Interesting Content of the Week — 21/ 8 /2021
I have been starting to get more into reading lately to inform myself on areas that I am interested in, and realized that there is just so much content to keep up with that it can get overwhelming and time-consuming to discern the good and useful content from the noise — hence the urge to write weekly blog posts to summarize the interesting content that I have come across and share it with you or anyone it might be helpful to.
Topics of interest in this newsletter would be centered around business, finance, technology, mental health and personal development.
Articles
I first came across the name Howard Marks when I was reading the book “Psychology of Money” (another interesting book that I would touch on later) — and in there, the author quoted him on something that I felt really made sense. I got curious and searched up on him, eventually finding a treasure trove of memos on his website all the way back to 1990.
Howard Marks is the co-founder and chairman of Oaktree Capital Management, the largest investor in distressed securities worldwide with an AUM of $153bn as of March 2021. He first started out his career at Citi as an equity research analyst, but the poor stock market performance at that point of time led him to explore the world of convertible and high-yield debt, which eventually brought him to much success.
What intrigued me about this particular memo was how Marks reconciled 2 famous yet divisive investment strategies: value vs growth investing. He forces us to think about what the creator of value investing was working with at the point of time, whether those factors are relevant today, and what the core philosophies were behind value investing that should still be applied vs the methods that could probably be let go of due to changing circumstances.
I also liked that the article was formulated around discussions that Marks had with his son, who had a very different view on what investing is like today compared to his father’s era.
Ultimately, this memo is a good read for those who wish to get a balanced perspective on how investment strategies are shaped with its market conditions and a framework to think about how we could think about future strategies moving forward.
2. The Generalist: Stripe: Thinking Like a Civilization
The Generalist is quickly becoming one of my favorite places to get content on up and coming companies, given its incredibly in-depth research into the companies that it writes on as well as their focus on technology and finance.
You could perhaps think of them as the US version of The Ken, combined with CB Insight’s sector and company reports, sprinkled with references to philosophy and other seemingly unrelated topics to their chosen sectors, combined altogether to create a symphony of insightful strategy deep-dives on interesting companies.
Their write-up on Stripe is probably the best representation of the kind of content that they offer. Reading through the article took me at least 3 hours to digest, and it wasn’t even the end of the article since I am a free user.
I learnt about the incredible minds of the two founders Patrick and John Collison, Stripe’s product development journey and roadmap, it’s approach to recruiting and company culture, approach to M&A and future potential growth strategies.
The article also links to the resources to which they used for their research, which typically brings you to even more high-quality and insightful information (think The Stratechery, Reboot etc.), and you will never run out of things to read and learn.
I’ll most probably be subscribing to it next month when my payday arrives, it’s that good.
Podcasts
Brene Brown is one of the most famous mental health researchers and bestselling authors, for good reason: she is probably the first person to tell us that being vulnerable is key to embracing who we are — not just at home, but at work, at school and within our own communities as well.
Her Dare to Lead podcast episode with Abby Wambach, a two-time Olympic gold medalist and Fifa Women’s World Cup champion, made me feel so empowered because so many of the lessons that Abby realized was resounding but yet not commonly spoken about.
2 key messages especially stuck with me:
(1) As women, we keep questioning ourselves as to whether we are good enough for something, because we were told growing up that we should never venture from the beaten path or bad things might happen. But good things only come when you have ventured off the path, to really go after something that you desire.
(2) Lead from the bench — even when life benches you when you think you have so much more to offer, you always get to choose your attitude and how you react to the situation. And it is in those situations where your character and your priorities truly get tested.
Maybe because the wounds of my recent job hunt are still fresh (my self-esteem took a really big hit and I am still trying to recover from it), that being reminded that its okay to not have lk ife go as planned and to have faith in myself is especially reassuring.
Favorite quote from the episode : “You were never Little Red Riding Hood. You were always the Wolf”.
2. Wild Woman’s Guide to Mindful Living Lesson 3: Love & Connection (Insight Timer)
I have been a user of Insight Timer since 2019, and one way it stands out compared to the rest of the many mental health apps out there is the amount of fantastic creator content on the platform. On the app, you get to choose meditation courses offered by thousands of different teachers across a variety of different topics, from staying mindful to cultivating self-love.
The Wild Woman’s Guide to Mindful Living by Dr. Candice Creasman was one of the courses that I chanced upon while looking for a course that could help me become more mindful while touching upon more women-related topics.
The lesson ‘Love & Connection’ in particular really struck a chord with me as to why despite me learning how to set boundaries, I am still unable to cultivate the kind of healthy relationships (romantically or friendship-wise) that I desire: it is because as humans, we have a tendency, right after being in a codependent situation with a lack of boundaries, is to go to the other extreme direction instead by putting up walls to protect ourselves.
Dr. Creasman shares that the ideal situation that we would want to be in is being able to set healthy boundaries while still remaining open and trusting to connecting with others; it is something that I am actively working on as I still struggle to fully let go and show people who I really am in fear of being rejected or hurt again.
