Beta Blocker

Two things on this.

First, this would be a brilliant long-term play on emerging markets growth. As this part of the global economy expands, they will be there to fully capitalize on it. They have the first mover advantage. It won't be profitable tomorrow, but farther down the line, this can be huge.

Second, even if other players come in and join Google, this type of activity is huge for the local economies. This, combined all the McKinsey stuff I just posted can really facilitate entrepreneurialism.

Tons of fun stuff here. Even if most of it is wrong (which, by virtue of predictions, is likely correct) at least one or two of these things can have a major impact. McKinsey's 12 technologies:

Mobile Internet

Automation of knowledge work

Internet of things

Cloud

Advanced robotics

Autonomous and near-autonomous vehicles

Next generation genomics

Energy storage

3-D printings

Advanced materials

Advanced oil and gas exploration and recovery

Renewable energy

And then other cool stuff on the radar includes advanced water purification, quantum computing, flexible displays, and LEDs.

Not only are these plenty exciting individually, but their potential interactions are also fascinating. Energy storage and renewable energy is obvious, but what about mobile internet and almost anything else on the list? Design an object and send it to print at your local staples while on the go? Robots that pull information off the cloud and use advance materials to drill for oil? Well, the last one might be a bit of a stretch, but anything can happen.

Aside from mobile computing (the obvious choice for #1), I think they do a good job ranking these things in terms of importance. In terms of developed economies, automation of knowledge work will be huge...in terms of increased productivity and destroying jobs. It will be especially interesting to see how this interacts with robotics. We're probably a long ways off before we hit a Philip K Dickian dystopia, but it doesn't take much brain power to stock shelves at Walmart. This idea has been on my radar for quite some time: Which jobs will become easily and cheaply automated, and which will never become automated?

Most expensive category: Industrial Metals (cheapest ETF -- 65bps)

This guy is an idiot. But still, it's a fascinating idea. Some guy on an airplane told me about a book called The Unincorporated Man.

Barring a civilization-ending event, technology is not going to move backward. More and more of our world will be controlled by software. It’s already become so ubiquitous that, argues one of my colleagues, it’s now ridiculous to call some firms as “tech” companies when all companies depend on it so much.

So how do we deal with this trend? The possible solutions to the problems of disruption by thinking machines are beyond the scope of this piece. As I’ve mentioned in other pieces published at Quartz, there are plenty of optimists ready to declare that the rise of the machines will ultimately enable higher standards of living, or at least forms of unemployment as foreign to us as “big data scientist” would be to a scribe of the 17th century.

So THAT's why they're so expensive: 40% profit margins. 

On one hand, it's hard to see a physical notebook company really taking off in a digital economy. On the other hand, this is one of the best physical media companies around. The article (and the moleskin filing) are 100% correct in identifying their market. They aren't selling notebooks...they're selling people an identity.

If anything, the digital age can probably help them through more effective advertising. Social media and digital marketing are specifically geared towards selling niche products like this. 

The article estimates that the company likely has a global audience of about 300 million, and is selling products to 1.5% of them. It wouldn't shock me to see that 300 million number fall drastically in the future, but also see them sell to a much larger percentage of it. 

Very interesting. I was under the impression that most games, either ended in a near-50-50 split, or one party rejected the offer. But apparently (and this shows how behind I am on the literature) some 1995 study offers conflicting evidence, and several follow-up studies offer more conflicting evidence.

Can't say I'm entirely surprised. The more I learn about the brain, the more I realize how plastic it is. I always wondered what would happen if they tried to pull some of those behavioral finance tests on seasoned trading and investing pros. 

In any case, I'm sure the article's conclusion would make even David Graeber proud:

"