One Step Up Issue #17

This week, we look at intangible assets, the zippers on most of your apparel, Palantir, Michael Seibel (YC)on ILTB, (potentially) India's first consumer unicorn, Kelly Criterion, Side Hustles + more

1. One Job: Expectations and the Role of Intangible Investments

   Tour de force on intangible assets and expectations investing by Michael Mauboussin & Dan Callahan.

2. Fidelity’s $230 billion man explains why he dumped Tesla shares but still bets big on Warren Buffett

   I like best-of-breed companies. I like founder-led companies. And Warren Buffett is still quite entrepreneurial. He's not for everyone, but he's a very rational man and he's the greatest investor of probably this century.

3. The Ancient Universities

   One of the landmark moments in the history of the University of Oxford was when it and its sister university, Cambridge, secured the rights to a duopoly on higher education within England. Universities were multiplying in Europe (to the extent that there were more than 100 founded across the continent by 1500), but between the 1300s and 1820s, no new universities were established within England.

   This happened because Oxford and Cambridge used their initial early success and influence as the earliest universities in the country to petition King Edward III in the 1320s to block the formation of new universities within England. They also encouraged their alumni not to give lectures at any sites outside of the two campuses. This cemented the position of both universities and ensured they had a 500 year head-start on their eventual peers in building reputations, networks and influence within the country.

4. Ever checked the letter on your zippers? YKK - this is their story.

   A zipper will never make a garment, but it can break a garment.

5. Palantir and the Chaos Dance

6. Michael Seibel – Lessons from Thousands of Startups – [Invest Like the Best, EP.190]

   Mostly Borrowed Ideas @borrowed_ideas

   2/ Seibel is "The man who gets to see the future". So what does he see? Today's Founders are braver. They want to attack problems that have deeper and more positive impact on society.

   

7. How do supporters of FRAUD (politics, stocks, medicine) come to overlook it, rationalize or justify it as OK?

   Josh Wolfe @wolfejosh

   1/ Ask anyone if they support FRAUD––they say no. Want to grok how supporters of FRAUD (politics, stocks, medicine) come to overlook it, rationalize or justify it as OK. THIS is the manual👇👇 Albert Bandura’s ‘“Moral Disengagement”—how people do harm + live with themselves’

   

8. Can Licious Be India’s First Consumer Unicorn?

9. The Kelly Criterion: How to apply the famous betting formula in investment, trading and professional gambling

10. The Four Kinds of Side Hustles

    Side hustles can grow and evolve, but to work they need to have a few traits. They need to:

    • Solve a problem someone is already aware of

    • NOT require a lot of maintenance or hand-holding

    • Have a no-brainer path to profitability

    In my experience, there are 4 ways to build a successful side hustle:

    1. Buy an existing asset

    2. Launch a product on a marketplace with existing demand

    3. Launch a unique, one of a kind product in a new space where you can buy demand (Adwords, Facebook, etc.)

    4. Arbitrage (Craigslist, Airbnb, trading, Uber)

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Till next time.

Morgan Housel @morganhousel

“I follow my own methods, and tell as much or as little as I choose. That is the advantage of being unofficial.” - Sherlock Holmes, same for investors