This week’s highlights:  WeLive, Traders and Mastery, Alan Jackson on Country Music

Fifteen on Friday – 03/09/18 – Issue 276

While Nashville went from almost 70 on Sunday to a light snow on Thursday morning, we certainly weren’t alone in the week’s crazy weather.  Our thoughts are with the many Fifteen on Friday readers suffering through the snow in the North East.

This week’s issue highlights many of the common themes we hone in on regularly – skepticism about excessive use of technology, accelerating rates of change (whether for utilities, asset managers or record labels), or how someone reconsiders the status quo to find a new path to success (i.e.  UVA basketball’s dominance on defense).

Enjoy and have a great weekend,

David

Food for Thought:

1. NYT – For Two Months, I Got My News From Print Newspapers. Here’s What I Learned.  Get news. Not too quickly. Avoid social.
2. NYMag – Talk to Me Boy.  I love conversations with my son, even if he doesn’t really hear me.
3. NewRepublic – How Modern Art Serves the Rich.  More art is being produced and sold than ever before, at ever higher prices.
4. HuffPo – Jerry and Marge Go Large – I’m a week late with this story- but it is so incredible, that it is worth sending just in case you haven’t seen it already.  “Gaming the lottery seemed as good a retirement plan as any.”
5. GQ – A Week Inside WeLive, the Utopian Apartment Complex That Wants to Disrupt City Living  WeWork is branching out into housing, but can it actually change the way we live?

Business/Economics:

1. HN – The Eightfold Path of the Legendary Trader – Another thoughtful reflection about the development of mastery.
2. WashPo – Why almost no one is making a living on YouTube
3. Vox – After rising for 100 years, electricity demand is flat. Utilities are freaking out..  The Tennessee Valley Authority is the latest to be caught short.
4. ZeroHedge – How Amazon Can Blow Up Asset Management – Credit JC
5. Stratechery – Lessons from Spotify

Culture/Tech/Science:

1. PewResearch – Defining generations: Where Millennials end and post-Millennials begin
2. TheRinger – How Tony Bennett Turned Virginia Into College Basketball’s Spurs – Credit WES – With the Cavaliers, Bennett has built a program that seems to feed on itself, sustaining success regardless of the players on the floor. His Cavs are tough and deep and efficient. You can call them boring, but this April, they might finally win it all.
3. MIT – If you’re so smart, why aren’t you rich? Turns out it’s just chance. The most successful people are not the most talented, just the luckiest, a new computer model of wealth creation confirms. Taking that into account can maximize return on many kinds of investment.
4. GQ – Honky Tonk Heavyweight Alan Jackson Talks How To Pull Off a Cowboy Hat and His Legacy in Country Music  What do you have left to accomplish? “Well there’s nothing left, I don’t think. I’ve won about everything except the Female Vocalist award. They just put me in the Hall of Fame—I feel like that’s the top of the mountain there. My favorite part of the business has always been making music, writing or recording the songs and making a new album. The touring gets old, and I’ve tried never to make the awards be that important to me, but I just love making that music.”
5. NYT – A Supercolony of Penguins Has Been Found Near Antarctica.  Satellite images and a drone discovered about 1.5 million Adélie penguins living in the Danger Islands, one of two species whose habitats require ice.