Curious Ran: Inception
In the last year, I am going through a process of discovery with a growing desire to accumulate knowledge.
Reading books, articles, blogs, listening to podcasts, expanding my horizons and curiosity. It is like a spider web where the more I know, the more curious I become. I learned about History, Strategy, Innovation, Music, Physics, Art, Mindfulness, Finance, Cryptography, Computer Science, Nutrition, and more. The catalyst for this process was the birth of my baby twins that transformed my life.
“Spend Each day trying to be a little wiser than you were when you woke up” C. Munger
During this year I faced three challenges:
1/I wanted to learn in a more productive and efficient way.
2/I wanted to create a way to keep all my ideas, notes and quotes, together, in a way that is easily retrievable.
3/I wanted to find the right sources for accumulating that knowledge. Data is abundant but Good data is very hard to find.
I have come to realize that knowledge is the best thing I can share with people, and in this process, I might create value for them and spark new ideas over their lives.
I have decided to write a blog/Newsletter once a week/two weeks/three weeks/ a year(i don’t know yet) that will share these ideas and tools around Technology, Learning, Reading, Decision-Making, and Personal Finance.
From this post and forward, I will share some of my ideas, exciting things I find online, tools, hacks, books and podcasts.
so… this is the 1st one.
Finance:
Cryptocurrencies/Personal Finance/Equity Markets
1/Bitcoin: Since December 17' the Cryptocurrencies are experiencing a bull market. Bitcoin’s price has dropped from its ~20,000$ All-Time high ( December 17') to ~3,200$ (January 19').
This bull market is not the 1st one of course. Since its inception in 2009, Bitcoin had a number of bear markets, the current one being one of the longest.
Below is an analysis of Bitcoin’s major bear markets 2011–2019:
“Thus far the bitcoin price has suffered an 85% drawdown over 380 days, assuming that $3,200 was its trough. During 169 days in 2011, it dropped 93%, and over 407 days in 2013–15, 86%”.(Ark Invest)
2/Binance, the world’s leading crypto exchange started allowing deposits using Credit Cards with the help of an Israeli company called @Simplex. For non-crypto people this is a no-brainer, but similar to the Cannabis industry, the Cryptocurrency ecosystem is having difficulties working with the banking system. Fiat Onramps for crypto exchanges is one of the most burning issues in the industry and by allowing this new process, Binance is really reducing friction for retailers. It is very interesting to watch if this will have a big impact on Volume and acquisition of new users. For the full Binance story go here.
3/Last 200 years of US Stock Markets:
One of my favorites websites on the planet is Visual Capitalist. Those guys have done a deep dive analysis on the US stock markets sector in the last 200 years.
It is astounding how much the transportation sector lost its market share (39% to 2%). This shift goes in parallel with the stagnation of American car companies, not being able to compete with Japanese and German car manufacturers. Looking at the next wave of disruption in the automotive business(Autonomous vehicles), current automotive companies are facing very strong competition from technology companies. The top contenders in delivering the 1st autonomous vehicle are Google with Waymo, Uber, and Tesla to name a few.
The full article can be found here
On the left: sample companies exiting and entering the S&P 500 in the years 2013–2017. More on the topic here
I would love to hear your thoughts on how will the S&P 500 look like 100 years from now. Will the FANG companies vanish over the next 100 years as other market leaders did over the years?
4/Black Swan is a term coined by Nassim Taleb, a Finance Professor renowned for his book The Black Swan(surprisingly enough). This term describes rare, unpredictable events that have a fairly large impact. Here are 9 Black swans events that had a great effect on financial markets. Thanks, Faisal Khan!
Electrical Vehicles:
Tesla’s Model 3 Is cheaper to own than the Toyota Camry. that’s crazy, right?
Similar to Photovoltaics technology (PV), economies of scale and the adoption of new technologies like Electrical Vehicles(EV), in particular, will become much more abundant, once cost per unit crosses a certain threshold of affordability.
In EV, the comparison parameter is Cost Per Mile(CPM); how much does it cost to drive for 1 mile. When comparing the current Tesla Model with the market leader, Toyota Camry, Tesla Model 3 is currently more affordable in terms of CPM in the US.
Battery cost per KW/H has dropped from 1,000$(2008) to ~250$ (2015) and is projected to reach 150$ in 2022. A drop of 85% in cost!
And here is the PV perspective:
PV cost in the US dropped from 7.24$ to 2.8$ per Watt (61.3% drop in 7 years)
CPM comparison between Tesla Model 3, Toyota Camry and Ford Focus:
Here is a breakdown of the model 3 cost structure:
Bottom-up calculation:
The main cost buckets for owning a car are gasoline(or charging costs), maintenance, insurance, tax, and financing. When comparing those “buckets” to a Toyota Camry, Tesla is already winning on the price war. Here is a link to the financial model where you can crunch the numbers yourself.
Startups:
Dealroom has done a great analysis of investment trends in European Startups for 2018.
In Total, only 19% of the Startups reached Series A. A key driver for getting from Seed round to Series A are your investors.
From those who reached round A, 40% of those were supported by Quartile 1 investors. This is a no-brainer to all of the guys with much experience since top tier investors have a proven track record, their equity( professionality not stocks), and an extensive network of investors/portfolio companies/ staff to support each other.
In order to provide the right context, Seed round in Europe is around 1M$, Series A is between 4M$ and 15M$.(I was too lazy to provide with the US numbers)
Environment:
1/Our children might witness the meltdown of the major glaciers on the planet.
According to the NY Times, In the year 2100, all glaciers of the Himalayas will melt. The Khumbu glacier in Nepal which is located near Mount Everest is at great risk. The glacier, reaching 7,600 at its top, is the highest glacier in the world and the biggest in Nepal.
Prakash Mathema/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images
The full article is available here
2/ 2018 was one of the warmest years EVER measured on planet earth
2018 was one of the warmest years since scientists began collecting data on global temperature in 1880. This is according to new research by NASA and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. NASA’s temperature analyses include more than 6,300 sensors located around the globe. The change in global temperatures is getting more extreme and the past decade was the warmest decade ever recorded. The chart below illustrates it fairly well:
The picture below illustrates the temperature change in the last 5 years:
Corruption
Israel is well famous for innovation, great food, warm weather and for Israelis, also corruption.
Visual Capitalist has produced another great Infographic that maps World Corruption. It seems like Israel is placed in a relatively good neighborhood, not far away from S.Korea…. but not that of a good neighborhood near Italy.
We all fool ourselves from time to time in order to keep our thoughts and beliefs consistent with what we have already done or decided. Robert Cialdini
Books:
Influence by Robert Cialdini. A masterpiece in Psychology, Economic Behavior and a top-ranked book on Charlie Munger’s list.
Books I’m reading right now: Alexander the Great by Philip Freeman, Life 3.0 by Max Tegmark.
Podcasts:
Stuff you should know — This great podcast shares 10-60 minutes episodes on various topics ranging from Olive Oil to how Ping Pong works and how Lobotomies work. This is one of the best “General” podcasts I know of, kinda reminds me of the “Word of the day” by Wikipedia.
Thanks, Yoni Mindel for the inspiration, and Omri Carmon for the brainstorming sessions and for being a smart dude. Here is Yoni’s recent Blog post.
Disclaimer: This is not financial advice. I am not a financial advisor and you should always do thorough research before doing what I say. Naaa just joking.
