Think small
Hey there - It’s good to be back. I had to put the newsletter on hold for a couple of weeks, but I’m back on the horse (where I’m going to try and stay for a while). I’m again experimenting with a new format. I’ll continue writing a piece each week about things that have been on my mind, but I’ll keep it short (max 500 words). I’ll also be sharing links to articles, videos, podcasts from across the internet that mould my thinking and understanding of the world, or that I just find entertaining. I hope you enjoy the changes. As always, I welcome your feedback.
Thanks for reading.
Rob
🥜 Today’s stories in a nutshell:
Title story: An ode to thinking small
Weekend reads: Russia vs Ukraine; Long term investing; The anatomy of a joke
Thinking big often leads to inaction as bridging the gap from here to there can seem inconceivable.
In 1964, Phil Knight (a full-time accountant) started a side hustle called Blue Ribbon Sports. His first order of business was importing 12 pairs of Onitsuka Tigers from Japan which he sold to friends and acquaintances. For the next batch of 300 shoes, he travelled to athletic track meetings where he’d chat to coaches, runners and fans and sell his shoes to them directly from his car. It took seven years before Phil Knight began manufacturing the shoes himself and rebranded the company: Nike.
During the 90s, two students started a dorm room project to build an internet search engine. The original concept was basic, ranking a web page based on the number of web pages that linked back to it. The name of the search engine?
BackRub.
A few years later, in 1998, after securing $100k in funding and changing the company name (good idea), they moved their operation to the garage of a home in California. Today BackRub’s (aka Google) market cap hovers around $2 trillion (that’s twelve 0s).
Here’s a short video of where it all started:
Cicero’s wisdom from 2000 years ago summarises the moral of these two stories:
“The beginnings of all things are small.”
🇺🇦 Russia vs Ukraine:
To understand the trouble brewing between Russia and Ukraine, one must look to significant events in the complex history of these two nations. Ukraine briefly obtained independence from Russia following the collapse of the Russian monarchy in 1917, only to be absorbed into the Soviet Union by the Bolsheviks in 1922. To crush pro-independence Ukrainian nationalism, Joseph Stalin engineered the Ukrainian famine (Holodomor), causing 4 million Ukrainian deaths. Following WW2, Ukraine remained a part of the Soviet Union until 1991, when 90% of Ukrainians voted for independence in a referendum. The country has found itself in a tug of war between Russia and the west ever since. In the early 2000s, the pro-western election candidate Viktor Yanukovych was poisoned, permanently disfiguring his face. Then, in 2013/2014, a deal to move Ukraine closer to the EU was foiled through interference by Putin, prompting mass protests in Kyiv’s central square, which in turn led to the drama in Crimea.
That’s a very brief summary of all that’s happened. To learn more, this fascinating podcast covers the big events of the last 100 years (also available on Apple and online).
If you prefer reading, check out these two articles:
Ukraine and Russia: how have relations soured since the fall of the Soviet Union?
Russia-Ukraine crisis: 9 milestone moments in history that explain today’s invasion threat
📈 Long term investing:
Over a rolling 20 - 30 year horizon, an investment in the S&P 500 has yielded a positive return 100% of the time since 1928. The worst 30-year rolling return relates to a period that included the Great Depression and WW2, but even then, there was a +559 % return (an annualized total return of 6.5%).
For compelling stats and figures and more on the benefits of long term investing, read here 👉 Are You Investing or Merely Speculating?
🎤 The anatomy of a joke
Stand up comedy is a splendid art form. It’s raw, and there is no place to hide. One person on an empty stage, armed only with a mic, tasked captivating an audience. And getting them to laugh, of course.
This video dissects Louis CK’s 207-word joke about playing Monopoly with his daughters. It shows how he constructs a premise, uses a counterpoint, tags and pauses to great effect. If you appreciate the craft of comedy, you’ll enjoy this short video.