Suddenly Savant, The $60bn tax heist, and Frank Gehry
Photo by Alessio Lin on Unsplash
Issue 362
by David Wells – Nashville TN
From the Editor
Happy Friday to You,
Original content this week:
David
Original content this week:
- Family Offices, Not Just Politicians, Face an Urban / Rural Divide The locales that families build their wealth in are often times closely intertwined with the family’s identity and narrative. Yet like all considerations for a family office, the choice of geography is an important one, and importantly the ‘default’ answer should not be immediately adopted simply because it is the default.
David
Food for Thought
- Scientific American – Brain Gain: A Person Can Instantly Blossom into a Savant—and No One Knows Why. Some people suddenly become accomplished artists or musicians with no previous interest or training. Is it possible innate genius lies dormant within everyone?
- LaTimes – Blankets, canned tuna and faith in God — how fleeing Venezuelans survive. Economic systems matter in this most heartbreaking and preventable of tragedies.
- Outside – I Slept Outside for a Week and It Changed My Life (Really) What a restless coffee drinker learned from going to circadian-rhythm rehab (a tent in the woods).
- Bloomberg – If You’re So Smart, Why Aren’t You Rich? New research suggests personality has a larger effect on success than IQ.
Business
- World Economic Forum – The Global Risks Report 2020. Think about this as the knowable list of things to worry about in 2020. Importantly, 2020 is the first year where all top 5 risks are tied to the environment.
- II – Institutions Know They’re Being Hoodwinked by Private Equity – Aka you can’t eat IRR
- NYT – Dying Malls? This One Has Found a Way to Thrive Aventura Mall, near Miami, isn’t shy about investing in its infrastructure and is widely considered one of the most successful malls in the country.
- Stratechery – Visa, Plaid, Networks, and Jobs Behold the power of the multi-sided network.
Culture/Tech/Science:
- Big Think – Why highly intelligent people suffer from more mental and physical disorders Your brain’s heightened sensitivity can make you perceptive and creative. But it’s a double-edged sword, researchers find.
- NYT – What Everyone Can Learn From Parents of Big Families When you’re parenting at scale, keeping things simple is key.
- Medium – The Man Who’s Spending $1 Billion to Own Every Pop Song Music mogul Merck Mercuriadis raised hundreds of millions of dollars to buy the rights to hits by Taylor Swift, Timbaland, and Bruno Mars. Is he insane?
- NYT – This Bond Wears Corduroy The super spy is getting a new look, courtesy of the Italian designer Massimo Alba.