Me and my 3 boys during Christmas in Porto


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The winner takes it all

 instead of some companies serving the high end of a market with a superior experience while others serve the low-end with a “good-enough” offering, one company can serve everyone. 

If  you can build and install a beautiful machine that can make & serve a perfect coffee or cappuccino in a cup with a glass of water (you can choose sparkling, still, cold or normal) in a tray you can serve the high end . After that you can serve a lower grade coffee in a paper cup at a cheaper cost.

after the initial cost you can serve everybody. In this example the marginal cost isn't zero but on the internet platform companies the marginal cost is zero (Uber, Booking, etc.....)




Stratechery, Ben Thompson

Every additional customer accrued a cost, whether that be the marginal cost of serving them or the opportunity cost of not serving a different customer. Given that, it was, as Christensen noted, perfectly rational to focus on the most profitable ones.
However, something else momentous happened around 20 years ago: the emergence of the Internet. As I’ve written repeatedly, including two weeks ago in Selling Feelings and this summer in Aggregation Theory, the Internet has completely transformed business by making both distribution and transaction costs effectively free. In turn, this has completely changed the calculus when it comes to adding new customers: specifically, it is now possible to build businesses where every incremental customer has both zero marginal costs and zero opportunity costs.
This has profound implications: instead of some companies serving the high end of a market with a superior experience while others serve the low-end with a “good-enough” offering, one company can serve everyone. And, given the choice between a superior experience and one that is “good-enough,” of course the superior experience will win.
To be sure, it takes time to scale such a company, but given the end game of owning the entire market, the rational approach is not to start on the low-end, but rather the exact opposite. After all, while marginal costs may be zero, providing a superior experience in the age of the Internet entails significant upfront (fixed) costs, and while those fixed costs are minimized on a per-customer basis at scale, they can have a significant impact with a small customer base. Therefore, it makes sense to start at the high-end with customers who have a greater willingness-to-pay, and from there scale downwards, decreasing your price along with the decrease in your per-customer cost base (because of scale) as you go (and again, without accruing material marginal costs).

This is exactly what Uber has done: the company spent its early years building its core technology and delivering a high-end experience with significantly higher prices than incumbent taxi companies. Eventually, though, the exact same technology was deployed to deliver an lower-priced experience to a significantly broader customer base; said customer base was brought on board at zero marginal cost (to be sure, there is more to Uber’s success than that; I laid out in Why Uber Fights how Uber’s aggregation of riders gives them leverage in bringing drivers onto their platform in a virtuous cycle).
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What are the tell-tale signs that a company or an industry is a loser?

So what are the tell-tale signs that a company or an industry is a loser? Well one thing that is a sure fire sign of a company in trouble is its history of issuing equity. If management think continually selling equity is a good idea, it is more than likely that as investors you should be selling equity too.


Russell Clark


Sell stocks of companies that announce huge acquisitions, that overdiversify, or that spend a fortune on a lavish new headquarters.

Barry Ritholtz

More about the same
http://thoughtmeme.blogspot.pt/2012/12/investment-overcapacity-collapse.html


PS I just spoke with someone that did a paper about IPO's and the picture is that an industry that have many IPO's stops performing in the stock market. I never liked IPO's for the simple reason that the companies only come to the market in very good times. This year 7 out of the 10 biggest IPO's are under water (below offering price!)

Screen_Shot_2015 12 15_at_5_34_34_PM
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The easy way is not so easy


"Try to learn something about everything and everything about something."

Thomas Huxley

These Goats are specialist climbers.

They do whatever they want, almost no predators (leopard) venture to these places. They eat unmolested. They have a good life versus the animals on the plains. Those have to use the speed, as long as they aren't the slowest in the herd they are ok but they never have a good night of sleep. 

If you want to sleep well be a specialist! Do something difficult.
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It's getting dificult to make money with money





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Only Engineers and sales people are needed all the rest are useless.................

In short, software is eating the world.


Marc Andreessen 

Goldman has 11,000 Engineers among 37,000 employees! 

This is not the future this is the present! 

PS there is one exception, Philosophers do well on the investment business.
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money for nothing !

In short, software is eating the world.

Marc Andreessen 

From Quartz,

The Finnish government is currently drawing up plans to introduce a national basic income. A final proposal won’t be presented until November 2016, but if all goes to schedule, Finland will scrap all existing benefits and instead hand out €800 ($870) per month—to everyone.
It sounds far-fetched, but it’s looking likely that Finland will carry through with the idea. Whereas several Dutch cities will introduce basic income next year and Switzerland is holding a referendum on the subject, there is strongest political and public support for the idea in Finland.

Why are the Finn's considering this?

because with robots & tech not everyone will have a job.


Software substitution, whether it's for drivers or waiters or nurses - it's progressing. Technology over time will reduce demand for jobs, particularly at the lower end of skill set.
Bill Gates

My collegue Rui martins dos Santos had already proposed something like this to address the lack of demand in the world . But with a difference the Government would pay a fixed amount to everyone older than 60. This way you would not ruin the labor market. I think this is the future not a bright future but machines will replace most humans. 
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