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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Redundancy and Margin

Mental models

Spare capacity looks like waste in every quarter it is not needed and is the only thing that works in the quarter it is. Systems tuned to full utilisation have no room to absorb a shock, and efficiency drives out exactly the slack that survival requires. Balance-sheet cash, unused credit lines and unbooked hours are the same idea in different clothes.

Books 6Experts 2Recommenders 41Resources 4

Start here

  1. The Checklist ManifestoAtul Gawande, 2009
  2. Normal AccidentsCharles Perrow, 1984
  3. AntifragileNassim Nicholas Taleb, 2012
Normal AccidentsNormal Accidents
T1 Normal Accidents
Charles Perrow · 1984
Open LibraryGoodreads

Why complex, tightly coupled systems such as Three Mile Island will fail regardless.

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

The Checklist ManifestoThe Checklist Manifesto
T1 The Checklist Manifesto
Atul Gawande · 2009
Open LibraryGoodreads

How checklists stop experts in complex fields failing to apply what they know.

“In his wonderful book, The Checklist Manifesto, Atul Gawande... explains the value of using a checklist to improve outcomes” — Michael Mauboussin

Source: Methods to Improve Decisions: Five Common Mistakes and How to Address Them (Credit Suisse)

Recommended by: Michael Mauboussin, Mohnish Pabrai and 9 others

AntifragileAntifragile
T1 Antifragile
Nassim Nicholas Taleb · 2012
Open LibraryGoodreads

Incerto volume 4

“Nassim Taleb, author of the new book Antifragile, praises volatility and criticises those who would artificially damp it at great unseen cost. Taleb advises us to be 'anti-fragile'. This is exactly…” — Seth Klarman

Source: Klarman on Taleb's praise of volatility and what Baupost strives for

Recommended by: Mohnish Pabrai, Nat Eliason and 25 others

Drift into FailureDrift into Failure
T3 Drift into Failure
Sidney Dekker · 2011
Open LibraryGoodreads

How complex systems, from subprime lending to space shuttles, drift into failure.

Meltdown: Why Our Systems Fail and What We CMeltdown: Why Our Systems Fail and What We Can Do About It
T3 Meltdown: Why Our Systems Fail and What We Can Do About It
Chris Clearfield, Andras Tilcsik · 2018
Open LibraryGoodreads

Why complex systems fail, from Volkswagen to Everest, and how to design against it.

More mental models

← Prisoner's DilemmaReflexivity →All mental models