Updates

  1. Person pages list letters, writing, profiles and links as sortable tables with filters, and show each person's companies as links; Fund letters show each letter's description in its own column.
  2. Experts show a checked job title and a short description of each person; 30 more people have photographs.
  3. Every company, fund, university and publication the experts work for has a page listing the people there.
  4. Fund letters show each letter's thesis and filter by it; 225 person pages list the essays, columns and newsletter issues the person wrote.
  5. Person pages list every essay and newsletter issue a person wrote, and their own books as a table in List view.
  6. Recommends shows the five largest kinds of book and the rest under More; browse pictures load sooner.
  7. Podcasts and talks link the original episode, filter by Audio and video or Press, and list each publisher once.
  8. Pages are wider, Recommends has List and Grid, and a filter clicked again turns off.
  9. Book cards sit in a ruled grid with Open Library and Goodreads links and each book's one-line note.
  10. Funds is now Investors; each investor's styles are buttons that filter the table.
  11. Podcasts and talks on a person's page filter by year and publisher and show as a list or a grid of pictures.
  12. Quotes show only people's own words: 472 summaries written by list sites are gone.
  13. Country pages open from Browse again, and every link on the shelf lands on a page.
  14. Subject and person pages show their sections as tabs, and each book appears once on a person's page.
  15. Book cards show the quote, who said it and the source; grids show five cards to a row.
  16. On a phone, a menu holds the sections, search, Updates, Feedback and dark mode.
  17. Feedback takes a screenshot of the page with no browser prompt, opens a screenshot full size when you click it, and clears itself once sent.
  18. Book cards are centred, search names the topic each book sits in, and any text cut short shows whole on hover.
  19. Search groups its results by kind: people, companies, geographies, subjects, topics, books, funds, fund letters and papers.
  20. The Books table lists who recommended each book by name, and the browser tab names the section you are in.
  21. Feedback can take a screenshot of the page, or one you paste or choose, and opens in the corner beside Updates.
  22. Each rail button reopens its section where you left it, and Browse, Table and People show on every book and subject page.
  23. Filters grey out choices that hold nothing instead of hiding them, and Books › People filters by authors or recommenders.
  24. Feedback takes a subject line and up to three screenshots.
  25. Biographies are grouped by the person they are about: 41 new pages, from Abraham Lincoln to Lee Kuan Yew.
  26. Sport splits into 23 sports, and Religion into one topic per faith.
  27. Book lists show as cards: the cover, one recommendation quote and every recommender by name.
  28. Seventeen subjects that had two or three pages under different names now have one page each.
  29. Every page lists its Experts as authors and recommenders, with a link to them on the Experts tab.
  30. Economics, Financial history, Financial panics and Accounting are subjects of their own, with one page per financial crisis.
  31. Book, person and subject pages open inside the app, so the tabs stay in view.
  32. 996 more book covers, and photographs or logos for 227 more people and companies.
  33. Books › Browse shows every subject as cards, and the rail holds Fund letters, Papers, Experts, Books and Funds.
  34. Every topic over 150 books splits into narrower topics, each with a page of its own.

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Insurance and float

Business models

Underwriting produces float, which is leverage that can be invested; the literature runs from risk theory to the failures that show what happens when pricing is wrong.

Books 10Experts 4Recommenders 27

Start here

  1. The SnowballAlice Schroeder, 2008
  2. The Essays of Warren BuffettWarren Buffett, Lawrence A. Cunningham, 1997
  3. Against the GodsPeter L. Bernstein, 1996
Against the GodsAgainst the Gods
T1 Against the Gods
Peter L. Bernstein · 1996
Open LibraryGoodreads

How people learned to measure risk, from early probability to portfolio theory.

“I think some of the books that are a must would be Peter Bernstein's book about risk, Against the Gods: The Remarkable Story of Risk.” — Charles de Vaulx

Source: De Vaulx naming Bernstein's book a must-read on risk

Recommended by: Charles de Vaulx, Jim Collins and 8 others

The Essays of Warren BuffettThe Essays of Warren Buffett
T1 The Essays of Warren Buffett
Warren Buffett, Lawrence A. Cunningham · 1997
Open LibraryGoodreads

Berkshire's shareholder letters arranged by topic: governance, valuation, mergers.

“The resource is as valuable as Larry Cunningham's The Essays of Warren Buffett, which similarly organizes by subject matter” — Christopher Bloomstran

Source: Semper Augustus 2024 Letter to Clients, 'Books and Tunes for Walking', p. 96

Recommended by: Christopher Bloomstran, Francois Rochon and 11 others

The SnowballThe Snowball
T1 The Snowball
Alice Schroeder · 2008
Open LibraryGoodreads

Buffett's life to 2008, written with full access to his files and his friends.

“…books I've recommended, highlighted to death, or forced on friends.” — Andrew Wilkinson

Source: Andrew Wilkinson's Bookshelf, neverenough.com

Recommended by: Andrew Wilkinson, Guy Spier, Mohnish Pabrai and 5 others

The Davis DynastyThe Davis Dynasty
T2 The Davis Dynasty
John Rothchild · 2001
Open LibraryGoodreads

Three generations compounding a fortune through insurance stocks

“When John Rothchild combines history and biography with investing in one package, history illuminates the biography and investing. This is a sparkling book on each level, but even more so as an…” — Peter Bernstein

Source: Bernstein on Rothchild mixing history, biography and investing

Recommended by: Mohnish Pabrai, Peter Bernstein and 1 other

The Invisible BankersThe Invisible Bankers
T3 The Invisible Bankers
Andrew Tobias · 1982
Open LibraryGoodreads

Consumer-side account of how insurers make money.

Lloyd's of LondonLloyd's of London
T3 Lloyd's of London
Godfrey Hodgson · 1984
Open LibraryGoodreads

History of the market before the losses that nearly ended it.

Ultimate RiskUltimate Risk
T3 Ultimate Risk
Adam Raphael · 1994
Open LibraryGoodreads

The Lloyd's of London Names catastrophe and unlimited liability.

Fatal RiskFatal Risk
T3 Fatal Risk
Roddy Boyd · 2011
Open LibraryGoodreads

How AIG's derivatives unit led the world's largest insurer to a $180 billion rescue.

The AIG Story
T3 The AIG Story
Maurice R. Greenberg, Lawrence A. Cunningham · 2013
Open LibraryGoodreads

How AIG became the world's largest insurer, and its builder's account of his ouster.

Recommended by: Mohnish Pabrai

Berkshire Beyond BuffettBerkshire Beyond Buffett
T3 Berkshire Beyond Buffett
Lawrence A. Cunningham · 2014
Open LibraryGoodreads

Berkshire as an operating company: its subsidiaries' culture and whether it lasts.

Recommended by: Mohnish Pabrai

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