Notes: The Startup Playbook: Founder-to-Founder Advice From Two Startup Veterans by Rajat Bhargava and Will Herman is a “personal how-to guide for building your startup from the ground up.” (Brad Feld)
Quote of the Day
"I suspect that people persist in failure because they don’t even know that they are failing in the first place. And they don’t know they’re failing because they don’t record and track their results."
(Michael Batnick)
Chart of the Day

Just because the VelocityShares Daily Inverse VIX ($XIV) cratered doesn’t mean it wasn’t useful along the way.
Strategy
- It's not hard hiring aggressive fund managers, what's hard is not firing them at the wrong time (gmo.com)
- We don't think enough about the interaction between our human and financial capital. (ofdollarsanddata.com)
- Value investors need not overlook quality. (blogs.cfainstitute.org)
- Think how angry you would be if someone started placing random trades on your computer. (traderfeed.blogspot.com)
Kindle deals
- "How We Got to Now: Six Innovations That Made the Modern World" by Steven Johnson is just $1.99 for the Kindle. (amazon.com)
- "The Startup Playbook: Founder-to-Founder Advice From Two Startup Veterans by Rajat Bhargava and Will Herman is just $0.99 for the Kindle. (amazon.com)
- "The Map That Changed the World: William Smith and the Birth of Modern Geology" by Simon Winchester is just $2.99 for the Kindle. (amazon.com)
Crypto
- Paul Singer of Elliott Management is no fan of cryptocurrencies. (businessinsider.com)
- Bitcoin's fee crisis is over for now. (arstechnica.com)
Retail
- Amazon ($AMZN) Prime members now get a discount at Whole Foods. (recode.net)
- LL Bean is making a mistake ending its lifetime warranty policy. (bloomberg.com)
Finance
AI
- Blackrock ($BLK) is doubling down on its research in AI. (ft.com)
- AI researchers at Google ($GOOGL) and other tech firms sit in the prime position. (nytimes.com)
Support
- Love Abnormal Returns? Then like (and follow) us on Facebook. (facebook.com)
- Support this site by grabbing an annual membership to Abnormal Returns. (abnormalreturns.com)
- Stay up-to-date with all of our posts: sign-up for our daily e-mail. (abnormalreturns.com)
Global
Economy
- Recession forecasting requires a mosaic of indicators. (capitalspectator.com)
- Will increased business investment finally kick US productivity growth into high gear? (ft.com)
- What Alaska tells us about the potential for a universal basic income. (blogs.wsj.com)
Earlier on Abnormal Returns
- Research links: tulip bubble myths. (abnormalreturns.com)
- What you missed in our Monday linkfest. (abnormalreturns.com)
- ETF links: approval problems. (abnormalreturns.com)
Mixed media
- Jason Kottke is still pretty gloomy on the future of blogs. (niemanlab.org)
- When an online news outlet goes out of business its archives typically disappear as well. (longreads.com)
- Do we really want Google ($GOOGL) deciding what ads we see (or don't)? (nytimes.com)
- Don't let technology drive your media consumption choices. (avc.com)