Insights

In tech circles, it feels like Silicon Valley has been around forever. But in reality, the region’s first big venture-backed tech companies launched barely over 50 years ago. Other global hubs, including Seattle, Bangalore and Beijing, have even shorter track records for startup funding. And tech hotspots like Austin and Sao Paolo, have really taken…
Read more

To the Shareholders of Berkshire Hathaway Inc.: Berkshire earned $81.4 billion in 2019 according to generally accepted accounting principles (commonly called “GAAP”). The components of that figure are $24 billion of operating earnings, $3.7 billion of realized capital gains and a $53.7 billion gain from an increase in the amount of net unrealized capital gains that exist…
Read more

Probably you have read it before but still an interesting one: Why Some People Have All the LuckBy Professor Richard Wiseman, University of Hertfordshire Why do some people get all the luck while others never get the breaks they deserve? A psychologist says he has discovered the answer. Ten years ago, I set out to…
Read more

40% of multinational profits are shifted to tax havens each year Researchers from the University of California, Berkeley and the University of Copenhagen estimate that close to 40% of multinational profits (more than $650 billion in 2016) are shifted to tax havens each year. This shifting reduces corporate income tax revenue by nearly $200 billion,…
Read more

HOW DOES THE ECONOMY REALLY WORK?This simple but not simplistic video by Ray Dalio, Founder of Bridgewater Associates, shows the basic driving forces behind the economy, and explains why economic cycles occur by breaking down concepts such as credit, interest rates, leveraging and deleveraging. ECONOMIC PRINCIPLES https://economicprinciples.org

Each year, Jeff Bezos writes an open letter to Amazon’s shareholders. Over the last two decades, these letters have become an unparalleled source of insight into how the world’s richest man — and his company — think about customers, innovation, building products, and more.Today, Amazon is a hugely successful, precedent-breaking company.The online bookseller didn’t turn a…
Read more

This speaks to what can happen when we don’t do a reasonable check on the math. Also a good example of arbitrage. In 1995 Pepsi ran a promotion where people could collect Pepsi Points and then trade them in for Pepsi Stuff. A T‑shirt was 75 points, sunglasses were 175 points, and there was even…
Read more

If you’re a CEO of a Series A enterprise startup – you’re probably thinking through critical questions: How do I create a scalable, repeatable sales process? How do I transfer from founder-led selling to hiring a team? As an enterprise VC fund, we at Work-Bench are often asked these questions and more, as startups think…
Read more

One of the questions I ask the most successful people I interview or meet is: “What book have you gifted most to others, and why?”  Below is a mega-list of the most-gifted and favorite books of 50-60 people like billionaire investor Peter Thiel, Tony Robbins, Arnold Schwarzenegger, elite athlete Amelia Boone, Malcolm Gladwell, legendary Navy SEAL Commander Jocko Willink,…
Read more

A major takeaway from this project is the importance of updating in phases instead of trying to update for all users at the same time. I had once pushed the wrong update to all of my users — it did not go well and a lot of users crashed.It’s also important to respond to reviews to help…
Read more