Caveat Emptor

Key takeaway to become Anti-Fragile 1) Optionality and non-linearity When you lift weights, muscles tear and rebuild given time and your body builds up excess capacity so that your body adapts to lift  heavier  weights next time. In evolutionary biology,  <Tummy fat and glycogen metabolism> is a natural mechanism to build up energy buffers in case the body goes through periods of starvation or requiring sudden bursts of energy usage. Excess capacity is often frowned upon as it is sub-optimal allocation of resources, until you truly need it. Fund managers pile up leverage that can withstand the worst earthquake  that was observed until the next mega-catastrophe that occurs. Companies leverage up excessively to catch the tailwind of the economic boom until the next blowup occurs. Making one anti-fragile involves the willingness to make sub-optimal returns compared to risk taking peers, building warchest and deleveraging, and focus on survival until th...

Big data is the buzzword of technology companies of today. Gaming companies, marketing companies, banks and governments seek to jump on the bandwagon and explore this murky field and monetization potential. OCBC, Ten-cent are companies that seek to utilize / profit from aggregated / segmented data groups (Demand side) and companies like Singtel and Silver Lake axis seek to provide analytical solutions (Supply side) . I did some research to distill my understanding of big data, and whether it is a big bubble or potential big bucks.  Macro view Western societies generally have strong data protection and privacy laws, while Asian / Chinese societies are not as uptight on the privacy and sharing of such information. Facebook is currently facing a sharp correction in its share price from the failure of its data protection schemes, which is worsened by the upheaval from management fallout. It's profit margins are severely eroded due to data protection policies and increasin...

I recently attended a talk at thomson toastmasters which is conducting a MBTI workshop. For those whom are unfamiliar with MBTI, it is a popular personality test used by companies to screen for the personality profiles for their candidates. It is regarded well enough to be placed into academia although the reliability of its methodology and results is often criticised. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Myers–Briggs_Type_Indicator https://www.16personalities.com/free-personality-test Personally, I have taken the test and find it to be pretty descriptive of my thinking and behavioral traits. However, the speaker presents a differing point to it. Granted, he is not a professional speaker or an well grounded expert in this particular field, but he provided plenty of food of thought regarding how MBTI should be used. ESTJ : extraversion (E), sensing (S), thinking (T), judgment (J) INFP : introversion (I), intuition (N), feeling (F), perception (P) A lot of people focus on the Int...