This week’s highlights: Fall, Netflix, and a Home Drone?

Issue 395

by David Wells – Nashville TN

Happy Friday –

Have you had a ‘normal moment’ recently?  One of the great points of debate in the pandemic is about the permanence of change in human behavior.  We all have adopted new norms and new routines – but will those remain when a vaccine is developed and widely deployed?  I think the ‘normal moments’ are very telling.  Whether it is kids being finally back in school, running into someone outside of a coffee shop, or dinner on a restaurant patio – the little glimpses we get of our prior life bode well for how quickly things will return someday.

Original Content –

“We Only Do Good Deals” is Not An Investment Strategy – Part 4

So, What Would You Pay?

There is an exceptionally high cost to mediocrity. Giving up the liquidity and diversification of the public markets for a direct deal is not something that should be contemplated lightly, especially considering the opportunity costs of not having access to capital in turbulent times. Family Offices must have their eyes wide open about how valuation affects the deals they choose to do.

Food for Thought

• NYT – ‘Father of the Bride,’ the Pandemic and Me
• Memphian – What can we learn about education during this pandemic?
• HuffPo – Mo Willems On Parenting And Inspiring Kids In 2020 – Credit AR
• WSJ – Free Market Can Deliver Free College  Remember paying your broker $200 a trade? Higher education is at that stage today.
• NYT – Our Days Have Always Been Running Out  I greet autumn with a stillness I never felt when I was younger and in such a hurry.

Business

• Forbes – How Netflix’s Reed Hastings Rewrote the Hollywood Script
• TBP – Interview with Will Danoff  Danoff manages the Contrafund.  “It’s the largest single manager fund with about $130 billion and the track record of the fund is just outstanding.” 
• ODAD – How Much Lifestyle Creep is Okay?  Imagine that you just received a raise at work and now you want to go out and celebrate
• II – The Mysterious London Traders Accused of Manipulating Oil Markets
• CAP – 10 1/2 Lessons from 23 Years at Marshall Wace

Culture / Tech / Science

• Twitter – Teaching Psych 101 While Trapped in an Elevator
• CNBC – Coca-Cola will enter U.S. hard seltzer market in first half of 2021  The seltzer wars continue.
• NYT – Amazon Unveils Drone That Films Inside Your Home. What Could Go Wrong?
• WashPo – The N95 shortage America can’t seem to fix  Nurses and doctors depend on respirator masks to protect them from covid-19. So why are we still running low on an item that once cost around $1?