My morning train WFH reads:
• The Case Against Bitcoin: Peter Thiel’s former portfolio manager says that the crypto narrative is built on half-truths and a nonchalance about the security provided by the nation-state. (Bari Weiss)
• SPAC Selloff Bruises Individual Investors Investors retreat from companies that have gone public through blank-check firms, including Virgin Galactic SPAC Selloff Bruises Individual Investors (Wall Street Journal) see also Why Most SPACs Suck The vast majority of “products” that can be stuck in a portfolio are mostly not worth the cost relative to the performance they provide (The Big Picture)
• Stop Worrying and Love the F-150 Lightning Ford’s first electric pickup truck signals that decarbonization has entered a new era. (The Atlantic)
• Can Apple change ads? Apple has built up its own ad system on the iPhone, which records, tracks and targets users and serves them ads, but does this on the device itself rather than on the cloud, and only its own apps and services. Apple tracks lots of different aspects of your behaviour and uses that data to put you into anonymised interest-based cohorts and serve you ads that are targeted to your interests, in the App Store, Stocks and News apps (Benedict Evans)
• The Future of Virus Tracking Can Be Found on This College Campus Colorado Mesa University and the Broad Institute of M.I.T. and Harvard have spent the last year exploring new approaches to managing outbreaks. (New York Times)
• The Making of Reluctant Activists: A Police Shooting in a Hospital Forces One Family to Rethink American Justice (Kaiser Health News)
• The Spring of Bill: The Only Mayor in America Having Fun Right Now Why New York’s mayor is acting so … weird. (Slate)
• Trump Officials Skirted Rules to Reward Politically Connected and Untested Firms With Huge Pandemic Contracts House Democrats investigating the COVID-19 response say Trump adviser Peter Navarro pressured agencies to award deals worth hundreds of millions of dollars. (ProPublica)
• From Lady Gaga to Bad Bunny: What to Know About Live Music’s Return Five things to expect from big concerts and festivals in the U.S. this summer and beyond (Wall Street Journal)
• Why Have There Been So Many No-Hitters in 2021? Pitchers are better than ever. Hitters seem worse than ever. With six no-hitters by May 19, baseball is two away from tying the full-season record, which was set in 1884. (New York Times)
Be sure to check out our Masters in Business interview this weekend with Scott Sperling, Co-Chief Executive Officer of private equity firm Thomas. H. Lee. The Co-CEO is a member of the firm’s Management and Investment committees. THL has completed more than 100 investments in excess of $125 billion of aggregate purchase price. Their flagship fund has more than $5B in it, and their Automation Fund has over $900 million in LP assets.
Stocks in the physical world are outperforming stocks that live in the digital world
Source: Irrelevant Investor
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