Capitalogix

A Look Back at "The Crazy Ones"

I remember being mesmerized the first time I saw Apple Computers iconic "Crazy Ones" video as part of their Think Different campaign.

Steve Jobs originally recorded a version of "The Crazy Ones" himself, but chose to release the Richard Dreyfuss narrated version. 

 

via YouTube

Here is the text version of the script.

 

Here's to the crazy ones.
The misfits.
The rebels.
The troublemakers.
The round pegs in the square holes.

The ones who see things differently.

They're not fond of rules.
And they have no respect for the status quo.

You can quote them, disagree with them,
glorify or vilify them.
About the only thing you can't do is ignore them.

Because they change things.

They push the human race forward.

While some may see them as the crazy ones,
we see genius.

Because the people who are crazy enough to think
they can change the world, are the ones who do.

    –     © 1997 Apple Computer, Inc.

Click here for extra material about the video and campaign. 

I think it has held up pretty well, and I had this piece of art commissioned for my office. 

There's a lot to be said for carving your own path, for pushing past perceived limits and accomplishing something hard to ignore.  

 

Here Are Some Links For Your Weekly Reading - January 20th, 2019

Most citizens don't have big savings account to buffer them against an unexpected expense or loss of income.

The Government Shutdown is one of the curveballs most workers haven't planned for adequately.

 

Actions have consequences.

Here are some of the posts that caught my eye recently. Hope you find something interesting.

 

Lighter Links

• Full Translation: China's 'New Generation Artificial Intelligence Development Plan' (2017). (Newamerica)
• Apple Buys 50 Business Class Seats from San Francisco to Shanghai Every Day. (MacRumors)
• Ford Built a Sweaty Robot Butt to Simulate Your Sweaty Human Butt. (BGR)
• Intimate Portraits of People over 100 Years Old Reveal the Beauty of Aging Bodies. (MyModernMet)
• Costco is Selling a 27-Pound Tub of Mac and Cheese that Lasts 20 Years. (BusinessInsider)

 

Trading Links

• Fear of Algorithm Trading is Really Just the Fear of the Unknown. (Quartz)
• Hedge Funds Suffer Worst Year since 2011. (FT)
• Nearly Half of Workers Earn Less Than $30,000. (Ritholtz)
• Michael Dell Gets $12 Billion Richer with Break from Public Eye. (Fortune)
• The New Impossible Burger 2.0 Won Everyone's Mouth at CES 2019, but That's Just the Beginning. (Forbes)

A Quick Visit to Cuba

I went to Havana with a diverse group of business people, financial professionals and representatives from the US Fed. 

Here is a photo taken with some of the classic cars that proudly dominate the roads despite cheaper Russian and  Chinese alternatives.

 

 

The city was beautiful … dirty and broken, for sure … but still beautiful.  Here is a view from my hotel room.

  

 

I commented that it was almost like seeing a severely wounded elephant. You can tell that it's hurt (and barely a shadow of its old self). Nevertheless, you can see the amazing bone structure. It is easy to imagine what it once was.

In Cuba, the geography and the architecture are amazing. However, money hasn't been spent on the upkeep. Even though people live there, it seems surreal (almost like a post-apocalyptic wasteland).

 

 

In the story of Exodus, the Jews spent 40 years wandering the desert after escaping from Egypt. That means two generations of people, who didn't remember life as slaves, were ultimately the ones who entered the “Promised Land”.

On some level, that's how Cuba is now. Most inhabitants weren’t born (or can’t remember) the 1960s. They have known nothing but this.

Cuba is an interesting place … and I’d bet that it has an interesting future.

The “lack” had a side effect. It produced a mutation. A portion of society grew more resourceful and resilient.

 

 

Like natural selection … nature finds a way.

The rules change, the players change, even the game itself changes ... That is how new ideas and new leaders emerge.

Sometimes, almost no one notices. Sometimes they do. 

Ultimately, change remains the only constant.

Onwards!

Can Artificial Intelligence Replace Human Perception?

 

As humans, we can only interpret based on what we know ... and for the most part, we don't know what we don't know. 

In the beginning of artificial intelligence, humans would teach computers certain rules (or tell the computer that it should optimize on a certain measure).  Now, computers are capable of figuring things out themselves.

The success of AI at deep learning or reinforcement learning is about to sky-rocket.  The technology and the learning frameworks are progressing quickly ... combine that with hardware advances and expect to be amazed.

Recently,  a Deep Learning computation-imaging system correctly predicted which patients were pending heart failure with 97% accuracy - compared to human pathologists who are correct approximately 74% of the time.   That is a meaningful difference, especially if the life at risk is yours (or that of a loved one).  

And that's only one example. There's an AI assistant in Denmark that listens to the equivalent of 911 calls and diagnoses heart problems and predictive analytics is often used in actuarial sciences, social networking, and in many financial service applications. 

Computers Don't Get Distracted

Error is not a fault of our knowledge, but a mistake of our judgment giving assent to that which is not true. - John Locke

It makes sense that these machines can be more accurate than humans because ultimately, many of these applications are essentially checklists. The machine looks for symptoms a, b, and c, compiles, and then analyzes for the cause. 

Machine logic is great at that. Human logic ... not so much. There are too many distractions, biases, and a tendency to relate current situations to past ones. 

When it comes to markets, we're victim to a lot of survivorship bias. Looking at markets and patterns has worked great for survivors - purportedly ... but what percentage of active traders beat the S&P more than 1 year in a row? The answer is a staggering minority. 

As humans, we're often victim to what I like to call:

The "Nightlight in the Dark" Phenomenon.  

A nightlight makes you feel safer - but likely won't keep you safe from anything that's trying to hurt you. 

When you're in Vegas you may have strategies and rituals that you think provide an edge - but it doesn't make you any more likely to beat their system. 

In that same vein, tracking markets is a distraction agent in trading ... You shouldn't care what markets are doing, you should care about how your systems are doing.  

The paradigm shift is that with algorithms - and artificial intelligence - I don't care that I understand why something is working, I care that my systems are valid and performing well.  I don't have to understand why it's valid - only that it's valid consistently over time. 

All the best traders I know aren't looking for a better algorithm, they're looking for more ways to win. 

Most AI methodologies are simple systems trained on extensive data lakes with simple goals ... And that's a good thing.

Simple works. Simple is hard to break. Simple means there's likely more consistency. As well, as we get better at Swarm Intelligence, these simple systems can communicate with each other and benefit from the wisdom of the crowd. 

Can Artificial Intelligence Replace Human Perception?

With trading,  AI has been adopted because ultimately it's up to the individual/firm to apply ... but what about highly regulated instances like autonomous cars or in a doctor's office. 

Even when it works, if an AI gets the decision wrong it opens you up for huge liability (even if the AI is right more often than a human would be). 

While AI is an inevitability - it's much slower in certain industries than others.

It's a long road ahead - but a necessary one. 

Onwards!

 

How Long Does It Take To Get 50 Million Users?

Cool tech often gets adopted by porn and gambling before more mainstream uses.

Porn was the launchpad for video streaming, mobile-enabled sites, VR, and (unfortunately) pop-up ad technologies. 

With that said, the next chart surprised me.  It shows the number of years it took for various products to gain 50 million users.

 

 

Pornhub tracks data like its business depends on it.  Well, it is the number one site for pornography.  What does that mean? In 2018, over 5,517,700,000 hours of porn was watched on their site. That’s approximately 6,298 centuries of video.

Moreover, last year, it got  33.5 BILLION visits. That’s 1,064 people a second, or 92 million a day.  To put that in perspective, that's more people than live in the entire country of Germany.

Here are some additional factoids about its use.

• 4403 Petabytes of data transferred (574 MB of data for every person on earth)
• Consumed more bandwidth than the entire internet in 2002
• Stormy Daniels was the number 1 "trend" search in 2018  (followed by Fortnite ...)
• 4k ultra-hd overtook 1080p in search trends

 

via Pornhub

For the full list of stats click here. 

They are so popular, it is almost obscene.

Here Are Some Links For Your Weekly Reading - January 13th, 2019

 

Here are some of the posts that caught my eye recently. Hope you find something interesting.

Lighter Links

• The 4,000-Year-old History of New Year's Resolutions and How They Became Big Business. (FastCompany)
• How to Be More Resilient. (New York Times)
• Kansas Boy, 16, is Set to Graduate in the Spring from High School and Harvard. (New York Times)
• '123456' and 'Password' Remain Worst Passwords of the Year for Fifth Consecutive Year. (MacRumors)
• US Intelligence Community Says Quantum Computing and AI Pose an 'Emerging Threat' to National Security. (TechCrunch)

 

 

Trading Links

• Predictions for Cannabis 2019 from Entrepreneurs on the Front Lines.(Forbes)
• The Man Turning China into a Quantum Superpower. (TechReview)
• Here's Why You Almost Never See Pepsi Served on a Plane.(ThePointsGuy)
• Germany is the World's Most Innovative Economy. (WEForum)
• Bill Gates Says the US Has Lost Its Global Leadership in Nuclear Power, and Needs to 'Get in the Game'. (BusinessInsider)

Here Are Some Links For Your Weekly Reading - January 6th, 2019

Here are some of the posts that caught my eye recently. Hope you find something interesting.

Lighter Links

• Southwest Airlines Founder Herb Kelleher Was the Brand's Storyteller-In-Chief.(Forbes)
• The Ethics of Genetically Editing Babies. (RadioPublic)
• U.S. Population Grew at Slowest Pace in More Than 80 Years. (Wall Street Journal)
• Worst Pseudoscience of 2018. (NeuroLogica)
• A Hilarious Sesame Street Clip Has People Split over Whether They are Hearing Grover Drop a Massive F-bomb. (Good)

 

 

Trading Links

• How Will Tech Companies Make Money from Artificial Intelligence? (Fool)
• The Hedge Fund King and a Technological Arms Race. (HedgeCo)
• 5 Unicorns that Will Probably Go Public in 2019 (Besides Uber and Lyft). (TechCrunch)
• Billionaire Bond Guru Dalio Says Conflict Gauge is at Highest since WWII. (Bloomberg)
• At Least 15 Central Banks are Serious about Getting into Digital Currency. (TechReview)

A.I. in Film: A Retrospective

AI has been around in science fiction for over 1oo years. As it becomes reality, it's amusing to look at different depictions and attempt to connect the dots. 

AI first broke onto the film scene with Metropolis in 1927. "Maria" the evil robot disguising herself as a human played on many human fears; deception, lack of control, and perhaps most importantly being replaced.

Maria represented a future that was bleak and set the foundation for AI in cinema. Since then, there have been approximately 100 movies starring AI.

According to Enlighten Digital,  52% of movies portray AI positively, which means it's about 50/50, and there has been a 144% increase in AI movies since 2010 - so we're becoming more saturated with AI.

According to a study by Cambridge, seeing more films portraying robots (whether positive or negative) is associated with more positive attitudes toward robots. This is in line with the theory that the more exposure one has with "out-group" members (i.e. robots, or people of other races) the more positive one's attitude toward them. 

 

(Click to view Full Size) via NovaStor 

The depiction of AI has always been a reflection of its time ... as our values, ambitions, and technology has changed, so has on-screen AI. 

So what does today's AI look like?

On HBO, we have Westworld. In movies, iRobot, Chappie, and Blade Runner 2049 ... it's clear the promise and the peril of AI has continued to evolve.

These movies all have different tones but there's a trope that remains common from that initial film in 1927 to films in 2018. 

We're always imagining that next step. What's going to happen as AI becomes (in some ways) smarter than us? What's going to happen when our creations surpass our control? What's going to happen if the line between human and robot blurs?

There are a lot of advancements in real-life, in respect to AI. As such, there is a lot of movement on AI ethics, and how to best limit or best enable AI. 

In film, we gravitate toward two extremes - utopias and dystopias. In real life, we can recognize those extremes are unlikely ... but the effect of AI is still profound. 

We're expanding a technology with the ability to radically change our world - for better or worse - so it's important to keep a purpose-driven approach. We can't lose track of humanity in the pursuit of AI. 

Metropolis's final title card (that first AI movie from 1927)  still rings true ... "The Mediator Between the Head and the Hands Must Be the Heart"

 

Onwards!

Gil Brandt and the Innovation of Modern Football

I'm regularly surprised by the levels of innovation and strategic thinking that I see in football.

I've written posts about how much regular businesses could learn from watching football teams. That post talks about how even high school teams have a position-by-position depth chart. They have a game plan for their next opponent. They practice plays on both offense and defense. They watch game film of their past games and future opponents. And, they coach the team as a team, and the players individually. 

Often, simple ideas, applied consistently, are enough to win.

Last night I was at a Dallas Cowboys playoff game (note that is not an oxymoron) ... and I took a picture with this guy.

 

 

I see him at every game ... and every game he wears a different creative and well-thought-out costume. He sits on the 50-yard line, He wears Ferragamo shoes and a nice watch. Yet, something about this game captures his imagination.

Yesterday, I also had the honor of meeting Gil Brandt at the game. For those of you not familiar with him, he was the vice president of player personnel (or Chief Scout) of the Dallas from 1960 to 1989.  He helped Dallas grow into one of the most powerful and popular sports franchises in America. His innovative management and personnel systems are standard operating procedure today for many teams at the professional and collegiate levels nationwide. 

  

 

Many consider him the architect of the Dallas Cowboys. I'm not talking about the stadium or headquarters, I'm talking about their teams and ideas that were the catalyst to "America's Team".  I took this from his Wikipedia page.

He helped pioneer many of the scouting techniques used by NFL clubs today,^[2] such as:

• Creating a new scouting and evaluation system for prospects, which would later spread throughout the NFL. In the NFL Films' documentary series Finding Giants, Ernie Accorsi mentioned how then-general manager George Young built the New York Giants scouting process based on the Cowboys system.^[3]
• Using computers for scouting and talent evaluations. To achieve this level of automatization, the Cowboys had to systematically define which were the traits, measurable qualities and skills that could be expressed into numbers and formulas in order for a computer to understand them.^[4]
• Finding potential prospects in other sports such as: Bob Hayes, Cornell Green, Peter Gent, Toni Fritsch, Percy Howard, Ken Johnson, Ron Howard, Wade Manning, Manny Hendrix and Mac Percival. The Cowboys also set up hospitality suites for coaches at the NCAA basketball tournaments.^[5]
• Brandt was one of the first talent scouts to look outside of the United States and Canada for potential players. Kicker Toni Fritsch was discovered during a European tour.^[6]
• Made unconventional draft choices in lower rounds based on potential, even though at the time it wasn't known if the players would ever be a part of the National Football League. For example: Roger Staubach, Herschel Walker and Chad Hennings.
• The use of psychology tests to identify the mental and personality make-up of prospects.^[7]
• Finding players in the undrafted free agent and small college talent pool, such as Drew Pearson, Cliff Harris, and Everson Walls.^[8]
• Helped to create the NFL Scouting Combine as a centralization of the scouting evaluation process.

 

Gil Brandt is one step closer to joining the NFL's ultimate pantheon – The Pro Football Hall of Fame.  He has been nominated as a contributor finalist for the Class of 2019. The contributor category recognizes "individuals who made outstanding contributions to professional football in capacities other than playing or coaching."

He's an inspiration. Not only did he innovate how teams draft and measure talent ... he's the guy who figured out how to make cheerleaders an iconic symbol of a team and the game itself.

Bringing In The New Year

This was a busy year for me.

I made over 100 plane trips and traveled about 200,000 miles.

I understand my goals and what it takes to achieve them (even if it means flying around the world too many times).

My last trip of the year was a quickie to New York with Jennifer to watch the Cowboys pull out a very close 36-35 win. 

She saw "some" of it.

It was fun spending time with Jen.  Hope you're enjoying time with family too. 

 

Best wishes for a Happy New Year!