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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Path Dependence

Mental models

Returns chain rather than average, so a 50 percent loss needs a 100 percent gain to repair and the order of outcomes matters as much as their mean. More broadly, small early accidents lock in structures - standards, habits, capital stock - that later logic cannot dislodge. Investors respond by capping position sizes and treating survival as the precondition for every other model.

Books 8Experts 2Recommenders 26Resources 4

Start here

  1. The Origin of WealthEric D. Beinhocker, 2006
  2. Increasing Returns and Path Dependence in the EconomyW. Brian Arthur, 1994
  3. Complexity and the EconomyW. Brian Arthur, 2014
Margin of SafetyMargin of Safety
T1 Margin of Safety
Seth A. Klarman · 1991
Open LibraryGoodreads

Avoid permanent loss: buy well below value and aim for absolute returns.

“Seth Klarman's 'Margin of Safety' is a good book about risk.” — Arnold Van Den Berg

Source: Van Den Berg on Margin of Safety as a book about risk

Recommended by: Arnold Van Den Berg, Frank Martin, Guy Spier and 6 others

Guns, Germs, and SteelGuns, Germs, and Steel
T1 Guns, Germs, and Steel
Jared Diamond · 1997
Open LibraryGoodreads

Diamond's central question — why did some civilizations come to dominate others over 10,000 years? — is precisely the kind of question that requires long-term thinking to even ask. The answer, rooted in geography and biology rather than culture or intelligence, is a model for how to reason about slow causes and fast effects.

“This is an insightful read on the pace at which societies develop and why.” — Christopher Bloomstran

Source: Semper Augustus 2023 Letter to Clients, 'Worldly Wisdom', p. 81

Recommended by: Charlie Munger, Christopher Bloomstran and 14 others

Plagues and PeoplesPlagues and Peoples
T2 Plagues and Peoples
William H. McNeill · 1976
Open LibraryGoodreads

How plague, cholera, malaria and smallpox shaped history.

Recommended by: Patrick Collison, Paul Graham

Increasing Returns and Path Dependence in thIncreasing Returns and Path Dependence in the Economy
T2 Increasing Returns and Path Dependence in the Economy
W. Brian Arthur · 1994
Open LibraryGoodreads

Papers showing positive feedback and lock-in govern parts of the economy.

Fortune's FormulaFortune's Formula
T2 Fortune's Formula
William Poundstone · 2005
Open LibraryGoodreads

The Kelly criterion for sizing bets, from Bell Labs to casinos and hedge funds.

Recommended by: Mohnish Pabrai

The Origin of WealthThe Origin of Wealth
T2 The Origin of Wealth
Eric D. Beinhocker · 2006
Open LibraryGoodreads

The economy as a complex evolving system rather than one in equilibrium.

Recommended by: Ryan Peterson

The Dao of CapitalThe Dao of Capital
T2 The Dao of Capital
Mark Spitznagel · 2013
Open LibraryGoodreads

Austrian roundabout investing: accept losses now for a stronger position later.

Complexity and the Economy
T3 Complexity and the Economy
W. Brian Arthur · 2014
Open LibraryGoodreads

More mental models

← Owner EarningsPower Laws and the Pareto Principle →All mental models