Wisdom Pill – Vol 4

First of all, let me congratulate all Indian reader on celebrating yet another year of freedom and independence. It’s high time this greatly diverse nation breaks some crippling factors which impediments its progress and move forward to a brighter future and I, like many others, hope that the current government at the center will give that impetus and direction which this country very badly needs.

Interestingly, while India celebrates its 69^th independence day, this week also saw the 80^th birthday of a very important program of US, the Social Security signed by President Roosevelt on August 14, 1935. You can read more here and here and a very interesting view by David Stockman (Author of Contra Corner) on why social security could be bankrupt in 12 years. Remember from the first newsletter; always look for both sides of the story.

Following are articles I found worth reading this week

1. Activist investing has never taken a significant role in Indian Financial Ecosystem but for many years, I have learned so much from so many of them. Carl Icahn, Bill Ackman or even Gordon Gecko (Remember the Greed is Good Speech??). The learning is not necessarily on what and how to do things but also what NOT and how NOT to do things. Dan Loeb of Third Point LLC defending ‘Activist’ Investors in his letter to investors. I would strongly recommend not only reading the article by Zerohedge here but also the comments. Zerohedge has a very diverse readership base and it gives a very interesting perspective by reading the comments.

2. During my last meeting with Sanjay Bakshi, he recommended me to read about Tom Russo and I did and he is a must listen to investor. A brief of his understanding you will get from here which is a small video where he explains consumer brands

3. The ‘Gig Economy’ is in vogue nowadays. In case you don’t know about it, it is a term used for the economic system in which the corporations don’t employee people on payrolls but hire them as contractors and thus freeing them from some employer obligations. Now, the concept is not new and has been exploited by many manufacturing units, textile companies etc. but it’s in vogue for different reasons and the company that is in the center of the debate is ‘UBER’. It creates an accounting issue also when calculating the employment related data and has been a matter of political interest and academic research too. Please read these articles on Gig economy. I have tried to give you all the perspectives here

• Defining Employee in the ‘Gig Economy’ by NY Times
• The case against the ‘Gig Economy’ by Fortune
• The Gig economy is real if you know where to look in Harvard Business Review
• The politicians’ war on Uber

4. An interesting article that talks about importance of Motivational intensity combined with positive or negative emotions that stimulate creativity. Please read here the HBR article by Scott Barry Kaufman

5. Yuan Devaluation has been the talk amongst investing circles in the past week. An important perspective by Economist here

6. A very interesting talk on TED which talks about the basic reasons as to why Homosapiens are able to rule the earth and not other species. Some very important learning also for managers, entrepreneurs and individuals. (You have to seek the learning, not directly mentioned)

7. It’s the annual report season and a good time of investors like me goes in reading annual reports. Investors who are new to the concepts or want to get more points in their annual report checklist will find relevance in this article by Moneylife team on Related Party Transactions

Quote of the week

Well, it’s an old quote but something that always should be remembered and I recall every time I read something like this.

“It takes 20 years to build a reputation and five minutes to ruin it. If you think about that, you’ll do things differently.”