The weekend is a great time to catch up on some posts that were either too long or simply didn’t fit in during the week. Hope you enjoy!

Investing

Is ‘smart beta‘ just smart marketing?  (Turnkey Analyst)

Alpha doesn’t come with a little (or lot) of discomfort.  (Research Affiliates)

Four skills every successful investor needs to have.  (A Wealth of Common Sense)

A recap of a recent Howard Marks talk.  (Knowledge@Wharton)

There is no certain way to invest for retirement.  (Buttonwood’s notebook)

Why don’t investors complain about fund fees? Because they don’t know how much they are paying.  (Morgan Housel)

Robotics

Who will profit from the robot revolution?  (Millenial Invest)

Why the robot industry is set to take off.  (Quartz)

The future of brain implants.  (WSJ)

Business

On the rise of the ‘automatic corporation.’  (Vivek Haldar via @thebrowser)

What can big companies do to act more like startups?  (Pando Daily)

Lefsetz’s business rules.  (Big Picture)

Why (and how) Chipotle ($CMG) hires from within.  (Quartz)

How to build a better Amazon Prime.  (GigaOM also The Verge)

Startups

What Silicon Valley has that other tech centers don’t: exits.  (Mark Cuban)

Startups are going “full stack” to take on incumbents.  (Chris Dixon)

How do you hedge your post-IPO shares.  (Wealthfront)

Don’t be fooled by late stage valuations, early startups valuations are sluggish.  (WSJ)

Startups should be careful not to be too cheap when it comes to employee amenities.  (Both Sides of the Table)

Auto tech

Hydrogen powered cars closer to reality than commonly thought.  (Quartz)

Why can’t a startup build a self-driving car?  (TechCrunch)

Science

The fascinating neuroscience of color.  (Fast Company)

How your gut microbes interact with your genes.  (Fast Company)

Health

Running as therapy.  (Well)

A DNA test now does a good job of identifying colon cancer.  (WSJ)

Why is the FDA holding back on new sunscreen ingredients?  (Washington Post)

Food

How technology can help reduce water waste in agriculture.  (Re/code)

Lobster is everywhere these days.  (WSJ)

On the slow death of the microwave.  (Quartz)

Sports

Think Gatorade will help athletic performance. Instead think milk, chocolate milk.  (WSJ)

Why do dual sport athletes more often pick baseball?  (USA Today)

Believe it or not the Chicago Cubs are right on track.  (Grantland)

Entertainment

An interview with Mike Judge on his forthcoming series Silicon Valley.  (The Verge)

Inside the finances of a pop record hit.  (DailyFinance)

Sweden is doing a booming business in songwriting credits.  (WSJ)

Book biz

Why there are so few 20th century books available as e-books.  (Quartz)

Reviewing books is a tough job.  (EconLog)

Books

The attraction of busyness: an excerpt from Overwhelmed: Work, Love, and Play When No One Has the Time by Brigit Schulte.  (WashingtonPost)

Is “patrimonial capitalism” making a comeback?  A review of Capital in the Twenty First Century by Thomas Piketty.  (Pacific Standard)

A look at Rose George’s Ninety Percent of Everything: Inside Shipping, the Invisible Industry That Puts Clothes on Your Back, Gas in Your Car, and Food on Your Plate.  (NY Review of Books)

Earlier on Abnormal Returns

The upside of bubbles: the biotech edition.  (Abnormal Returns)

What you may have missed in our Friday linkfest.  (Abnormal Returns)

Mixed media

We need more scholars who are foxes not hedgehogs.  (Project Syndicate)

A firsthand account of the world of illegal bookmaking.  (Vice)

Does teaching kids ‘grit‘ work?  (NPR)

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