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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The Principal-Agent Problem

Mental models

Whenever one party acts on another's behalf, their interests diverge and the agent's information advantage lets the divergence pay. It is the root of most corporate-governance questions: empire building, earnings management, and compensation that rewards size rather than return. The investor's counter is to read the incentive documents before the strategy deck.

Books 7Experts 2Recommenders 19Resources 4

Start here

  1. The OutsidersWilliam N. Thorndike, 2012
  2. Pay Without PerformanceLucian Bebchuk, Jesse Fried, 2004
  3. Economics, Organization and ManagementPaul Milgrom, John Roberts, 1992
The OutsidersThe Outsiders
T1 The Outsiders
William N. Thorndike · 2012
Open LibraryGoodreads

Eight CEOs who beat the market by allocating capital, not by running operations.

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

Source: Andrew Wilkinson's Bookshelf, neverenough.com

Recommended by: Andrew Wilkinson, Dan Loeb, Francois Rochon and 12 others

Berkshire Hathaway Letters to ShareholdersBerkshire Hathaway Letters to Shareholders
T1 Berkshire Hathaway Letters to Shareholders
Warren Buffett · 2013
Open LibraryGoodreads

Every Berkshire annual letter since 1965, in order, as the company grew.

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

Source: Andrew Wilkinson's Bookshelf, neverenough.com

Recommended by: Andrew Wilkinson, Arnold Van Den Berg and 5 others

Economics, Organization and ManagementEconomics, Organization and Management
T2 Economics, Organization and Management
Paul Milgrom, John Roberts · 1992
Goodreads

How firms are organised, using agency, contracts and transaction-cost economics.

The MachiavelliansThe Machiavellians
T3 The Machiavellians
James Burnham · 1943
Open LibraryGoodreads

Elite theory: who actually rules, and why stated aims mislead

“The book that I always recommend on this topic is called "The Machiavellians," which is this sort of a famous book from the 1940s” — Marc Andreessen

Source: The a16z Show — Marc Andreessen with David Senra (transcript)

Recommended by: Marc Andreessen

A Theory of the FirmA Theory of the Firm
T3 A Theory of the Firm
Michael C. Jensen · 2000
Open LibraryGoodreads
Pay Without PerformancePay Without Performance
T3 Pay Without Performance
Lucian Bebchuk, Jesse Fried · 2004
Open LibraryGoodreads
Contract TheoryContract Theory
T3 Contract Theory
Patrick Bolton, Mathias Dewatripont · 2005
Open LibraryGoodreads

More mental models

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