Blog

Food for thought:

• Physical activity does not influence obesity risk: time to clarify the public health message
• BBRG: Financial Crisis Killed Hedge-Fund Performance
• The Good Story
• Time Magazine Sold to Salesforce Founder Marc Benioff for $190 Million
• Branded a Villain, Lehman’s Dick Fuld Chases Redemption
• The Financial Crisis Killed Hedge-Fund Performance
• Lazy, Not Biased: Susceptibility to Partisan Fake News Is Better Explained by Lack of Reasoning Than by Motivated Reasoning
• 10 Key Steps to Financial Independence
• You Can Time The Market, Just Not All The Time
• Powerful Emotions of a Winning Trader
• The Cognitive Burden of Poverty
• Could the Fed Have Saved Lehman?
• Experts are good at betting which scientific experiments can replicate
• What Personality Tests Really Deliver
• The Psychology of Trading Without the Ego
• Can We Survive the Next Financial Crisis?
• The Risk of Mental Ruin for Traders
• This school replaced detention with meditation. The results are stunning.
• Where Will The Next Crisis Come From?
• The Misleading Lessons of History
• Back To $chool
• The 8 Downfalls of Jesse Livermore
• How to Maximize Serendipity
• It was a gut-wrenching trade, but investors who bought the day before Lehman failed are up 130%
• Each crisis has been followed by a bigger crisis
• When You Lose 99.9%, You’ve Lost More Than Money

Enjoy.

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Ken Kocienda was a software engineer/designer at Apple for over fifteen years and is now the author of “Creative Selection: Inside Apple’s Design Process During the Golden Age of Steve Jobs.” After being introduced to the internet in 1994 he taught himself computer programming and made his way through a succession of dot-com-era startups, before landing a job at Apple in 2001. He worked on software teams responsible for creating the Safari web browser, iPhone, iPad, and Apple Watch.

Ken entered college with the mindset of becoming a history professor or even a photographer. He had various interests in college, however none of them were in the technology sphere. He moved to Japan after college for a few years and upon moving back to the United States, he was introduced to the internet for the first time and instantly intrigued by it.

Ken interviewed for Apple in spring of 2001 before the iPod had been released–Apple was still relying on the Mac as their main revenue stream at the time. Ken had loved Apple products since he saw his first Mac in 1984 so when he was hired on at Apple it was surreal. His first job was to make Apple a web browser of its own – what we all know as Safari today. Later, in 2004, he joined the team to make the software for the iPhone’s touchscreen operating system, among other products.

Inspiration, collaboration, craft, diligence, decisiveness, taste and empathy are seven attributes Ken uses to describe how Apple became the success story they are today. Steve Jobs and Apple chased perfection and demanded nothing short of it.

In this episode of Trend Following Radio:

• Pyramid of demos
• Steve Jobs thought process
• Apple company philosophy
• Completely present in the moment
• Reality distortion field
• Creative selection
• Green Bay Packers and Vince Lombardi

Mentions & Resources:

• Ken Kocienda
• Creative Selection: Inside Apple’s Design Process During the Golden Age of Steve Jobs

Subscribe to Trend Following Radio on iTunes

Terence C.M. Tse is an educator, speaker, advisor and commentator. He is a co-founder of Nexus FrontierTech and co-author of “Understanding How the Future Unfolds: Using Drive to Harness the Power of Today’s Mega Trends.” His mantra is “You can’t predict the future, but you can be ready with a plan.”

Terence’s book focuses on a term he calls “Presentcasting.” He does not promote forecasting but rather teaches people to look at what’s in front of them and see how things are unfolding in current time. He has created the acronym DRIVE – defining 5 interrelated mega trends: demographic and social changes, resource scarcity, inequalities, volatility, complexity and scale and enterprising dynamics. These are the five directions Terence points clients in when they start thinking about improving their lives.

What is one way to step outside the box and get a better look at trends unfolding? Travel. Traveling is crucial to seeing the speed in development and change happening around the world. Desire to climb the economic ladder is not exclusive to one culture or another. Everyone is looking for the same economic wealth. Most cultures promote the desire to get a college degree, however this leaves young adults lacking the ability to take risks. The education system trains students to study, take exams well and work in certain defined jobs. However, in today’s world learning how to deal with uncertainty, have an entrepreneurship mindset, and take a little risk are the skills that will help young adults get ahead an prosper.

In this episode of Trend Following Radio:

• Preparing of uncertainty
• Entrepreneurship
• Economics abroad
• New technology
• Rise of the internet
• Disappearance of white collar jobs
• Student loans

Mentions & Resources:

• Terence Tse
• Understanding How the Future Unfolds: Using Drive to Harness the Power of Today’s Mega Trends
• MegaTrends

Feedback in:

Mike,

Been listening to you for maybe 5 years now, sorry I don’t review more, I’ll try. I’m a financial advisor and a solid believer in trend following. After reading TurtleTrader I traded personally using options, that was June 2014, profited well on short oil. Lucked out starting then. So my investment in you and your work has returned handsomely.

In December 2015 I bought [product] and was determined to learn futures, six months later I started a simulated account, traded it for a year and a half. Went live this year. Things have gone well.

I know you like to get to the point. I guess because your work has helped me achieve my goals, I wanted to say thank you. In a recent podcast I think in an interview with Ed Seykota he said that the trend following mindset can change your life. I totally agree.

Applying the principals with/for my client portfolios is a challenge. In general, clients just think too short term. It’s not their fault, they have the TV telling them how to think, online access to their accounts daily, monthly statements, quarterly reports to a benchmark. We spaz them out because that is what everyone else would do.

Look forward to your future work!

[Name]

Thanks!

I have done my best to have some of George Mason University’s finest on my podcast:

Walter Williams: Episode 244 and Wikipedia

Tyler Cohen: Episode 575, Episode 255 and Wikipedia

Robin Hanson: Episode 236, Episode 461, Episode 615 and Wikipedia

Bryan Caplan: Episode 671 and Wikipedia

Daniel Klein: Episode 662 and Wikipedia

Alex Tabarrok: Episode 289 and Wikipedia

Peter Leeson: Episode 687 and Wikipedia

Nobel Prize Winner Vernon Smith: Episode 178 and Wikipedia

Note: Vernon Smith is not at Mason now, but was for a very long time. He did win his Nobel Prize while teaching there. He also appears in my film. Full disclosure? I did graduate from Mason and remain quite proud of the school’s immense success…in literally less than 30 years. Amazing!

Bob Woodward spins John Belushi? Indeed. A fantastic historical footnote for all of us today.

Bottom line: Trust the media at your personal peril.

Food for thought:

• The Disproportional Power of Anecdotes
• Staying unfazed by 17 straight losses early on helped this trader find the Holy Grail of trading
• Research on a Levered 60/40 Approach vs. 100% Equities
• Quant questions
• Amazon Hits $1 Trillion Valuation
• What Harry Markowitz Meant
• Nudge Turns 10: A Special Issue on Behavioral Science in Public Policy
• Forecasting, uncertainty and risk; perspectives on clinical decision-making in preventive and curative medicine
• How to Retire in Your 30s With $1 Million in the Bank
• The psychological trick behind getting people to say yes
• Billionaire Explains How To Exploit Market Edges

Enjoy.