Interesting article on how most brands “moats” maybe at risk over time…
“Most big brands are good brands, not hot brands,” Galloway says in a talk he released on his company’s YouTube channel. Amazon has already begun eroding that premium, returning the difference to consumers, he predicts.
Lots of interesting pointers in this article…
There are simply not more material items that I can buy or upgrade that will make me any happier than the freedom I gain by not doing so.
Perpetual Upgrading is Voluntary Slavery
When people find themselves in the higher income brackets, upgrading separates the rich from the poor, the slaves from the free. When you unshackle yourself from the need to continuously upgrade your stuff you raise a big middle finger to all the forces in society that want to keep you a slave. Happy slaves make the best citizens. They keep working until they die (or close to it). They keep the gears of commerce turning without giving a thought as to why they are doing it.
Living paycheck to paycheck is slavery regardless of your income. If you want to be free it is necessary to earn more, spend less, and save the difference. You then invest this excess into something that provides a stream of income to sustain your freedom.
My presentation with an attempt to introduce the brilliance of Charlie Munger to the group in the three areas: Business and Investment Acumen, Worldly Wisdom and his Character and Values. The idea is to nudge the reader to deliberately study the teachings of Mr. Charlie Munger and make him a virtual mentor as I have for myself.
ValuePickr 2019 Munger - deepinsight.pdf (733.4 KB)
Tren Griffin has written a wonderful post on the influence of Charlie Munger on the culture and value system of Berkshire Hathaway
He touches upon many powerful ideas of centralisation/decentralisation, decision making, importance of trust and how it can lead to simpler systems, how the culture self propagates, having minimal oversight and the importance of simplicity.
Many superb quotes like “The right culture, the highest and best culture, is a seamless web of deserved trust.”
“We want people where every aspect about their personality makes you want to be around them. Trust first, ability second.”
Munger has said: “We don’t train executives, we find them. If a mountain stands up like Everest, you don’t have to be a genius to figure out that it’s a high mountain.” The same principle applies to moats: spotting a business with an existing moat is vastly easier than trying to spot a new moat emerging from a complex adaptive system. Seeing something emerging from nothing is a really hard problem compared to seeing something that is already there.
“People are going to adopt to whatever the ethos is that suffuses the place.”
“There’s money in being trusted. It’s such a simple idea, and yet everybody rushes into every scummy activity that seems to work.”
“One of the greatest ways to avoid trouble is to keep it simple.”
