Liberty

lol, wow. A few days ago when NFLX tanked there were about 3-4 threads about Tilson and NFLX , and in one of them someone asked "was Tilson long?" and I replied that he was short but that an open letter by Reed Hastings had convinced him to sell, or something like that. Then later in one of those threads I saw a comment at the bottom of the page that said something like "he was short so he covered, he didn't sell" and I thought it was addressed to me because I remembered making that mistake in terminology. But apparently this wasn't even in the thread where I wrote that. I can understand the confusion, but be assured that I am my own man :D

Ahh, I wasn't the only one that noticed that. What are you guys referring to? I've been on the net and BBSes since 1996, and it's the first time that I'm accused of being someone else. :P

Jobs was Ebenezer Scrooge? Now that's pushing your point way too far. Jobs had failings, but I'm sure he was doing the best that he could. I don't think he was cackling maniacally every time he did something 'bad', trying to think of better ways to be hard on people. He had lots of friends and loyal employees. I think everybody can concede that he has very sharp edges, but he had lots of very good sides too, and exaggerating in either direction is distorting the facts. And context matters: Jobs was in lots of tough situations, under lots of pressure, with lots of people depending on him and scrutinizing each of his moves, people pushing him to change his mind or compromise because they were so sure he was wrong, all of it with while being very sick during the past decade. If we ever found ourselves in that kind of position, we might not always come out looking perfect (especially since every time you're nice, nobody notices, but every time you aren't, people immediately assume that it's all that you are).

[amazonsearch]Free Capital[/amazonsearch] This was mentioned in a thread on the general board. I got my copy today. will let you know what I think once I've read it.

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/politics/wildcat-construction-strikes-in-quebec-continue-for-second-day/article2213729/ That's a lot of money, especially if they run the mill 7 days a week!

Saying this is like saying that Tim Cook turned Apple around. No. They all contributed a lot and are great men in their own fields, but it's Jobs that got them together and gave them power and had the final word on everything including where each screw went on a product and on which of the many prototypes would make it to market. Ive's great, but Apple without Ive but with Jobs would probably still have been great, while Apple with Ive but no Jobs would probably have been kind of like what it was in the 90s and Ive's idea would never have risen to the surface like in all those other companies that have talented designers but still make crappy products... There are more great industrial designers out there (even though not that many) than there are Steve Jobs-caliber CEOs, it's just that most of those industrial designers' work is being diluted by the leadership of other companies (just imagine Ive being hired by Microsoft -- would it transform the company? Then imagine Ballmer being replaced by Jobs, if he was still alive). I'm also a Tesla fan, btw.

I'm not saying it doesn't matter, I'm saying that if you want to study assholes, there are billions of those and singling out Churchill or Jobs isn't productive. But people who achieve what Jobs or Churchill (or even Bill Gates, who could be very mean to his employees and competitors) did are very few, so those parts of their lives are worth studying. Missing the good because of the bad is counter-productive, but that's just my 2 cents.

I think some people are missing the point. So what if Einstein treated his wife badly and if Paul Dirac was sometime a cold and remote asshole and if half the great musicians/writers/painters over the centuries were dysfunctional weirdos? Will they be remembered in history for how normal and nice they were? Are you looking for a friend or a parental figure when you read a book about them? Are you the kind of person who reads the Snowball and is then angry at Buffett because he shoplifted and mostly wasn't there in a conventional "good husband/father" way for his wife and kids? I'm sure that Munger has also pissed off countless people over the years, maybe more than Jobs; should people ignore what he says and what he did just because they think he's not nice and he doesn't sugar coat stuff? To achieve extreme results, at both end of the spectrum, you often need a person with an extreme personality (skills, obsessions, character traits, independence, etc), and that often magnifies both talents and flaws and clashes with societal norms and will rub many people the wrong way. But if you look at how Apple employees venerated Jobs and how millions of people grieved his death, it looks like the bad parts were more than compensated by the good ones. So how about being less judgemental and instead learning from other people's success and mistakes.

http://allthingsd.com/files/2011/10/rometty-ibm-380x280.png http://allthingsd.com/20111025/ibm-has-a-new-ceo-meet-virginia-rometty/

Once you have a reputation as a media-friendly person, the journalists probably start calling you all the time to get a quote for their story about something else or to have your comments about the latest thing you are involved with... Parsad, you are a gentleman and a scholar and your posts are the highlight of this forum! The more you post, the happier I am!

Here's the company release: http://www.marketwire.com/press-release/fortress-paper-announces-temporary-work-delay-tsx-ftp-1577312.htm

I think you meant to say cover his short... Yes, of course. Sorry. I'm too used to 'long' terminology because I don't do shorts :)

Was he long? If I remember correctly, he was short but an open letter from Reed Hastings convinced him to drop his position.. Or something of the sort.

Thanks. It's in the mail!

Looks like some construction worked union stuff will probably slow down production at Thurso (construction all over the province is being affected): http://www.radio-canada.ca/nouvelles/societe/2011/10/21/003-chantiers-construction-debrayage.shtml http://www.radio-canada.ca/nouvelles/societe/2011/10/24/001-debrayage-construction-syndicats.shtml Hopefully it won't last too long...

What show do you mean? Did I miss something? edit: NVM, found it: http://www.macrumors.com/2011/10/23/the-full-walter-isaacsonsteve-jobs-interview-from-60-minutes/

If you're interested in the tech sector, Founder at Work is amazing. Interviews with tons of startup founders: http://www.amazon.com/Founders-Work-Stories-Startups-Problem-Solution/dp/1430210788/

He seems to have studied random wall street traders, so I'm not surprised that he came up with that conclusion. I don't think it's meant to applied to all investors, including value ones. But in any case, what's most interesting about the work of Daniel K. and Amos T. is not their work that is directly about investing. It's more about this kind of stuff: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_cognitive_biases

Thanks for the link. He seems to basically agree with Buffett and Munger that most of the finance industry adds very little value.

A lot changed this year, but I'm ready to keep what I'm holding now for a long time. Not sure yet what a typical year would be like for me, so I won't vote, but I suspect it would be <25%.

I'm not sure I understand. Where does the NYT article talks about investing and luck? In any case, the NYT piece is pretty superficial and that writer isn't known for his accuracy about scientific matters. I recommend reading the source material.

My copy has been pre-ordered for a few weeks. Can't wait! Another good one by Isaacson is his bio of Ben Franklin. I also have the one he wrote about Einstein, but haven't read it yet.

The damage you describe is very real, but I'm not convinced that the alternative is less damage, both in the short and long term.

I looked up that photo. Hilarious! 8)