More Alice on Warren Buffett

For the launch of the paperback of “The Snowball”, Alice Schroeder has done this interview (audio, mp3 file) at The Wall Street Shuffle about Warren Buffett and talking about the financial industry. Good interviewer, very insightful stuff. (note: I am looking forward to Alice’s next book about Morgan Stanley and others.)

Here are a few more recent blog entries,

1. Alice Schroeder @ Motley Fool: Buffett’s Biggest Weakness
2. Warren Buffett and the Crisis: ‘Brilliant Moves Interspersed with Some Surprising Errors’

Bottle Bank Arcade – TheFunTheory.com

Sesame Street at 40

Melinda Rogers on Rogers Ventures

The Financial Post has an interesting interview of Melinda Rogers about a new venture financing initiative called Rogers Ventures. Here is an excerpt from the interview “FP Tech Desk – Melinda Rogers on Rogers Ventures” (emphasis added),

FP: Can you tell me a little about the mandate of the fund? How big is it and will you specifically be looking at Canadian companies?

MR: We’re focused really on two different areas. One is identifying and investing in a portfolio of innovative startups, and the second is actively engaging with and supporting Canada’s innovation ecosystem. First and foremost, we’re designed to deliver long term revenue growth and technology innovation for Rogers, so we want to identify and participate in the success of the next great company. We know that our success depends largely upon a healthy funnel of innovation and talent to choose from. The second component of our mandate is also to support Canada’s innovation ecosystem by providing support to grass roots initiatives within the technology and start up community. In terms of fund size, there’s not a specific dollar amount that we draw upon, and actually that’s quite common … we don’t say we’re going to invest a million dollars or five million dollars or three million or $250,000, it’s very company and opportunity specific … we set milestones, and we re-evaluate those milestones regularly given that they’re startups, and we fund to strategic milestones.

Here is another excerpt from FP’s “Rogers venture fund eyes tech startup connections” (emphasis added),

“To think that you can innovate your way out of a growth challenge on your own is perhaps a bit foolish. So we’ve looked in the mirror and realized we need to partner and get some help and support and nurture the innovation ecosystem in order to do so.” [Ms. Rogers said.]

Although Rogers executives began discussing the idea of creating a venture investment vehicle about two years ago, to date there are just three companies in the Rogers Ventures portfolio: GridCentric Inc., a Toronto-based company that works with virtualization and grid computing technologies; ZooCasa, a Web-based real estate search engine; and Thoora, a social news search service that ranks stories according to their popularity on blogs, comment boards and Twitter.

Both BCE Inc. and Telus Corp. have their own investment vehicles.

[via Rogers Ventures blog]

Alice Schroeder @ Motley Fool: Buffett’s Biggest Weakness

Interview with Alice, part 1 “One Big Misconception About Buffett”, part 2 “Buffett’s Biggest Weakness”, and part 3 “Buffett’s Cold Shoulder”.

Here is an excerpt from part 2 (emphasis added),

“Hill: You have said that everyone in Warren’s world is his protector, and if you just look at the annual shareholder’s meeting, it is really, it is almost like a coronation on an annual basis. Are there people around Warren Buffett who will openly disagree with him?

Schroeder: Very few. One of the roles that Charlie Munger plays that is really important is he is one of the very few who will tell Warren “no” or “you’re wrong.” Interestingly, Warren has enlisted all of these women to be recruited as his protectors, but there are one or two — Carol Loomis is one, his friend who works for Fortune, and Sharon Osberg, his bridge partner — … who will really stand up to him. It is tough to be in the position he is in where you are incredibly rich, incredibly famous, and known for your wisdom because people are in awe of you. He said to me one time, “When I was 21 years old, I could have been saying the most brilliant things on earth and nobody would have listened to me. Now, I could say that the moon was made of pink tissue paper and everyone would go, ‘Wow, look! It really is.’ And they would believe me, because I am Warren Buffett.” He said it is the strangest thing.“

Here is an excerpt from part 3 (emphasis added),

“Hill: What part of his story has had the most impact on you personally?

Schroeder: On me personally what has been the most important was to understand the value of time — and this is something that has come from observing him, learning his story and that time compounds. What you do when you are young (and as you use time over your life) can have an exponential effect so that if you are thoughtful about it, you can really have powerful results later, if you want to.

Also, that is a reason to be hopeful, because compounding is something that happens pretty quickly. If you are 50 or 60, it is not too late. He said to me one time, if there is something you really want to do, don’t put it off until you are 70 years old. … Do it now. Don’t worry about how much it costs or things like that, because you are going to enjoy it now. You don’t even know what your health will be like then.

On the other hand, if you are investing in your education and you are learning, you should do that as early as you possibly can, because then it will have time to compound over the longest period. And that the things you do learn and invest in should be knowledge that is cumulative, so that the knowledge builds on itself. So instead of learning something that might become obsolete tomorrow, like some particular type of software [that no one even uses two years later], choose things that will make you smarter in 10 or 20 years. That lesson is something I use all the time now.”

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For my friends Wallace & Zhaofeng: Even I mention Warren Buffett in our conversation often and respect him, I still know that he can be wrong (and sometimes quite wrong). :)

Bilski v. Kappos: Supreme Court Oral Arguments

For those who like to see what the U.S. Supreme Court Justices are thinking and asking about the important patent law case of Bilski v. Kappos, check out the oral arguments transcript posted at Patently O.

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Nov 15, 2009 Update: Here is an insightful comment from Patent Baristas on the Bilski case where Stephen listed some of the questions a few of the Supreme Court Justices asked at the oral argument.

22 minutes

22 minutes of Warren Buffett talking to Fortune’s Carol Loomis about the effects of the fall of Lehman Brothers. (and the Edmonton connection, watch for yourself)

Warren Buffett and the Crisis: ‘Brilliant Moves Interspersed with Some Surprising Errors’

From CNBC, “Alice Schroeder’s authorized biography of Warren Buffett is now available in a trade paperback edition.

In an “updated and condensed” version of The Snowball: Warren Buffett and the Business of Life, [note: see my "best of"/review of The Snowball] Schroeder adds a new 31-page chapter covering events after the hardcover’s publication last year.

She details Buffett’s reaction to the credit crisis as it peaked in the fall of 2008, Barack Obama’s election as President, and Berkshire Hathaway’s loss of its coveted triple-A credit rating.

Schroeder candidly describes how Buffett made a “series of characteristic brilliant moves interspersed with some surprising errors.”"

Here is an excerpt from the new book chapter [via CNBC] (emphasis added),

“Treasury yields soon reached zero, but the flood of money failed to open the channels of business lending; credit remained virtually nonexistent. Buffett, who was at the time acting as the economy’s greatest cheerleader, lent at interest rates that in some instances bordered on usurious—$150 million of twelve percent notes in Sealed Air; $300 million of Harley-Davidson debt for a fifteen percent interest rate; $300 million of ten-percent contingent convertible senior notes from USG; $250 million of Tiffany bonds at ten percent; and a $2.7 billion, twelve-percent perpetual convertible stake in Swiss Re that would give Berkshire a thirty-percent ownership in the insurance giant.

This latter move baffled insurance industry insiders, including Swiss Re employees. Swiss Re was General Re’s biggest competitor; observers concluded that, on any terms, the investment to prop up Swiss Re made no sense because of its negative long-term strategic consequences to Berkshire—unless Buffett ultimately meant to take over Swiss Re and merge it with General Re. In the past, however, Buffett had made opportunistic insurance investments that worked against Berkshire’s long-term interests. Challenged on this, he would respond, “If we don’t do it, somebody else will.” Thus it was equally likely that there was no strategy whatsoever behind the deal besides extracting some fast cash from the pockets of the Swiss.

Throughout, Buffett became an even more frequent presence on CNBC and other networks. He filled the role of America’s statesman and father figure during the financial crisis, but he had also fallen into the trap of competing for attention instead of trusting that his sterling record would bring it to him. “Dignity, Warren, dignity,” counseled one of his friends—but Buffett had never wanted to be dignified; he had never minded looking silly if it would get people to pay attention to him. He was a performer and a showman, and now he feared the show might end. He would keep on giving as many performances as possible while there was time. And indeed, his profile grew and grew in proportion to how often he appeared on the magic medium of television.

uTest crowdsourced software testing service

uTest is company providing a crowdsourcing web/desktop/mobile/gaming software application testing service. Doron Reuveni is co-founder of uTest and the following is his Google Tech Talk presentation. Worth a watch.

By the way, we have Mob4Hire (a company based in Calgary) doing mobile phone software testing. Take a look if you like.

 

Rent the Runway – Netflix for Haute Couture

Interesting article from New York Times “A Netflix Model for Haute Couture” (emphasis added),

“Rent the Runway is a recession-era twist on the Internet rent-by-mail model, which has been used for things like textbooks and video games in addition to movies. Unlike those utilitarian items, however, the dresses offer a touch of Cinderella — on a budget.

Julia Harris, a 27-year-old graduate student living in New York, turned to Rent the Runway when she needed something chic for a fall wedding. For $50, she got a fuchsia Catherine Malandrino number with an elaborately ruffled bust that would have cost $495 to buy.

“It was so easy. You just wear it and drop it back in the mail to them,” Ms. Harris said. “I don’t spend $2,000 on a dress regularly, so it’s nice to be able to wear some of the more expensive brands I wouldn’t be able to buy otherwise. And instead of just buying one or two dresses for this season, I can still have a lot of things to wear.”

Rent the Runway was founded by two recent Harvard Business School graduates, Jennifer Hyman and Jennifer Carter Fleiss. Ms. Hyman said she got the idea for the service last year after watching her younger sister agonize over whether to buy an expensive new outfit to wear to a wedding.

Supreme Court looks at “Bilski” patent case

From Marketwatch (emphasis added),

Oral arguments in the case, “Bernard L. Bilski and Rand A. Warsaw v. David J. Kappos,” have been highly anticipated. Often referred to as the “Bilski” case, it was originally brought by an inventor who’d tried to win a business-method patent for a means to hedge against changes in commodity prices.

An array of technology giants, including Microsoft Corp. (MSFT 28.63, +0.11, +0.39%), IBM Corp. (IBM 124.03, +0.54, +0.44%) and others, have since taken a keen interest in the case, which could affect portions of their patent portfolios.

Microsoft, IBM and others operate impressive intellectual property operations, securing thousands of patents every year. However, the companies would also prefer to see some limits placed on the scope of what can be patented.

Noted examples of business methods that have won patents for their inventors — and ridicule from others for being overly broad – include a means to train janitors using video displays, and to entice customers to order more fast food. Technology companies generally see the granting of such patents as a threat to genuine innovation.

But a decision in the Bilski case may also cut into technology companies’ ability to patent software, legal experts say.

If the Supreme Court fully affirms a federal appeals court’s prior decision in Bilski, it could help invalidate many of the software patents now held by companies, and strike a blow at the intellectual property portfolios that underpin their business models.

How much does the iPhone really cost in Canada?

Interesting article from the National Post comparing iPhone cost from different providers, “How much does the iPhone really cost in Canada?“

[via Michael]

The Future of Shopper Marketing

Watched “The Future of Shopper Marketing“, an insightful speech from Andy Murray, Global CEO of Saatchi & Saatchi X. Here is an excerpt form Kevin Robert’s blog about the speech (emphasis added),

The presentation featured five key points (and a whole bunch of
arresting stories, insights, and examples):

1. Put yourself at the heart of the customer (most companies try it the other way around)
2. Navigate the experience of your customer from the “shelf back”
3. Create ways for customers to participate and be involved in your brands and store experiences
4. Explore the fringe/edge/margin for new ideas (Wal-Mart was a fringe idea, it came from Bentonville, not Chicago)
5. Find new ways for manufacturers and retailers to collaborate authentically based on trust, transparency and shared goals

Enjoy the presentation.

Calgary News – $39M for Brains, Flames H1N1 Vaccination, Free Wi-Fi

Some notable Calgary news in the last week,

1. U of C brain research gets record $39M gift – Philanthropist adds to earlier $10m donation – Thanks a million (really, $39 million) to Harley Hotchkiss (see Canadian Business profile)
2. Second person fired in Calgary Flames queue-jumping H1N1 vaccination controversy – a sad story in many ways
3. Calgary Hawkwood neighbourhood gets free Wi-Fi – cool

Late Bloomers

After I mentioned “Late Bloomers: Why do we equate genius with precocity?“ in this Chinese blog entry,  allow me to share with you one of my favourite passage (emphasis added) in “Late Bloomers“,

[...] Cézanne didn’t just have help. He had a dream team in his corner.

This is the final lesson of the late bloomer: his or her success is highly contingent on the efforts of others. In biographies of Cézanne, Louis-Auguste invariably comes across as a kind of grumpy philistine, who didn’t appreciate his son’s genius. But Louis-Auguste didn’t have to support Cézanne all those years. He would have been within his rights to make his son get a real job, just as Sharie might well have said no to her husband’s repeated trips to the chaos of Haiti. She could have argued that she had some right to the life style of her profession and status—that she deserved to drive a BMW, which is what power couples in North Dallas drive, instead of a Honda Accord, which is what she settled for.

But she believed in her husband’s art, or perhaps, more simply, she believed in her husband, the same way Zola and Pissarro and Vollard and—in his own, querulous way—Louis-Auguste must have believed in Cézanne. Late bloomers’ stories are invariably love stories, and this may be why we have such difficulty with them. We’d like to think that mundane matters like loyalty, steadfastness, and the willingness to keep writing checks to support what looks like failure have nothing to do with something as rarefied as genius. But sometimes genius is anything but rarefied; sometimes it’s just the thing that emerges after twenty years of working at your kitchen table.

“Sharie never once brought up money, not once—never,” Fountain said. She was sitting next to him, and he looked at her in a way that made it plain that he understood how much of the credit for “Brief Encounters” belonged to his wife. His eyes welled up with tears. “I never felt any pressure from her,” he said. “Not even covert, not even implied.”

Beautifully said.

Faking Funny Senator

I had never expected a Canadian political story could be funny, sad, and insightful all at the same time. Thanks to Conservative Senator Mike Duffy, we now have such a story. Have a watch of this rather nasty exchange video clip on a CBC political show.

Here is an excerpt (emphasis added) of what Don Martin, Sen. Duffy’s former colleague and former friend wrote in his article “Mike Duffy jumps the shark – It takes considerable effort to become a complete embarrassment“,

So instead of a rational discussion on the value of the new senators to reforming the process, a tuxedo-sporting Duffy appeared on Thursday’s Power and Politics show to interrupt, insult and fire innuendo at Stoffer, snarling in disgust as he blasted the popular MP as a ‘faker’.

Now, Duffy calling someone a faker equals pot calling the kettle black.

This is the same Duffy who, as host of his own politics show, presented himself for decades as journalistically neutral, then accepted Harper’s $130,000 appointment ten months ago and now devotes his energies to shamelessly shilling for the Conservatives.

That’s the definition of fakery for you, particularly given he was appointed after airing that infamous CTV interview with then-Liberal leader Stephane Dion, a bumbling performance credited by some as the turning point of the 2008 election campaign for Stephen Harper.

Not content to merely take Stoffer’s report personally, Duffy then blasted it as a political “diversion” for voters in a Nova Scotia byelection Monday where, he hopes, the New Democrats “are going to be trounced because they’re fakers.”

[...] MPs from all parties have consistently ranked Peter Stoffer as the least partisan and most personable MP in Canada today. And I’m frankly surprised the Canadian forces haven’t rushed to Stoffer’s side, because there is no more loyal political footsoldier on military matters than this 53-year-old MP.

It says a lot about Stoffer that the first person to rush to his defence was a Liberal. “When I asked him to come to my riding in London and hold a rally for the troops, he readily agreed even though he was from another party. That’s the kind of MP he is,” MP Glen Pearson wrote on a blog.

Here is an excerpt from an insightful G&M blog entry where I first read about this news,

The usually soft-spoken Liberal MP from London, Ont., is anything but – at least in print. On his blog, he jumps to the defence of his NDP colleague, Peter Stoffer, who was engaged in a rather nasty exchange last night on CBC with Conservative Senator Mike Duffy.

Human cost of the economic crisis

Calgary filmmaker Matt Palmer’s new NFB video instalment of “Human cost of the economic crisis“.

What the Dog Saw – Malcolm Gladwell

Thanks go to Leona for mentioning Malcolm Gladwell’s new book ”What The Dog Saw: And Other Adventures” and two of the articles she likes. I googled the articles and found them from Gladwell’s and I’m posting it to share.

“The Art of Failure: Why Some People Choke and Others Panic“

“Late Bloomers: Why do we equate genius with precocity?“

Bonus article from the book title: “What the dog saw: Cesar Millan and the movements of mastery“

P.S. Over the years, I’ve collected a few insightful video presentations by Gladwell. Check them out here and here. Have fun.

P.P.S. 想深一層，Leona 寫，

“香港曾是一個充滿活力、容許失敗、鼓勵「馬死落地行」的城市，但從什麼時候起，我們的社會開始害怕轉軌、不再包容主流以外的選擇、人們拒絕冒險？”

我看其實”鼓勵「馬死落地行」”，本身便有點要人順應「主流」的味道。香港人(中國人?)根本從來都不太包容”放棄薪高糧準的律師工作，開始寫作”(giving up a respectable job/pay and trying something “different”) 的人。這可能是 cultural mindset/peer pressure 的問題。在外國，地方大，人自由一點，因而亦可以自我一點。

Schmotoboard by Trevor Bielby

I am so happy to watch Calgarian Trevor Bielby getting a deal for his Schmotoboard at Dragons’ Den tonight. I will write more about the deal and the episode later. In the mean time, here is a video of Trevor showing off his Schmotoboard at the Calgary audition in March.

More news at NiagaraThisWeek and a nice Calgary Sun video.

Incidentally, the inventiveness in Trevor actually reminds me a little bit (just a little bit) of James Dyson (one of my most admired and successful inventors).

Congrats Trevor!

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Nov 16, 2009 Update: The following comment is posted by Trevor and reposted here. Interested buyer of Schmotoboards should contact him directly. Please mention you read this “free ad” here so may be Trevor can pay me to put up a paid ad! :)

I am preparing a move to Ontario. We will have the boards available Dec 15th [, 2009]. Earlier if things go well. Please emai me at trevorbielby@hotmail.com thanks…  [- Trevor]

Alice Schroeder on Warren Buffett and BNSF

After writing the insightful Warren Buffett biography The Snowball, Alice Schroeder has gained my respect and I look forward to read her analysis of Warren’s investment decisions.

Here is an excerpt from Alice’s Bloomberg column about the Burlington Northern Santa Fe deal and the 50-to-1 stock split, “Buffett Revisits Hunting Ground for Survivors“,

Warren Buffett called Berkshire Hathaway Inc.’s deal to buy the part of Burlington Northern Santa Fe Corp. that it doesn’t already own an “all-in wager on the economic future of the United States.”

If so, it’s a survivalist bet. The railroad business is never going away, but it’s not going to lead the economy out of recession, either. Buffett has spent a lot of time in the last year burnishing his legacy by tackling Franklin Roosevelt’s role as the verbal antidepressant for this wretched economy. As I have said before, though, Buffett isn’t as bullish as he sounds.

[...] A final motive I am confident about is that Buffett finally has a plausible excuse to split Berkshire’s B shares. He has spilled a lot of ink over the years decrying stock splits. A 50- to-1 ratio isn’t a stock split, it is a mincing.