txlaw

The only thing I would add is that part of the disagreement we are having may be a result of terminology. When I say "know the business," I'm talking about understanding how the business works very well, as well as the risks involved. One's degree of knowledge about what's going on at a business is variable and is always less for an OPMI. As I mentioned in my PM, it's just not possible for anyone who is not management to know what's going on at a biz. And when you have a large organization, especially with a large number of employees, even management doesn't know what's going on completely. That's why you have policies that get put in place to protect against those risks, as well as a general ethos you try to instill in the corporate culture. The London Whale incident is exactly the type of thing I'm talking about. I had no idea what was going on at JPM's derivatives books. And neither did Jamie Dimon, who is one of the best managers in the country, IMO. Yet, after that blew over, I took the opportunity to invest in the JPM TARP warrants because I believe Dimon has put into place a system that will protect JPM even in the face of such financial disasters. It's not simply about "understanding the business" when it comes to investing in JPM. You must demand a MOS when investing in something like JPM, which I feel I have it, and you must also be confident in management.

Below is my PM to Gio in its entirety. --------- Gio, forgive me if I get a bit heated in these discussions. I just tend to believe quite strongly in what I'm saying and sometimes that comes out in a forceful manner. Perhaps that's the lawyer coming out in me! I would agree with you said here. I guess we simply disagree on where BAC belongs on the rating scale. I actually believe that BAC will be one of the best banking utilities to own going forward, and that's because of what Moynihan has been doing to clean the place up. It's like getting to buy into WFC before people realize how great a deposit base it has, and how good they are at underwriting over the long cycles. But that's what makes a market, I guess. I guess I disagree with you because we're talking about publicly held companies that tend to retain their earnings, as opposed to distributing them. To the extent that earnings are kept by a publicly held company and you have no control over the distribution of those retained earnings, you are always relying on what the market (or some private buyer) currently values your business at when it comes to ability to realize value. And the only way to determine what the market will eventually value your business at (IV) is by relying on the wealth the company actually generates and the risk involved, with steep discounts to IV often being the key factor in "intelligent investing," as per Ben Graham, because you are building in a margin of safety. So I see very little distinction between "buying and hold" and "buying under IV and selling at IV" when we talk about non-control investing. I would agree with you that you probably don't need as much conviction if you buy at a huge discount to IV, versus buying a business at a "fair" price, where error can cause you to lose quite a bit of money. However, simply because a fellow buys below IV and sells at IV, and doesn't need to have as much conviction, doesn't necessarily mean that he knows less about the business he owns than the "buy and hold" investor, especially if that fellow practices "focus investing." IMO, one of the best approaches to wealth generation in the capital markets is to buy well below IV and to understand the business very well. As to knowing a large number of businesses, I think this depends on one's investing acumen and the time one has to put into understanding a biz. WEB can keep track of and understand a crazy amount of businesses, and although he cannot write the checks on a daily basis (he doesn't even micromanage at his subsidiary businesses), I feel confident that he probably understands and knows these businesses better than most people on this board know and understand the businesses in their concentrated portfolios. Now, one can never know as much about what's going on in a non-controlled biz as management, but this is the case for any capital markets investment. Which is why you generally look for good to great management. But the degree to which it is necessary to rely on management depends on the nature of the business (think, KO or PG or a simple utility) and the price you have paid. I agree that the potential upside in utilizing insurance float is greater than utilizing sticky bank deposits (when I say "bank", I'm talking about commercial banks) because of: (1) the ability to have smaller teams controlling a great amount of leverage, and (2) the greater ability to concentrate the asset side in lucrative ideas. So, yeah, I agree that's why the greats tend to use insurance companies as their compounding vehicles. But, IMO, the dangers associated with underwriting insurance policies, even with small teams, is greater than having large dispersed teams underwriting bank loans in a diversified manner, and using sound banking principles. (Remember, FFH almost went under because of the unforeseen dangers associated with their policy books.) The key, though, is that I'm talking about sound banking, which tends to be what we call plain vanilla commercial banking. So banking, by its nature, can be a lot easier and safer than insurance even with a less competent team, and using far more professionals. In fact, scale can be a big plus for banks. And when you get a competent team in place (like at M&T bank or at WFC), banking can be an outstanding business. That's why WEB once said he would be willing to put a large slug of his portfolio into WFC during the financial crisis. However, banking will never have the same upside as the few outstanding insurance operations that exist in the world.

A fool can take a company down whether it's a big or small organization. That shouldn't lead you to conclude that a big organization cannot be more resilient than a smaller organization. Coca Cola is a very resilient business, and that is in part due to its size and scale (you can't attribute all of its success to the brand). In fact, Coca Cola is one of those businesses that would be hard to be taken down by a person at the top who is a fool. (As Peter Lynch recommended, and as WEB once endorsed, "Go for a business that any idiot can run -- because sooner or later, an idiot probably is going to run it.") Both banks and insurance companies recognize the benefits of diversifying their business to have increased resilience. Indeed, ask Mr. Watsa whether he wants his insurance operations to be more diversified, and I'm sure he would say yes, so long as the underwriting remains under control. And FFH also appears to be diversifying into non-insurance businesses. The bottom line is that when it comes to business diversification, it is not a question of practice vs. theory. In practice, one can definitely have a more resilient company through diversification. You shouldn't throw this notion out simply because you think that the "big banks" are not resilient. You are free to call anything that isn't "buy and hold" investing as "trading." I'm sure most of us on the board wouldn't, but what you call it doesn't matter anyways. What's wrong with what your arguing is that you are assuming that anyone who is buying and selling a business in a short time frame (under your rubric of what is a short time frame) doesn't understand the business and is relying solely on "statistical cheapness." This is just wrong. I guarantee you there are folks on this board who know FFH far better than recent purchasers, but who have sold FFH when it reached IV. Rather than conflating "trading" with "not understanding the business," why not say what I think you are probably getting at, which is that you only want to invest in businesses on a "buy and hold" basis if you can "control and manage" the company, or if you are confident that the management team in place is a solid one that has "skin in the game." If that's the case, that's fine. But all these other arguments about how investors who don't invest the same way don't "understand the business" or are not being "conservative" simply don't hold water. I would say you have a false sense of security about the insurance business because of the great investors who have decided to use such companies as their investment vehicles. Insurance can be a very dangerous business, much more so than banking, which is why WEB and Watsa are so vigilant about their underwriting (at least one hopes in the case of FFH). No banker should be complacent either, but the reason why a bank can be levered 10 to 1 is because that's the nature of the business. Ultimately, you only want to buy a bank or insurance company for the long run if it is well managed. On that I can agree with you. But I'm not sure why you would say the insurance biz is less risky than the banking biz.

Gio, I think you are misunderstanding my point about business diversification. I'm not talking about TBTF or too systemically important to fail. I'm talking about the inherent benefits associated with business line diversification and geographic diversification that are attached to a large organization like BAC versus a smaller organization like, say, a local bank. You could easily replace BAC vs. local bank with TRV vs. some no-name insurer that only underwrites policies regionally. Or KO vs. a beverage company that generates most business locally (e.g., National Beverage). Or Diageo vs. a local distiller. Or a diversified REIT vs. owning a local office building. And on and on and on. It's why I don't buy the argument that microcaps are the best way to go about value investing. I don't necessarily like putting my eggs in the small company baskets -- certainly not with a concentrated portfolio, which is my preferred style of investing. One of the things about owning, say, a Berkshire is that it is diversified across a number of business lines across different geographies. So when someone puts in a ton of their portfolio into BRK, they actually own a hugely diversified conglomerate, which makes it sensible IMO to put a large percentage of the portfolio into BRK for the long term. Note that you yourself appear to be engaging in business diversification because you don't want to be completely dependent on an Italian engineering services business that could deteriorate at some point in the future! Well, I don't agree that one must micromanage a company to understand the business, or even that one must be engaged as an employee or manager at a business to understand it. And, Gio, with all due respect, I'm not sure you're practicing what you preach when you invest in FFH or GLRE or OAK or Third Point Offshore. All of these guys are doing exactly what you refuse to do! Which is to put money into businesses where they don't sign the checks. In fact, there are many positions in these guys' portfolios that are completely passive, where they don't even talk to the folks they're invested in. FFH is only an attractive business for that very reason. So investing in FFH is sort of inconsistent with what you just said, especially because it is one of the more complicated companies that we talk about on this board (much more dangerous than most well run banks)! You should be putting money into owner-operators that are focused only on understanding the business they manage if that's your MO. This point I don't understand at all because you seem to invest a great deal of money into insurance companies, which can be considered highly levered as well. After all, when one takes in a $1 premium and subjects themselves to a potential $10 loss, that's taking on a massive amount of leverage. And the risks associated with insurance portfolios can be much worse than what is lurking in a loan portfolio. Even in the worst of economic times, you often don't see the huge losses in bank portfolios that you see when insurance companies get on the hook for huge losses due to unforeseen insured risks. So if you're willing to invest a complicated insurance company like FFH, you really ought to be comfortable with investing in a bank.

Gio, fair enough on this point. There are many value investors who would agree with you on this notion that BAC is too big to understand. I would disagree. Further I actually think that because BAC is so big, I have the benefits of business diversification that makes BAC a stronger investment than a local bank, sort of like an insurer that is diversified across jurisdictions or a conglomerate that is diversified across businesses. (When is your conglomerate going public, btw? Let me know so I can invest ;) ) If I owned a local or community bank, I feel I would have to watch that company like a hawk to make sure that the local economy was not in peril and to really make sure that the underwriting was very good, since all the eggs would be in that local basket. I'd be exposing myself to localized disasters that could wipe out my investment. But I get your point and respect your hard line decision to stay away from companies like BAC. I'm curious, do you stay away from all banks? This is also a fair point. If you feel your CoC is limited, and the companies in your CoC are not attractive enough to put money into at this time, it makes sense to put money into cash. But then I suppose you must admit, as I think you did above, that portfolio allocation is a very personal thing and one cannot look to GMO to provide a solution as to how much one's portfolio must be kept in cash. There are no bright line rules to follow here. If you truly see a company trading at 50 cents on the dollar, then you ought to put money into it because there's no guaranty that you will be able to do so at a later date. This judgment is very common among the managers I admire and respect. Instead, it seems that on this board outstanding opportunities are everywhere! I am not a trader, I don’t follow 100, 500, or 1000 stocks, so I guess I truly cannot know… Yet, I would suggest that this board go and talk to Alleghany and others… No? Why not to sell them your precious ideas? They have deep pockets, but apparently are short of ideas! ;) If they paid me, I'd be glad to sell them my ideas, although they could get them for free from this online community. ;D Honestly, I would rather take ideas from PlanMaestro or Ericopoly than from Allegheny or Einhorn or even Oaktree. Perhaps that's my contrarian nature, but I don't think think those guys are any less investors than the teams at the institutions I just mentioned. If anything, I like that they're not inhibited by the institutional imperative like the teams at those fine investment institutions. I really do see opportunities everywhere, and a lot of them came to my attention because of this board!

Gio, I enjoy reading these papers, so thanks for continuing to post them. Reading through this thread, I've had some thoughts occur to me that I want to put to paper. Uncertainty vs. risk: One of the things that I tend to agree with is the notion that "uncertainty" and "risk" are two different things. So while there may be uncertainty about what will happen with the global economy, this doesn't necessarily tell you whether or not you are taking inordinate risks when making your investments. Take BAC in, say, 2006. At that time, one was taking a lot of risk by putting money into BAC, but uncertainty about the global economy was much less pervasive than it is today. At this time, uncertainty about the global economy abounds, but putting money into BAC is far less risky. You will make a decent long term real return at these prices even if the global economy stagnates. The bottom line is that uncertainty isn't necessarily a bad thing for us value investors if Mr. Market gives us bargains as a result of the uncertainty. Do you agree with this view? Preparing for rainy days vs. preparing for outstanding investment opportunities: Gio, one thing that is a bit unclear from your posts is if you are really talking about: (1) keeping cash on hand for a rainy day that could seriously affect your firm; (2) keeping cash on hand to participate in outstanding buying opportunities you anticipate will occur in the future; or (3) some combination of the two. You do mention that you want your firm to hold cash as a safety net. This seems very prudent, as you have working capital requirements that you have to deal with, and you need to be prepared in case an economic downturn affects your real business. Therefore, it would make a lot of sense to set aside a minimum of X cash reserves to prepare for any such rainy days. Sort of like how FFH keeps $1 billion of cash at the holdco to deal with future rainy days (including cat losses that could occur). What I don't understand is why market pricing should affect your firm's safety net at all. That is, if you have determined that you need to have X amount of liquid purchasing power at your firm's disposal at all times in order to remain Fortress Gio, it really shouldn't matter -- from a safety net perspective -- if the excess capital you have over X amount gets put into capital markets investments that fluctuate in pricing, especially since you seem to be a "buy and hold long term" investor. So it seems like when you talk about allocating some % of your excess capital to cash, you are really doing so in anticipation of buying opportunities. Which is perfectly fine if you don't think any good opportunities exist now or if you truly think outstanding opportunities will present themselves at a later date due to macro factors. However, a lot of us feel that there are outstanding opportunities now, and since we cannot predict whether there will be outstanding opportunities en masse at a later date, we will go ahead and allocate capital to our current ideas.

What I'm trying to say is that an accounting loss, whether it is an operating loss or a pre-tax loss or an after-tax loss isn't necessarily a destruction of value. Same with a break-even or negative FCF situation. Sandridge generates a GAAP loss, but some amount of expenses in the P&L, and capex in the CF statement, is actually investment spending that is generating a return. IV is actually growing because there is a return on investment there. Sandridge could probably generate free cash flow if it began to shrink. But that wouldn't be a good idea. Level 3 continues to generate a GAAP loss because of the huge capex it has made in the past, but that money was spent in anticipation of returns, and in reality, that company is generating economic profits and generating high returns on incremental growth capital, which makes a up a large percentage of capex. As far as we know, if GOOG were required to break out the Android "business" into separate accounts, it would like it is just breaking even or is minimally profitable. But the reality is that GOOG makes so much more money in its core business now because of all the money it has spent on Android. So you can operate a business (or business line) at break even, or even at a loss (from an accounting perspective), and still be generating economic value. The assumption, however, is that the money that is being spent is going to generate a return. On the CC, Blackberry management noted, for example, that sales and marketing expenses will be ramped up. That will help cause the anticipated operating loss next quarter. We also saw that they will continue to use at least $1.3 billion annually for intangible asset purchases and capex, which will eat into operating cash flow and actually cause cash burn. But they're anticipating a return on those expenditures, which is necessary to get more BB10 devices out there and to build their mobile services platform. If the mobile services platform has value, then it makes sense for them to generate the operating loss in the short term. That's all I'm saying.

I agree that the situation is not quite the same as what Munger is talking about because in BBRY's case, the prognosis is actually better than what Munger is describing. The existing business (selling BB devices), which is becoming much less relevant, is being used to help grow the value of the more valuable biz/asset. There isn't really a "cancer" that needs to be cut away in this case. The point I was trying to make is that there is often a very solid business or business asset hidden within what appears to be a "dying" business. Often, this hidden business or asset can grow in value through maintenance of the "dying" business. That is the process of transformation that consistently happens over and over again in the business world -- and especially in the tech world. You utilize the assets you have to grow new businesses (or new business models). DELL is an example of a tech biz in transformation. The PC is a "dying" business. Yet, the business infrastructure that DELL has in place, which is fundamental to growth side of the biz, is best maintained and optimized by keeping the PC biz and optimizing for cash flow, rather than selling a la IBM. Similarly, BBRY will best be able to maintain and (hopefully) grow the value of its assets by pushing forward with BB10 and keeping in place as many relationships with IT departments, C-Suites, governments, and even consumers as it can. Hopefully, this will make QNX and the software and services portfolio more valuable over the long run. As to operating losses, sometimes you deal with accounting losses to grow your business. Amazon created a lot of value by running its business at losses/breaking even when it first started. Bezos now has a fantastic company that has a nice moat around it. Sandridge Energy, despite generating accounting losses, is generating value when it invests the cash it generates into high return rock. GOOG's Android biz line would probably appear to be generating operating losses if GOOG broke those figures out separately. But GOOG has actually made more money because of Android.

Yup, there were definitely blind spots there, and Lazaridis definitely is partly responsible for where BBRY is today. But it's the tech world -- we have to cut Lazaridis some slack. Not everyone is Steve Jobs. Not even Steve Jobs! As to Mr. Watsa, I sincerely doubt that he thought he was buying a technology growth stock at a low multiple. HWIC tends to be an asset-oriented investor, more like Ben Graham and Martin Whitman, and less like WEB. That's why I think the problem was likely that they overestimated the value of the patents, as well as the cash in-flow that would be coming from the legacy device sale business model. Essentially, they were too optimistic on the liquidation/run-off value for BBRY. Not unlike, say, an ESL with SHLD.

So essentially the thesis is that RIM will build completely new businesses in new emerging markets on the ashes of its old business. That is a venture investment, not a value investment. No one knows who is going to get what marketshare, how big the market is, what pricing is, what the margins are and even what part of the value chain is going to succeed in value capture. In fact, this could turn out to be something like nanotechnology and clean energy - lots of potential and hype but few business successes. This is the area where venture capitalists play. Note: IoT and M2M are two different things. IoT devices use a lot of different technologies to communicate including WiFi and Zigbee. M2M is a small subset of IoT. M2M is expected to comprise of only about 5% of traffic by 2017 (and that is from a source that is known to be overoptimistic about traffic projections). No, this is isn't a "venture investment." The beauty of this "value investment" is that you're getting all this potential going concern upside for next to nothing. You already have a break-up/run-off value that you can estimate (think, "resource conversion" value), and the sale of BBRY devices is funding the creation of these new businesses. The key to BBRY being an outstanding investment will be whether or not they get a return on their investments -- which is why we need to see whether their existing customers will adopt their new software/services and whether QNX will be more widely adopted (in its different forms -- BB10, QNX Car, etc.) as we see IoT and M2M become a reality. The approach is not unlike what a Jana Partners would have seen in BKS prior to John Malone making an investment. This is a value approach -- not a venture approach. Or to put it a different way: ]I've had many friends in the sick business fixup game over a long lifetime. And they practically all use the following formula—I call it the cancer surgery formula: They look at this mess. And they figure out if there's anything sound left that can live on its own if they cut away everything else. And if they find anything sound, they just cut away everything else. Of course, if that doesn't work, they liquidate the business. But it frequently does work. -Charlie Munger, A Lesson on Elementary, Worldly Wisdom As It Relates To Investment Management & Business, USC Business School, 1994 http://ycombinator.com/munger.html

See the RIM thread: http://www.cornerofberkshireandfairfax.ca/forum/investment-ideas/rim-research-in-motion/2050/ . There is a lot of discussion there about BBRY's business prospects, strategy, and asset value. As to HWIC and BBRY, I will provide some input re: Mr. Watsa's involvement. Keep in mind that I'm making an educated guess as to the HWIC decision process on BBRY -- I'm not certain, and I doubt we will get a straight answer from those guys re: RIM/BBRY anytime soon, if ever. --------- So, first, note that Prem Watsa is the ninth chancellor of the University of Waterloo. Mike Lazaridis, RIM co-founder, was the eight chancellor. Mike Lazaridis 2003–2009 Prem Watsa 2009–present Second, note that Prem Watsa has called Mike Lazaridis a genius. Mr. Watsa wouldn't say this if he hadn't had discussions with Lazaridis and actually believed this. (And, frankly, Watsa is completely right on this account. Lazaridis is clearly a very smart guy -- anyone who says otherwise hasn't done research on him and doesn't really know what they're talking about.) Third, note that FFH only started to buy RIM shares after RIM acquired QNX in April 2010. Fourth, note that Lazaridis recently stated that his biggest regret was that he hadn't bought QNX sooner. Based on the above, I believe that Mr. Watsa and Mr. Lazaridis likely had discussions in the past about strategy in the tech world and the future of "mobile computing." And they quite possibly had these discussions prior to HWIC's buying up RIM shares. I wouldn't be surprised (again, this is an educated guess) if they had discussed the commoditization of the OS and the need to switch business models from selling devices (really, selling an OS license that is embedded into the cost of the device) to selling software and services. This would be something that the C-Suite at RIM would be aware of when they acquired QNX, as 2010 was the year when Android really began to hit its stride. So when RIM bought QNX, it likely became clear to Mr. Watsa that RIM was executing on this business model transition, with Lazaridis preparing RIM for a time when their OS (QNX and a BB OS built on top of QNX) could run on a myriad of devices and things (think, M2M and IoT) and RIM could provider software and services tied to this. And that's probably why HWIC started accumulating RIM shares. Now, here's where I think HWIC may have made a mistake with RIM/BBRY. I suspect they put a much higher value on the patents than the market (Francis Chou apparently has stated that BBRY's patents are worth $15 a share). And then I think they underestimated how quickly BBRY could lose market share and go from minting money to losing it or breaking even. (A lot of people made the same mistake with NOK.) So, IMO, they paid too much for their shares and didn't have enough of an MOS, at least initially. But I think HWIC probably believes that the strategy that BBRY is pursuing is the correct one.

Thank you! I like his idea of liquified petro-gas as well. Which stock is he talking about? Is it Navigator Holdings? It seems to have very illiquid trading in the OTC market. I believe there are two shipping ventures he's involved in. One is Navigator Holdings, and the other is Diamond Shipping, which FFH is invested in.

So, Plan et al, what is your current assessment of management? I am very intrigued after seeing the latest developments -- particularly, the hedging and shopping of the Japanese annuities biz.

Well, we have to ask ourselves who and who is not an expert -- and what level of credibility we will give to the guys we're claiming are experts. Kyle Bass, who I would not necessarily classify as a "macro-tourist" (I'll give him some credit), is essentially saying that central bankers and economists like Paul Krugman are wrong. These guys are experts in economics, and he is saying their policies are wrong. Now, experts are not infallible -- as we saw during the financial crisis. However, IMO, there has been an overreaction such that now everyone thinks the "so-called experts" (i.e., people who are conventionally considered experts) are idiots. "Value investors," in particular, are susceptible to over-discounting the views of conventional experts (think about the derisiveness with which we view analysts, who often provide a lot of good biz-related info that the typical value investor doesn't even think about). And they like to view other investors as more credible experts. There's nothing wrong with saying that the other "experts" are wrong and providing a case as to why you think they are wrong. But Bass goes overboard and gets a lot of undeserved credit for it. He always says that "if you do the work," you will come out on his side. As though economists, central bankers, and other investors have done absolutely no rigorous analysis! And to say that these other experts are not concerned with the dangers of all this policy is wild hyperbole that is quite self-serving. My view is that Bass doesn't care about what's good for the global economy -- he wants to be right, and he wants penance (self flagellation, really). And I think that's a sort of fundamentalist viewpoint that is both misguided and selfish. Note that this sort of explains my distaste with short sellers as well. Bass certainly is viewed as a credible expert because of his "call" on the subprime crisis. Sort of like how people think Michael Burry is god -- I'm sure he will raise a ton of money if people think he's going to find the next big short. But I'm skeptical that because Bass was right on subprime (as many others who have the opposite view were), he is right on this issue. I'd be more inclined to go with a Ray Dalio than a Kyle Bass if I were to take their side of the debate. I tend to be on the Richard Koo side of the debate in any case. On Japan, I will leave that discussion to the rest of you guys, except I will say that is it really such a bad thing if there is a massive currency devaluation? I mean, that's just the way it is. Yeah, there may be generational inequalities in that current generations are now paying for past consumption/investment -- but what's done is done, and you have to move forward in a way that is optimal. I was the first to say back in the day that the US government was overspending, but I was and am against austerity right now because I think it's non-optimal in an economy where money printing (stealth tax, I know) is possible. We need to get these economies back on track and then start really working on the liabilities side.

he's a salesman. Which is vital to having a successful investment management biz.

Wilbur Ross on nat gas, among other things: http://www.bloomberg.com/video/ross-says-shale-gas-game-changer-for-u-s-world-JUYjbvo0RCqHGlPAW1spWQ.html

This is what irks me about Bass the most. He is never in doubt. Furthermore, he treats people on the other side, who quite frankly have done just as much "work" on this issue as he has, with derision. He's becoming like Jim Rogers -- gold is going to $5000 you idiots! I also love how he uses pop behavioral psychology to explain how people (and the market) are in denial and they just don't want to admit that the apocalypse is coming. Perhaps he should think about how that applies to his own thinking. He seems to totally reject any arguments coming from the other side in quite an irrational manner. Now, I tend to agree with Plan on what will happen in Japan, but I at least recognize that I could be wrong and am willing to respectfully listen to the other side's arguments. And then I particularly love the sales pitch about how he's really a "liberal" and would love to live in a world filled with unicorns and lollipops but, "as a fiduciary," he just has to take the position he is taking. That's total BS. The asymmetric nature of his bet on the Yen or JGBs is fine -- but the fact that he is consistently taking this hard line position and dissing the "people in charge" very publicly smells like he is mostly trying to increase his media exposure and collect up AUM. And that bothers me a lot. But, hey, that means he's a good business man, I guess.

One thing re: Feedly. If you have the browser add-on from Firefox, you may want to consider disabling the Feedly Mini. But you don't really the need browser add-on anyway, as rkbabang just pointed out.

Here's an extended interview with WEB (from today) about his teaching experience, his fascination with the media biz, etc. I really think it's great that Charlie Rose is his favorite show, considering that a lot of us like to post those Charlie Rose videos for the board.

I signed up for Feedly. I like it so far. What are you guys going with?

??? Surely, he is being coy, no? I guess we know why he reduced his MBI position in the Allocation fund.

I highly recommend watching this interview with Barry Diller:

I finally got around to watching this. Icahn is hilarious.

Haha, nice. :) I count YouTube videos towards my reading quota!

http://www.milkeninstitute.org/events/gcprogram.taf?function=videos&eventid=GC13 Enjoy. Be sure to pick and choose carefully, though. There are just too many of these videos.