Liberty Posted May 31, 2018 Posted May 31, 2018 New book by Michael Batnick coming out next week, about "The Best Investors and Their Worst Investments": https://www.amazon.com/Big-Mistakes-Investors-Investments-Bloomberg/dp/1119366550/ I've always liked studying mistakes, hopefully to learn from them and make fewer of my own (I also liked the book 'Billion Dollar Lessons', not to be confused with 'Billion Dollar Mistakes', which I didn't like). Short video of Michael talking about writing his book:
spartansaver Posted June 19, 2018 Posted June 19, 2018 Hi Liberty, I have a similar appreciation of failures, and was wondering if you have any additional book recommendations in the category? I have read through a few business failure books in the past year including: Losing the Signal (Blackberry's story) Good to Great to Gone (Circuit City's story) Flameout: The Rise and Fall of Burger Chef How the Mighty Fall: And Why Some Companies Never Give In (Jim Collins followup to Good to Great) Business Adventures (Includes a few stories on failure) I'm about to start on Billion Dollar Lessons.
Liberty Posted June 19, 2018 Author Posted June 19, 2018 Hi Liberty, I have a similar appreciation of failures, and was wondering if you have any additional book recommendations in the category? I have read through a few business failure books in the past year including: Losing the Signal (Blackberry's story) Good to Great to Gone (Circuit City's story) Flameout: The Rise and Fall of Burger Chef How the Mighty Fall: And Why Some Companies Never Give In (Jim Collins followup to Good to Great) Business Adventures (Includes a few stories on failure) I'm about to start on Billion Dollar Lessons. Looks like you've read more than I have in the business field, unless my memory's failing me right now. Have you read The Halo Effect, which is kind of a meta-level look at some of this? Let me know what you think of Billion Dollar Lessons. Most of the "mistakes" or "things gone horribly wrong" books I've read have probably been about other things (history, military, memoirs, etc).
spartansaver Posted June 19, 2018 Posted June 19, 2018 Do you have a favorite "mistake" book among history, military, memories etc.? I will add the Halo Effect to my list. I'm excited to start on Billion Dollar Lessons. I'm just about finished with Business Adventures, which is good, but dense.
Saluki Posted June 19, 2018 Posted June 19, 2018 I also study failure to avoid it. I thought "What I learned from Losing a Million Dollars" was good. I have Jared Diamond's "Collapse" on my bookshelf, but haven't gotten to it yet. If you like the cable industry, Cable Cowboy and A Curious Discovery about John Malone and John Hendricks have happy endings but both were always teetering on insolvency in the early days. The Smartest Guys in the Room and Conspiracy of Fools were great books about the Enron collapse. And I thought it would be tough to beat "Too Big to Fail" but I think "All the Devils are here"by Bethany Mclean edges it out.
spartansaver Posted June 20, 2018 Posted June 20, 2018 Thanks for the recommendations Saluki. I've added What I Learned, Collapse and Discovery to the list. I enjoyed Diamond's Guns Germs and Steel.
Liberty Posted July 5, 2018 Author Posted July 5, 2018 Q&A with the author: https://abnormalreturns.com/2018/07/05/qa-with-michael-batnick-author-of-big-mistakes-the-best-investors-and-their-worst-investments/
JRM Posted July 7, 2018 Posted July 7, 2018 I also study failure to avoid it. I thought "What I learned from Losing a Million Dollars" was good. I have Jared Diamond's "Collapse" on my bookshelf, but haven't gotten to it yet. If you like the cable industry, Cable Cowboy and A Curious Discovery about John Malone and John Hendricks have happy endings but both were always teetering on insolvency in the early days. The Smartest Guys in the Room and Conspiracy of Fools were great books about the Enron collapse. And I thought it would be tough to beat "Too Big to Fail" but I think "All the Devils are here"by Bethany Mclean edges it out. Collapse is a fascinating book. Has some good insights into human nature.
spartansaver Posted July 12, 2018 Posted July 12, 2018 I really enjoyed Billion Dollar Lessons, especially the first 2/3rds of the book. I felt the last third on how CEOs can better prepare was beyond the scope of the book, but I really enjoyed the jam packed history of all the poor strategic/capital allocation decision that led business failures. What I Learned had some great insight on the psychology of losing trades. I've been thinking about some of my losers and how spot on the book is in its assessment of internalizing and becoming emotional when an investment goes against you. Both were fun reads. Thanks for the recommendations.
Liberty Posted July 12, 2018 Author Posted July 12, 2018 I really enjoyed Billion Dollar Lessons, especially the first 2/3rds of the book. I felt the last third on how CEOs can better prepare was beyond the scope of the book, but I really enjoyed the jam packed history of all the poor strategic/capital allocation decision that led business failures. What I Learned had some great insight on the psychology of losing trades. I've been thinking about some of my losers and how spot on the book is in its assessment of internalizing and becoming emotional when an investment goes against you. Both were fun reads. Thanks for the recommendations. Glad you enjoyed it. I probably should reread it at some point, because I mostly remember liking it, I don't really remember that much what's in it specifically.
boilermaker75 Posted July 17, 2018 Posted July 17, 2018 The kindle edition is on sale today for $6.99, https://www.amazon.com/Big-Mistakes-Investors-Investments-Bloomberg-ebook/dp/B07D8GSXJC/ref=lp_6165851011_1_6?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1531833772&sr=1-6 Plus if you are a prime member you get a 30% credit towards your next ebook.
Saluki Posted August 1, 2018 Posted August 1, 2018 The author was interviewed on a podcast this week. The link is below: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/audio/2018-07-27/even-the-world-s-greatest-investors-have-made-horrible-mistakes
BG2008 Posted August 1, 2018 Posted August 1, 2018 Fatal Risk is good. It's about how AIG went under. It gives good back story to the financial crisis.
Saluki Posted August 10, 2018 Posted August 10, 2018 There is a program that I started watching on Amazon called Inside the Storm. It's several episodes, each a mini documentary about the failures at Lehman Brothers, Kodak, Barings Bank and Kingfisher airlines. Very good so far, I thought you all would appreciate it.
augustabound Posted August 10, 2018 Posted August 10, 2018 There is a program that I started watching on Amazon called Inside the Storm. Doesn't seem to be on Netflix Canada.
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