Bamboo Innovator Daily Insight: 5 Feb (Thurs) – Seth Klarman: What I’ve learned from Warren Buffett

Life 

• Seth Klarman: What I’ve learned from Warren Buffett: FT
• Why Mark Zuckerberg is reading a book called ‘Gang Leader for a Day’: BI
• This simple phrase could revolutionize your business; “idk” is a simple acronym of great power: FP
• The First Page; Never take the reader’s attention for granted. We have to earn it, you and I, and that ain’t easy. Is there a secret? None that I’ve found. We’ve got to keep striving for that magic, wherever and however we can find it. SP
• Here’s the advice billionaire investor Peter Thiel wishes he could’ve given his younger self: BI
• Peter Thiel has an insane story about what a real tech bubble feels like: BI
• Why being lazy and procrastinating could make you wildly successful; Bill Gates said he would always ‘hire a lazy person to do a difficult job’ at Microsoft ‘because a lazy person will find an easy way to do it’: Telegraph
• The Dangers of Believing That Talent Is Innate; A study of academia shows how being convinced of intrinsic ability may lead to bias and unwillingness to change. WSJ
• Psychologists say one strategy is key to defusing heated arguments and avoiding divorce: BI
• Employees reveal the best things about working at Apple: BI
• Review: ‘Bold’ by Peter Diamandis and Stephen Kotler; A guide to exponential digital chutzpah from a master of the art of ‘going big’: FT
• Abbott, Giles and Newman: the lessons from their leadership failures: BRW
• Innovate or Stagnate: PS
• How to Revive a Tired Network: HBR
• A Simple Way to Measure How Much Customers Love Your Brand: HBR
• In Leadership, When Does Your Hard-Earned Confidence Become A Weakness?: Forbes
• The dawn of marketing’s new golden age: Marketers are boosting their precision, broadening their scope, moving more quickly, and telling better stories. McKinsey

Books

• Gang Leader for a Day: A Rogue Sociologist Takes to the Streets : Amazon

Investing Process

• A Look At Negative Equity Companies: VW

Greater China

• Corporate China not yet ready to rule the world; Regulation and suspicion harm companies’ efforts to break into foreign markets: FT
• SEC, Chinese Affiliates of Accounting Firms Near Settlement; Chinese Audit Firms of Big Four Accounting Firms Face Sanctions Over Document Sharing: WSJ
• Facing up to ‘Mask City’ in HK: Standard
• Feed China, starve the world? WCT
• Fake app-ranking factory unveiled in China: WCT
• CDB Told to Return to Policy Bank Role It Left Years Ago: Caixin
• China has crossed a major investment threshold that is going to change the entire world? FP
• China RRR Cut Shows Rising Pressure From Capital Flight: Forbes
• China High-Rollers Are Avoiding Macau Because of China’s Crackdown and Gambling Elsewhere: Bloomberg
• Chinese online video provider LeTV takes aim at manufacturing cars: SCMP
• Alibaba hits the sky delivering tea by drone in three mainland cities: SCMP
• Doubt grows over China investment plans; A lack of capacity, motivation and funding on the part of the officials may see some of the local governments’ investment projects fall through: SCMP
• Margin Trading Adds to Risks in China; Funds Lent Have Risen 11% so Far This Year; Worry Over Umbrella Trusts: WSJ
• China to ban online impersonation accounts, enforce real-name registration: Reuters
• State-Backed Automaker FAW ‘Spent Millions to Buy Land, Build Villas’; Company leaders illegally owned or held shares in dealerships, and some helped relatives do business with the automaker: Caixin

India

• India’s Rajan Denies Risk of Banking Crisis as Bad Loans Mount: Bloomberg
• Samsung Overtaken by Micromax’s 21-Language Phone in India: Bloomberg, Reuters
• India: GDP growth rate up, confidence in statistics down?: FT
• India Inc’s tryst with Bollywood: How corporates are changing the scene: Forbes

Japan & Korea

• ‘Park sinks deeper into political crisis’: KH
• 8 in 10 large Korean companies voice concerns about prolonged recession, says poll: Maeil
• Japan Needs More Corporate Funerals: Bloomberg
• Workaholic Japan considers making it compulsory to take vacation days: JT
• Korea moving to adopt ‘Google Tax’: KT
• GolfZon jumps on President’s lift of golf ban: KT

ASEAN

• Joko Widodo stumbles into crisis over police chief nominee: FT
• Singapore remisiers write to Tharman to resolve issues plaguing market; Widespread unhappiness sees more than 1,000 stock traders, investors put pen to paper asking for separation of SGX roles, restoration of trust in market: BT
• Jokowi the Javanese Ruler: Like the dalang in a shadow puppet performance, a consummate Javanese leader is ‘samar’ (shrouded in mystery) in his conduct. JG
• In Jokowi’s Indecision, a Skirmish for Power; Saving Face: Analysts suggest the president hasn’t withdrawn his nominee for police chief out of deference to his political backers: JG
• Jakarta: World’s Worst for Traffic Gridlock: JG
• Bitcoin fervour cools in S’pore: AsiaOne
• Malaysian conglomerate struggles to turn car unit around: Nikkei

Macro

•  UK watchdog hands KPMG fines totalling £390,000: FT
• Investors fear loss of millions in Brazilian property scheme: FT
• US endowments pare bets on alternatives: FT
• Buffett tells Fox Business he wants a company in Europe: Reuters
• Debt mountains spark fears of another crisis: FT
• Asset Managers Break Promises on Responsible Investment: AI
• Bitcoin’s day of reckoning is here: Quartz
• Devaluation by China is the next great risk for a deflationary world: Telegraph
• Why the Great White Short II on Canadian banks is ‘inevitable’; The Great White Short on Canada’s big banks fizzled the first time around back in 2013, but round two, if it happens, will be tougher to vanquish: FP
• Buffett’s $1m bet pays off as index tracker beats hedge funds: Telegraph
• Intel CFO: Obama Repatriation Tax Proposal ‘Lipstick on a Pig’; it makes us less competitive with Samsung and TSMC which are the people we compete with on a worldwide stage, because they have much more pro-business tax policies: Barron’s
• Central Bankers Play Jack-In-The-Box: Barron’s
• If “S&P’s core business of rating securities was for three critical years “a scheme to defraud investors,” why is S&P still rating securities?”: Bloomberg
• S&P got off easy; The next time the government finds that S&P has defrauded investors again, it should ask for more. Fortune
• Are Emerging Markets Ready for the Housing Earthquake? FT
• Pension Funds Criticize Transparency at KKR; KKR Returned Some Fees but Didn’t Disclose Reason Was SEC Exam: WSJ
• Bootstrapped Startups Risk a Lack of Connections; Financial Self-Reliance Can Come Back to Haunt Entrepreneurs if They Suddenly Need Investors: WSJ
• Chelsea Clinton’s Husband Suffers Massive Hedge Fund Loss On Greek Investment: ZeroHedge
• The Face Of The Oligarch Recovery: Luxury Skyscrapers Empty As NYC Homeless Population Hits Record High: ZeroHedge
• 26 Percent Of Brokers Have Lost Money To Scam Emails: SEC: VW

TMT

• SAP founder Hasso Plattner: ‘If this doesn’t work, we’re dead. Flat-out dead.’: BI
• Materials science: Wings of steel; An alloy of iron and aluminium is as good as titanium, at a tenth of the cost: Economist
• Big Data: Credit where credit’s due; Companies use technology to create ‘proxy’ credit profiles, raising concerns about the tactics: FT
• Why 3D printers are ‘the sewing machine for the 21st century’: TheAge
• Microsoft Is Acquiring Calendar App Sunrise For North Of $100 Million: Techcrunch
• Giving Drone Industry Leeway to Innovate: NYT
• Why Twitter Bought Bangalore ‘Missed Call’ Startup ZipDial: Forbes
• ‘Sharing economy’ reshapes markets, as complaints rise: AFP
• Inside the studio where ESPN is betting billions on the future of sports: Verge
• Google’s secret weapon in the battle for the internet of things: academia: FastCo
• The Uberpreneur: How An Uber Driver Makes $252,000 A Year;  “It’s a genius way to start a business nowadays, especially because nobody’s doing it.”: Forbes

Energy & Commodities

• RICH BERNSTEIN: Oil CEOs today sound like tech CEOs in 2000: BI
• Default risk rises in US oil and gas sector: FT
• Big oil is not the biggest victim of cheap crude: FT
• A tiny share of Mongolians have decided the country’s future, by text message: Quartz
• It’s Pork Over Beef in America for First Time Since 1952: Bloomberg

Consumer & Others

• 4 ways McDonald’s tried to change Chipotle: BI
• How Taco Bell’s Ordering App Turns Extra Onions Into Real Money: Bloomberg
• The retailers that could be swallowed up next by Amazon: FP
• Starbucks brews up first UK profits in 17 years: Guardian
• Chipotle: The Definitive Oral History; The builders of a $22 billion burrito empire—the founder, his father, his college buddies, key execs, and a couple of pig farmers—open up about how they won the fast-food future : bloomberg
• Under Armour buys fitness app startups: ChinaPost
• Hugo Boss to take full control of Asian business: AsiaOne
• Coke hopes to cream it but consumers dub foray into dairy ‘franken-milk’: TheAge
• How Doonesbury helped make Pandora a success: WaPo
• The Chipotle effect: Why America is obsessed with fast casual food:  WaPo
• Lebanese Clan Rides Zara’s Rise to Become Billionaires: Bloomberg