(Not) boring finds for September 2015

Our team comes across hundreds of weird and wonderful reads in our daily research. Below are the handful that stood out for us this month.

Not everything below is technically about investing—but everything relates back to investing or decision-making in some way.

Links

Videos

A Few Notes on the above

The short film on Jiro Ono is a great follow-up to the acclaimed documentary, “Jiro Dreams of Sushi” (which if you haven’t watched it, go to iTunes and download it immediately). It is a wonderful examination of what it means to master something. At one point in the short, Redzepi asks Jiro how long it took for him to feel he was getting good at making sushi. Jiro’s answer? 50 years. (!)

Similarly, we had plenty of love for “In Praise of Missing Out: Psychoanalyst Adam Phillips on the Paradoxical Value of Our Unlived Lives.” Like most writing on Brain Pickings, this article dives deeply and immediately into heady philosophical inquiry, but it is well worth the time invested. In a world in which social media constantly perpetuates “FOMO” (the fear of missing out), these thoughts are illuminating. Better to read this one Sunday morning than on your Monday commute.

Finally…ever heard of Blockchain? If not, you probably will soon. Successful Silicon Valley Venture Capitalist, Marc Andreessen (@pmarca), describes it as the most important invention since the Internet. “RoboCorp” and “Forget Bitcoin: What is the blockchain and why should you care?” each give a high level overview of the decentralized system.