Time for the latest edition of “Things from my Newsblur”, which is a little tech heavy. As usual, the most investment-related stuff is at the end.
With GoT’s final season having ended a couple of weeks ago, Our Man thinks he’s probably safe to post this without spoiling anyone's enjoyment. OM watched the Battle of Winterfell and had questions, so many questions, about Team Living’s plan. Questions like…wait, you’re going to just charge your cavalry into the darkness without scouting? Or your fire trenches are behind your army - how are you going to retreat? Or you might want to use those dragons rather than chilling out on a hill? Or does Brann want to do anything – you know, like use his ravens to check out the Dead’s army or be helpful, in any way? Well, here’s an army officer’s tactical analysis of the Battle, which confirms that Team Living were borderline inept. (Angry Staff Officer, Wired)
The Crimean War was the first major conflict of the industrial age that utilized railways, armored ships, telegraph wires and was fought with high explosive shells. It’s also the first war that saw its after-effects recorded through photography. Amidst it all, Florence Nightingale (and her team) ran hospitals for the wounded soldiers, and through this work she became known as the founder of modern nursing and became an icon of British culture, especially in the persona of “The Lady with the Lamp”. Part of her success came from the rigorous collection of data and its subsequent statistical analysis, through which she uncovered that more soldiers were killed by preventable diseases caused by unsanitary healthcare than as a result of battlefield wounds. Through portraying this visually – and bringing the pie chart and its cousin the polar area diagram to the fore – she helped lead to reform health care in the Army and through the Public Health Acts of 1874 and 1875 in the entire UK. This short article goes through some of the background on Nightingale’s approach, and how it was so revolutionary for the time. (The Science Museum)
For all the talk of autonomous driving and the driverless car, which underpins the valuation of many of the ‘mobility’ companies (be it Tesla, Uber or Lyft), Professor Rodney Brooks discusses how artificial general intelligence, and with it autonomous driving, is going to take a lot longer than people realize. He’s not alone, with folks like Chris Umson (former head of Google’s self-driving project) suggesting that driverless cars will be slowly integrated onto our roads “over the next 30 to 50 years.” (Professor Rodney Brooks, his blog)
This excellent article charts the rise of German supermarket Aldi in the UK; while it was initially looked down upon, it has taken share consistently since the Financial Crisis and grown from 2% to 8% of the market. Like many disruptors, the tale is a mix of providing a customer with something they didn’t yet know they wanted, a completely different culture and cost structure from the lazy incumbents, and a willingness to make decisions with a longer-term horizon in mind. For my fellow Brooklyn-ites, who don’t think Aldi has yet encroached on their shopping habits, you might want to think about who own Trader Joe’s the next time you’re purchasing your Mandarin Orange Chicken or Everything But the Bagel Seasoning! (Xan Rice, the Guardian)
Our Man’s very interested in software, especially enterprise software as a multi-year investment theme. It hasn’t yet made it to the portfolio as Our Man spent the tail-end of Q4 researching the broader software/unicorn landscape for a recent thought piece and potential investment ideas for clients. However, expect something on it soon as colleagues prefer to focus on the private market options. One of the benefits of the project was that OM re-read Breaking Smart, which was the result of author Venkatesh Rao being invited to spend the year 2014 in the offices of Andreessen Horowitz (leading VC firm). This is a long read – 30,000 words – but it’s broken down into 20 bite size essays that touch upon the impact of the technological changes on our lives and societies. It holds up well, so make the time to slowly work your way through it! (Venkatesh Rao, Breaking Smart)
As regular readers know, OM’s highest conviction position is Greece and it is out sized at 20% of the portfolio. A key part of the thesis is that a change in government at the next elections, will change the narrative and draw investors back to Greece. Well, the opposition New Democracy party have been meeting those investors who’ve been to Greece for much of the last two years in the hope that investors will know them and their plan, and be ready to invest if/when they come to power. That judgment day was brought forwards to early July, after Greek PM Tsipras called a snap election following his party’s defeat in last week’s European elections. Now, we’ll see if the thesis holds. (Guardian)
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