Capitalogix

Tech Immigrants: A Map of Silicon Valley's Imported Talent

Did you ever wonder where talent in Silicon Valley comes from?

Here is a map that purports to show that ... and a lot more.

 

 via Businessweek.

Some of the data is hard to believe.  Interesting though.

Related articles

Global Tech: Way Beyond Silicon Valley

12 Innovation Lessons from 2014 (Fast Company)

Here Are Some Links For Your Weekend Reading

The Game of Thrones is getting more popular.  Who do you think will win?

 

 

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

 

Lighter Links:

• Sun Tzu's 33 Best Pieces Of Leadership Advice. (Forbes)
• Lessons From The Samurai: The Secret To Always Being At Your Best. (Bakadesuyo)
• Obama Is Finally Acting Like Lincoln. (The Week)
• John Oliver: Stop Calling It Net Neutrality; It's 'Preventing Cable Company F**kery'. (TechDirt)
• Scientists Discovered A Way To Reverse The Process Of Aging. First Succesful Organ Regeneration in a Living Animal. (Discover)

 

Trading Links:

• Record Numbers Renounce U.S. Citizenship---And Many Aren't Counted. (Forbes)
• 5 Dirty Secrets About the U.S. Economy. (Harvard Business Review)
• AngelList’s Newest Experiment: a $25 Million Fund to Invest in Angel Investors. (WSJ)
• The End of Behavioral Finance? (PragCap)
• Introduction of the Commodity Markets. (Voices)

Smart Money Expects a Short-Term Top, Will the Rally Continue?

Traders are often confronted by mixed signals. 

Personally, when I have to choose between something straightforward or something complex - simple is better.

For example, when large "Smart Money" traders show their directional bias, it often pays to follow in their tracks.

Another technique would be to bet against the smaller retail "Dumb Money" traders (because, historically, they are often wrong at major turning points.

However, if I have to decide between following "Smart Money" or doing the opposite of what "Dumb Money" does ... then in the absence of other information, following Smart Money wins because it is more straightforward and simpler.

Here is an example.

Smart Money - Dumb Money Confidence Index.

The chart, below, compares the bets made by small traders (a.k.a. the "Dumb Money"), to those of large commercial hedgers (a.k.a. the "Smart Money").

In practice, Confidence Index readings rarely get below 30% or above 70% (they usually stay between 40% and 60%). When they move outside of those bands, it's time to pay attention.

Even more noteworthy is when there is a wide confidence spread between the bets made by the Dumb Money and Smart Money traders. This type of sentiment spread only happens a few times a year. We often get substantial reversals when it happens.

Consequently, you might want to note this chart from SentimentTrader. It shows that the confidence spread is at extreme levels.

 

Conventional trading wisdom says that Crowds are usually wrong at turning-points.  That doesn't mean they are wrong all the time (yet, as discussed, it makes sense to notice when the Smart Money clearly disagrees). So, after such a strong rally, this is the kind of data that causes me to pay closer attention.

Could this be  a trend-break?  Will Smart Money start actively making Bearish bets?

Price is the primary indicator, and until it breaks down, expect that dips will be met with buying.

Does the Market's Complacency and Low Volatility Scare You?

The S&P 500 has been hitting highs in a rally that's had only modest sell-offs.

Here is a chart from BusinessInsider illustating Societe Generale's Andrew Lapthorne's research.

 

 

Lapthorne notes: "The number of 1% down days for the S&P 500 in any given year has averaged 27 since 1969; the S&P 500 has seen just 16 1% down days over the last 12 months. It has now been [almost 500] days since a market correction of 10% or more, the fourth longest period on record, and, as we show below, the annualized peak to trough loss has only been 5% compared to typical annual draw-down of 15%."

As you can see, recently, volatility has been dramatically below normal.

The Scariest Chart in the World Just Got a Lot Less Scary

Last week, the Jobs Report hit a big milestone.

The U.S. economy has finally recovered all of the jobs lost during the recession.

 

 via Calculated Risk.

It took more then 6 years to exceed the previous employment peak. However, this recovery took place during a period of declining participation - partially due to demographics - and that made making the  milestone harder.

Of course because of population growth, we're still "behind" in terms of total jobs, but at least this is one benchmark that's been cleared.

Many people called it the "Scariest Jobs Chart Ever".  Well, it got a lot less scary.

Nonetheless, there is still a long way to go.

Here Are Some Links For Your Weekend Reading

Everything in this 1991 RadioShack ad now exists in a single smartphone ... Tough Business!

 

 

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

 

Lighter Links:

• Steve Blank on the Next 50 Years of Business Innovation. (Inc.)
• The First Cellphone Went on Sale 30 Years Ago for $4,000. (Mashable)
• 11 Product Names That Mean Unfortunate Things in Other Languages. (MentalFloss)
• What Happens to Our Brains When We Have Stage Fright? (Buffer)
• How Long Can You Live Without Food or Water? Real-life Barbie, Valeria Lukyanova, has decided she's going to try it. (Examiner)

 

Trading Links:

• Peculiar Traits of Rich People. (Fool)
• Family Offices Chasing Wealthy’s $46 Trillion in Assets. (Bloomberg)
• You Can’t Avoid Asset Allocation … Even If You Try. (CapitalSpectator)
• Forget Passive vs. Active -- Here's How To Evaluate Any Investment Strategy. (Millennial)
• The Average Stock Is More Expensive Now Than It Was At The Peak Of The Dot-Com Bubble In 2000. (BusinessInsider)

What It Is Like to Prepare to Speak at a TEDx Conference (Part 2)

To use an athletic analogy, a normal speech and a TED Talk are totally different events (like a sprint vs the decathlon).  It takes a surprisingly different set of skills and type of preparation to perform well.

I've given hundreds of presentations, and don't normally stress about them.  I did for this one.

 

  
In most of my talks, there is very little "set in stone" to memorize.  I tend to have a main topic (or theme), and each slide serves like a module ... and I think, talk, interact, and improvise throughout the framework.

This works well for me because I tend to think in anecdotes that branch out from the main theme. That may be a great skill to have, but it's not one that helps you write a good TED Talk.

Why?  Because, in contrast, a TED Talk is really about "one idea worth sharing".  

In many respects, it's much harder to write and deliver a good 10 minutes about one idea, than it is to prepare to talk about a much broader topic for one hour.

 

My wife, son, and me at the TEDx Plano event

 

The TEDx committee created a sense of formality with stringent standards and deadlines.  My guess is that, during the planning and rehearsal  process, they wanted uncomfortable speakers to provoke better speeches.

As a result, I prepared (and threw away) four separate talks before coming up with something that felt right and flowed properly.

Here are some bullet points that highlight lessons learned.

• One of my early listeners coached me that the trick to a good TED Talk is that it is not about what you say, but rather about what they feel. In other words, for a TED Talk, evaluate the story and the particular wording choices based on the emotions they elicit in listeners.
• One of the best ways to get a point across emotionally is to tell a story.  And, if I couldn't remember it easily, it probably wasn't a story.
• The speech committee and several early listeners strongly encouraged me to go with as few slides as possible. I started with 15 ... I got it down to six  ... and I ended up with two (relying, instead, on the performance and connection rather than images and words).
• They encouraged me to take almost everything about business (in general) or my business (specifically) out of the talk.
• In fact, they kept encouraging me to make it simpler and more basic on almost every level. "Why did you say that?" I would answer; and they would say "Then say that."

I didn't realize how hard it was to make something simple.

The video should be ready next week.

 

EDIT: Here it is:

Related articles

How to Create and Deliver a TED talk

How to prepare and deliver a TEDx talk

What It Is Like to Prepare to Speak at a TEDx Conference (Part 1)

Here Are Some Links Worth Reading This Weekend

Does writing something with a #Hashtag constitute "doing something"?

 

 

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

 

Lighter Links:

• The One Sign Something Is About To Go Wrong--And What You Can Do Before It Does. (Forbes)
• Practice Not As Important As Thought For Success, Study Says. (PopSci)
• Evernote CEO: Apps Will Become Obsolete. (Fortune Tech)
• Virtual Girlfriends Gaining Popularity in Japan. (BusinessInsider)
• 5 TED Talks That May Change Your View on Life. (Entrepreneur)

 

Trading Links:

• 91% of Democrats See Hillary As Likely 2016 Nominee. (Rasmussen)
• Here's Where The World's Richest Families Put Their Fortunes. (BusinessInsider)
• What Makes a Great Trader? An Interview with Jack Schwager. (CFA)
• Software Is Eating Investment Management. (AbnormalReturns)
• The Big Four Economic Indicators: What They're Telling Us About the Economy. (Advisor)

Turning a Profit: See How Quickly Tech Giants Build Wealth

Do you want to know how much Apple earns in a minute? What about Twitter or Google?

Here is an interactive graphic that highlights how quickly these businesses are making money.

 

Click image to open interactive version (via WorldPay Zinc). 

 

The results are surprising.  Here is an example showing how much revenue and profit these tech giants make per minute.

 

 

It Is the Rubik's Cube's 40th Anniversary - Can You Solve It Yet?

The Rubik's Cube just had it's 40th anniversary of invention. 

It is, arguably, the world's best-selling toy, having sold over 350 million units.

Here are a few things you might not know about it.

1.  The Rubik's Cube was invented by Erno Rubik, a Hungarian professor of architecture and design, who wanted a working model to help explain three-dimensional geometry to his students.

2.  The toy was originally named the Magic Cube. In a recent interview with The New York Times, Rubik admitted that it was strange to refer to his creation as a "Rubik's cube" and says that he calls it "my cube." Rubik introduced the toy as the Magic Cube in Hungary, named for his theory of "magic cubology," but the Ideal Toy Corp. dubbed it the Rubik's cube in 1979.

3.  All possible Rubik's cube combinations can be solved in 23 moves. No matter how the cube starts out, its colors can be perfectly rearranged in 23 or fewer steps. See here.

 

Toys aren't just for Kids.

 

CubeStormer 3, built from Lego mechanical and robotics parts and powered by a Samsung Galaxy S4, shattered the world record by solving a Rubik’s Cube in only 3.253 seconds – considerabley faster than the fastest human time of 5.55 seconds.

You can watch the robot break the world record yourself below:

 

 

 via YouTube.

The smartphone acts as the brain of the robot. It uses a custom app that uses the camera to make note of what the scrambled cube looks like, then sends instructions to eight Lego Mindstorm EV3 bricks, which then in turn manipulate the arms of the robot to move the cube.

“We knew CubeStormer 3 had the potential to beat the existing record but with the robot performing physical operations quicker than the human eye can see there’s always an element of risk,” Gilday said in a statement, “In the end, the hours we spent perfecting the robot and ensuring its motor and intelligence functions were properly synchronized paid off. Our big challenge now is working out if it’s possible to make it go even faster.”

Related articles

On 40th anniversary of Rubik's Cube invention, Google posts a playable version of the world's ...

Erno Rubik celebrates the 40th anniversary of his famous cube