 2/ Buffett waits "for the right pitch." 3/ Buffett focuses on results. 4/ Buffett values good work over good tools. 5/ Buffett is a (patient) pattern recognizer. Intro music from BenSound.com. Outro music from K-391. Inspiration: http://www.cbsnews.com/news/person-to-person-warren-buffett/ Donation: http://cash.me/$mikedariano

Two ideas today; stakeholders and culture. Stakeholders are the people you answer to; investors, advertisers, internet providers, and spouses. Culture is the spirit of a place. It's something "you have to see to believe." This podcast was inspired by: http://www.bloomberg.com/news/audio/2016-06-24/interview-with-wesley-gray-masters-in-business-audio. Intro music from BenSound.com. Outro music from K-391.

Even though he lived (and thrived) 100+ years ago, Milton Hershey succeeded in business using techniques people still suggest today. In this episode we'll look at seven of them. 1/ Hershey was a relentless tinkerer. 2/ Hershey had a deep understanding 3/ Hershey had a supportive spouse. 4/ Hershey had a moment. 5/ Hershey had good people around him. 6/ Hershey was lucky. 7/ Hershey escaped the competition. Intro from Bensound.com

Advertising parodies are funny but prove serious things. In this podcast episode we look at three: 1/ How stakeholders influence range of motion. 2/ Gray areas, and lines not to cross. 3/ Why good comedians are deep learners. Inspiration from http://www.cbc.ca/radio/undertheinfluence/commercial-parodies-1.3637767 Intro music from BenSound.com

One way we "fool ourselves" (Feynman) is the sunk cost bias. Dr. John Cooke saw it in his academic research, Mohnish Pabrai saw Charlie Munger avoid it, and Richard Thaler saw it but didn't know it. What are sunk costs, and how can we avoid them? After asking the question, Feynman also gives us the answer.

Though the founding times were 40 years apart, both Knight (http://amzn.to/1YehxD3) and Thiel (http://amzn.to/1UkFFTc) have similar thoughts about starting businesses. This episode looks at five: 1/ Why to look for secrets. 1:05 2/ Where to look for secrets. 2:37 3/ Relentless searchers. 4:43 4/ Good people. 7:45 5/ Org. culture. 9:20 Intro music by BenSound.com

Inspiration: Eight Men Out by Eliot Asinof http://amzn.to/22xPejF Lessons. 1/ We get emotionally invested in the thing we do.  2/ Home field advantage helps; from sports to law to war. 3/ Dominos can fall in unexpected directions.  4/ In strengths are weaknesses and in weaknesses are strengths. The players were incredibly unorganized, and they earned less in bribes than promised. But, this proved to be their (legal) escape hatch. 5/ Extras help. Airplanes have extra space, companies have extra money, bodies have extra parts. The people who came out of the scandal best were the ones who had extra resources going in. 6/ Conditions matter. The macroeconomics conditions of World War I suppressed player’s salaries. The conditions of frustration during the initial discussion led to some players agreeing but having second thoughts.

Inspiration: http://amzn.to/1TOa0ba Big ideas: 1/ History isn't always rosy, with quotes from Charlie Munger and Marc Andreessen. 2/ Two paths diverged in a woods...and Ponzi went with the devil on his shoulder. 3/ Incentives matter. Part of the reason Ponzi was so successful was because of his salesmen. Read more at, https://thewaiterspad.com/2016/06/08/charles-ponzi/

#016 Six takeaways from SebastianJunger's podcast with Tim Ferriss by MIKE

From being your best customer to knowing the pot odds and ante, deGraff shared a few good ideas.

We all have default choices for things (like how you take your coffee). Some of these defaults - we'll also call them scripts - can be like levers, where only a small amount of effort has dramatic results. The most damaging are the negative mental scripts we have. In this episode the characters are Barbara Corcoran, Felicia Day, and Gary Vaynerchuk. We'll look at a story from each and how they rewrote their mental scripts.

Good things take time. This podcast uses stories from Gary Vaynerchuk, Steven Pressfield, and Felicia Day to encourage people who haven't made a destination yet. Good things are also fractal, that is, no matter what level you're at there are rewards and obstacles. Our characters all face challenges now that they are "successful" just like they did "before they were successful." Now, the challenges are different.

Our three characters: Austin Kleon, Mark Webster, Maria Popova. Sometimes we think that the things we don't have access to are the things that we need. "If only I had more time/money/freedom/connections." Maybe that's not what we need. Maybe it's exactly what we don't need.

Our three characters to explain the finish line fallacy; Warren Buffett, Tadas Viskanta, and Josh Williams. Also, what I think about when I run on the treadmill, and why it's harder each year I get older.

One way to have optionality (episodes #001, #002) is to have low overhead. In this episode we look at how commedians, failed startups, and Sophia Amoruso approached this idea and why.

Survivorship bias explained with World War 2 airplanes, basketball players from New York City, and mutual funds. This episode is part of the https://medium.com/survivorship-bias project.