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I was tricked into thinking I had “grit”

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Re: I was tricked into thinking I had “grit”

#201

Post by s1artibartfast »

kansface wrote: post #191
DobryMorozov wrote: post #183

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The majority of Warren's investments are in the secondary market. These transactions are effectively just transferring ownership and don't actually make cash infusions into the companies at all. He makes some primary market investments and allocates capital between his fully owned subsidiaries. But I think many people naturally wonder the value to society of getting rich by buying and selling things in a secondary ma…

> But I think many people naturally wonder the value to society of getting rich by buying and selling things in a secondary market. Obviously, buying and selling stuff in a secondary market is enormously beneficial to the people doing the buying and selling (or else they wouldn't be doing it)... For instance, if I start a business, I want to be able to sell it to Warren Buffet. When that doesn't happen, I want to be…

I think your question conflates the primary and secondary markets. If you start a company and sell all or part to Buffet, that would be a primary market, and money goes into the company which can be used to grow. Same for YC. On the other hand, if you buy stock from another private investor, the company sees no money

Re: I was tricked into thinking I had “grit”

#202

Post by s1artibartfast »

DobryMorozov wrote: post #183
s1artibartfast wrote: post #169

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>I think his claim to be a beneficial 'allocator of capital' is bogus. He tends to invest in established exploitative companies. His investments have been made on an almost exclusive basis of growing wealth, which in the end is a very sterile end to aim for. How do you separate this from a more general critique of capitalism? How should capital allocation work?

The majority of Warren's investments are in the secondary market. These transactions are effectively just transferring ownership and don't actually make cash infusions into the companies at all. He makes some primary market investments and allocates capital between his fully owned subsidiaries. But I think many people naturally wonder the value to society of getting rich by buying and selling things in a secondary ma…

I am sympathetic to your viewpoint and will give it some more thought. That said, my immediate thought would be that a fluid and healthy secondary market is necessary for a primary market to exist at all. Also, a secondary market allows growth companies to channel revenue into investment instead of paying out dividends. Last and relatedly, the overall secondary market return makes it nonzero and this incentivizes investment in lieu of dividends.

Re: I was tricked into thinking I had “grit”

#203

Post by GistNoesis »

saeranv wrote: post #200
GistNoesis wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It seems that it's more a problem with your inability to optimize correctly than anything else. But you are on the right way. You are trying to do a multiple-objective optimization one objective at a time, and cycling through them. You have already noticed that you can't totally forget the other objectives when working on one, otherwise you lose more over a cycle. In fact what you seem to be aiming for is a single ob…

I think the biggest challenge to do this is trying to quantify probable outcomes from inputs. I don't necessarily have a model at hand that can predict my fitness level from inputs of time, and effort. I wonder if it's useful to incorporate Bayesian probability here to account for this. Like, I could start with my prior belief of what my fitness level would be given time/effort input, collect the data, then update my…

You can often find existing models. For example, in fitness/nutrition there is plenty of bro-science available. Tracking estimators like weight or IMI, calory burning formulas.

You can probably find the optimal resource allocation strategy if you are well-versed in multi-armed bandit and reinforcement learning. But often just respecting general optimization principle is enough.

You can do some gradient descent on time/effort resource allocation per activity parameters. As long as you don't change these parameters too fast (which OP was doing), and have a way to evaluate your progress (you can use Bayesian estimates aka Kalman or particle Filter there to track those smoother non-observable states). You will be just fine. It's not rocket science and you need to have a way to internalize it so that it can become practical.

The simple heuristic I suggested was make sure you always progress in all activities you care about, and avoid common optimization pitfalls such as oscillations (i.e. lack of stability) and local minimas.

Those damn oscillations are a typical symptom of being too greedy when selecting the step size. You think you are not progressing fast enough so you make a big adjustments then lose all progress. You can probably converge faster by using some line search procedure to find the optimal step-size, but the conservative approach of not changing things too quickly (small step-size) and letting time do the the work is good enough.

Usually you also don't start from scratch, as you are already doing some activities and are near equilibrium. And you add another activity, you slowly increase the time/effort investment parameters for this activity while taking it from used resources and keeping the monitoring to make sure slow but consistent progress is still happening everywhere.

Re: I was tricked into thinking I had “grit”

#204

Post by wegs »

aurbano wrote: post #131
wegs wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To me, a lifelong search for happiness seems flawed and ephemeral. It's culturally very American, but doesn't seem to lead to happiness. I strive for purpose, meaning, and positive impact. When I succeed, I'm happy. That drives how I pick my job and how I run my family life. The Frankl book "Man's Search for Meaning" makes a good case for this as a life goal. I'm not going to my categorical statements like yours. But…

Maybe it's just the wording we use, but when you say "But in my life philosophy, it's not so much important to be happy, as to be a good person and to have a fulfilling life." Doesn't that mean that being a good person and having a fulfilling life is what makes _you_ happy? This is something I think a lot about, and I know this is a philosophical topic that has been around for ever, but how do we call the state in wh…

No, it doesn't. There are definitely times when being a good person and having a fulfilling life does make me happy. There are also times when it's tough and painful and makes me unhappy. There are more of the former than the latter (and I do believe striving for a meaningful life is a good strategy for reaching happiness), so there's a clear correlation, but they're not the same. They're not actually even close.

There's an even bigger difference in why you do things. If you do something because it helps someone (and that results in you being happy) it's very different than if you do the exact same thing to make you happy (and that thing also results in helping someone).

The philosophy I described is close to the philosophy of Aristotle or Confucius, albeit without the same rigid roles and social hierarchies which they use to define virtue.

But the mental state of being content where you are is another thing entirely. That's related to several Eastern philosophies (Zen and Buddhism especially), but it's very different from the American philosophy of striving for individual happiness, or the Aristotelian / Confucian philosophy of striving for virtue.

Re: I was tricked into thinking I had “grit”

#205

Post by prostheticvamp »

oska wrote: post #98
wegs wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why do you think he's a parasite? He seems to live a modest life, and work very hard to make the economy work more efficiently. He's giving almost all of his money to philanthropic causes, and seems to campaign for all the right causes. He maintains a pretty low profile for his level of success (he doesn't even support philanthropy through his own family foundation; he went with Gates, since he thought they'd do a be…

I think his claim to be a beneficial 'allocator of capital' is bogus. He tends to invest in established exploitative companies. His investments have been made on an almost exclusive basis of growing wealth, which in the end is a very sterile end to aim for. > I'll tell you why I like the cigarette business. It costs a penny to make. Sell it for a dollar. It's addictive. And there's fantastic brand loyalty. — Buffett,…

I read the linked article and it was terrible. It kept playing a sleight-of-Hans between him being an example of what monopolies empower (which he is), and he as somehow the cause of monopolization (which it doesn’t support at all, it just makes meaningful glances in that direction). Quite a lot of its arguments boil down to “he’s rich,” as though that were a sin in itself.

No one who went into that article without a pitchfork in hand is likely to emerge with one.

Re: I was tricked into thinking I had “grit”

#206

Post by koheripbal »

pradn wrote: post #155
unreal37 wrote: post #138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think there is as much business opportunity in Western Europe due to taxes and regulations. This is why the US has given birth to the majority of big businesses in the world in the last 20 years. A lot of startups that started elsewhere, moved to the US to continue their growth. Europe might have some quality of life elements such as health care, vacation time, and regulations to protect citizens and workers.…

The US might be the best place to start a world-conquering multinational like Google or Facebook, but it's not the best place to live for general social mobility or for starting a small business. Small business startups play a lesser role in our economy than other Western European countries. ( https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2012/10/think-w... ) The entrepreneurship rate has been declining in the US for…

This is provably false. It is incredibly hard to create a small business in western Europe. Capital borrowing is difficult, employee staffing is onerous, and local officials make sure that larger established companies compete more strongly in their areas.

That Atlantic article is both antiquated, and cherry picks data just after the 2008 crisis.

Re: I was tricked into thinking I had “grit”

#207

Post by koheripbal »

chepaslaaa wrote: post #172
mardifoufs wrote: post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I see how it could sound weird to the eyes of an American, but the only place where I think his statement would be incorrect is Western Europe. A part from that I'm confident that a majority of people around the world would very much like to either have been born in the US or give their children the opportunity to live there. At least where I'm originally from, emigration to the US is seen as an an incredibly desirab…

I'm canadian, I sure as fuck wouldn't want to emigrate to the USA. Warren Buffet has huge biases and blind spots when it comes to sociological analysis. I strongly doubt the man understands what it's like to be making 7$ an hour working at Dennys somewhere in the bible belt because the public school system left you semi-illiterate, or living in any heavily criminalized urban area, or picking fruits in california beca…

> huge biases and blind spots when it comes to sociological analysis.

...apparently so do you since your next sentence is full of such incredible hyperbole...

> 7$ an hour working at Dennys somewhere in the bible belt because the public school system left you semi-illiterate, or living in any heavily criminalized urban area, or picking fruits in california because you had to escape cartels in mexico/central america.

Re: I was tricked into thinking I had “grit”

#208

Post by koheripbal »

yaitsyaboi wrote: post #120
koheripbal wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

...and that's why he also said on Monday: "If you took someone and asked them, without them knowing whether they'd be born boy or girl, black or white, with or without any relevant talent, or to rich or poor parents, and asked them when and where they'd like to be born. They'd answer, 'The US, in modern times'. There is no place on Earth, and no time in history, that a person can make the most of their talents, as to…

That sounds like a very mid 20th century POV. Which I totally get for Buffett. Most rankings of social mobility put the US outside the top 20. The highs are higher here, but the path to get there, especially from the bottom 10%, is more difficult than almost any country we consider a peer.

I don't think that's accurate. Economic mobility in the US has been so high for so long, that it stands to reason that most families in the US have already achieved their potential.

What is probably a more telling indicator is the degree to which poor IMMIGRANTS are able to move up - an indicator that the US dominates.

https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2019/11/1/20942642/s...

Re: I was tricked into thinking I had “grit”

#209

Post by koheripbal »

ausbah wrote: post #121
koheripbal wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

...and that's why he also said on Monday: "If you took someone and asked them, without them knowing whether they'd be born boy or girl, black or white, with or without any relevant talent, or to rich or poor parents, and asked them when and where they'd like to be born. They'd answer, 'The US, in modern times'. There is no place on Earth, and no time in history, that a person can make the most of their talents, as to…

Economic mobility is down in most wealthy nations, especially in the US. Not to mention the demonstrable differences in outcome people have based on familial wealth, race, location, etc.

Innate potential as well.

Re: I was tricked into thinking I had “grit”

#210

Post by koheripbal »

thecureforzits wrote: post #122
koheripbal wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

...and that's why he also said on Monday: "If you took someone and asked them, without them knowing whether they'd be born boy or girl, black or white, with or without any relevant talent, or to rich or poor parents, and asked them when and where they'd like to be born. They'd answer, 'The US, in modern times'. There is no place on Earth, and no time in history, that a person can make the most of their talents, as to…

Another classic: "I think that actually people in my situation should be paying more tax." - Warren Buffett

...and almost everyone agrees with him. The problem is that any time a Bill is put forward to raise taxes on "the rich", it also happens to include the upper-middle class, not the rich.
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