Investors

Friday

Rory Sutherland

Variety is the spice of evolutionary life

I would have enjoyed mathematics more at school if I’d known what the real value was. The benefit of studying math isn’t numeracy at all: it’s creativity – a kind of benign neurodiversity. A new set of eyes through which to see the world, and the priceless lesson that the best way to solve a problem is to redefine it. Many of the most interesting people I’ve met have been mathematicians. Nassim Taleb taught me a whole new way to look at statistical variance. And, in a chance meeting with Stephen Wolfram, I heard something which at first surprised me, but which has needled me ever since.

evolution

Tuesday

Michael P. Gibson

What happened to the great American IPO dream?

There is a dark but funny one-act play called No Exit by Jean-Paul Sartre, that gloomy, chainsmoking, wall-eyed French existentialist. The play is about three characters trapped in a room from which they cannot escape. No flames, no pitchforks, no brimstone – it turns out the afterlife isn’t the fourth circle of Hell, but a dinner party you can’t leave. Round and round these characters go, each demanding what the others won’t give. In the end, the worst punishment isn’t torture. It’s just being stuck. “Hell,” goes the famous line, “is other people.” Well, mon Dieu, we now have a sequel.

IPO

Thursday

Stephen R. Soukup

The safest bets in Wall Street will be our downfall

It’s not often that anyone — much less an academic — writes a book that launches a revolution, but that’s exactly what Burton Malkiel did in 1973 when the Princeton economist published a short, potent book called A Random Walk Down Wall Street. As of 2023, the book is in its thirteenth edition. Malkiel famously insisted that “a blindfolded monkey throwing darts at the stock listings could select a portfolio that would do just as well as one selected by the experts,” and then he spent his entire career doing his best to prove that hypothesis.

passive