When Steve Jobs announced the iPod in 2001, he didn’t talk about the 5 GB hard drive. He talked about having 1,000 songs in your pocket. When you buy a product, you don’t buy it because of the raw materials. You buy it because of what it can do for you, and how it makes…
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The Problems With Self-Publishing on Amazon
Books are wonderful and I love them. But the business model seems to be flawed, especially when you self-publish on Amazon. I’ve recently spoken with an author who self-published a book on Amazon. In the first 4 months he sold less than 100 copies and made less than $200. My own experience from earlier this…
Show up for a decade
“Most people overestimate what they can do in one year and underestimate what they can do in ten years.” — Bill Gates Good things take time A human needs 20 years to grow into an adult A tree needs 10 to 30 years to reach full size An olive tree needs 65 to 80 years…
Why I’m not a full-time money manager
Most Fund Managers Fail to Beat the Market There are tens of thousands of full-time money managers and stock market analysts in the world. Most of them consistently underperform a broad diversified index. (Research indicates that up to 89% of fund managers fail to beat the market.) That’s a lot of invested life energy, for,…
Life Lessons from Kai-Fu Lee
Dr. Kai-Fu Lee is the former President of Google China, artificial intelligence expert, venture capitalist, and author of the wonderful book AI Superpowers. He recently gave a talk, highlighting his key life lessons: 1. Do what you love, and you’ll never work another day in your life At Columbia University, he fell in love with…
Think Twice Before You Wish to Live Forever
“Death is very likely the single best invention of life. It is life’s change agent. It clears out the old to make way for the new.” — Steve Jobs Human mortality is one of the strongest forces we have, helping us focus on what is truly important, and pushing us to get things done. Imagine…
Why Invest at All? (If You Have a Good Job and Good Salary)
I feel that not enough people (especially here in Switzerland) have an investing mindset. A lot of people have high-paying jobs and are leading quite comfortable lives. Why should they bother investing? Cash is a bad store of value Every year, cash is losing purchasing power. It might not feel like much year by year,…
My 14 Year Blogiversary: The Benefits of Writing Online
In August 2006, that is 14 years ago, I started this blog. Writing online has been one of the best things I started in my life. In the early days, it led to founding my influencer marketing startup Trigami. These days, it’s a tool for clarifying my thinking and sharing ideas with the world. A…
Tesla Valuation: High Level Thesis
A while ago I’ve written an essay about What People Don’t Understand About Tesla. This piece is a continuation of this exploration. To read all articles in my Tesla series click here. Tesla is currently valued at 10x Price-to-Sales, and Trailing Twelve Months Price-to-Earnings of 743. This makes Tesla grossly overvalued, right? In the short…
The Hedgehog Concept
A useful tool to find your mission in life is the Hedgehog Concept, developed by one of my favorite business thinkers, Jim Collins. It’s very simple. Find the intersection of the following three circles What are you deeply passionate about? What can’t you stop thinking and talking about? What can you be the best in…