š I Lost 20% of My Net Worth in 11 Months
Market Crashes, Chicago Meetups, & Twitterās Future
š„Æ This is the Bagel Bites version of Bread Crumbs where we keep the insights short and sweet. If Oompa Loompas were into self-development, theyād work at Bread Crumbs.
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Todayās estimated read time: 3 minutes & 27 seconds.
This edition is written by a man who fantasizes about owning a library that serves whiskey, Paul.
P.S. Sorry for the late post. Got carried away watching the Bears / Illini this weekend.
One Cool Website
Explore the coolest thing humans have ever builtā¦the internet!
Looking at my 401k, Roth IRA, and Acorns accounts hurt my soul. Over the last year, the value of my holdings has fallen by ~25%. Uggggg. Iāve lived through other market crashes. I saw the dot-com bubble burst in the early 2000s. I watched the financial markets collapse in 2008. Intellectually, I know over the long term the market will recover. Unfortunately, Iām human. Humans are motivated by emotion, not intellect.
In 2000, I was 4. I had $100 worth of ATT stock to my name. In 2008, I was 12. I had my ATT stock and a paper route. Barely any skin in the game. In 2022, Iām 26. I have a full-time job, bills to pay, and tens of thousands in the stock market. Iāve got 100x more chips on the table. When the market falls, I feel it 100x more than before.
āTake the long-term approach,ā I tell myself. Easy to say, hard to do. I need someone to keep me accountable. Someone who has been there before. Someone who had chips on the table in 2000 and 2008 and lived to tell the tale. After lots of searching, I found that person. Howard Marks.
Howard Marks is a legendary investor and co-founder of Oak Tree Capital Management. I donāt know Howard personally. Luckily, he is an avid writer and publishes his memos for the broader publicās benefit. Marks has published 50+ memos. Lucky for us, a guy by the name of Blas Moros created a āTeacherās Reference Guideā to Howardās Memos. Itās awesome. Howard teaches us how to navigate market cycles by managing our own psychology.
Check the guide out here.
-Paul
One Thing Iām Working On
Practice makes progress.
Iāll make this short and sweet. Iām working on throwing a Bread Crumbs Meet-up!! The goal is to host a small group event in Chicago this December. You, the subscribers of Bread Crumbs, are smart f*cking people. We want you all to meet and do what smart people doā¦create dope sh*t!!
To start, I need to get an idea of interest. Click here to fill out the interest survey.
The survey takes 1 minute. 1 minute for hours of dope conversation. Seems like a good trade to me.
-Paul
One Prediction For The Future
Life is changing fast.
In 5 years, the majority of Twitter users will say that Elon Musk made the platform better. Not only is he a seasoned company builder but he actually cares about the health of Twitter. Over the last 10 years, he has made it clear he thinks Twitter is a public good. Elon considers it the (digital) town square. A well-functioning town square improves the health of the town and vice versa. In this case, the town happens to be the (digital) world.
Over the short term, he will make mistakes, look like a fool, and be ostracized. The same story played out at his last companies. Elon is so good BECAUSE he can look past being seen as a fool. The more comfortable you get with being the fool, the more experiments you can run. More experiments lead to a better product. And a better product leads to happy customers. Happy customers create a strong company.
The difficult part here is that Elonās mistakes cost people their jobs. Is everything Elon does right? No. I donāt agree with several of the moves he has made. But I do think all his moves are aimed at creating a better product in the long term. That maniacal focus may not mean that Twitter is better in 6 months. But within 5 years, I believe it will be.
If I had to handicap it, Iād assign a probability of success at 65%.
-Paul
Bread Believer Of The Week!!
You da realest
The Bread Believer of the week is ā¦..drum roll please š„ā¦Amanda Garcia!!! Amanda is a senior studying accounting at UIUC. She is also the President of AKPsi. She was kind enough to participate in a reader interview. Her feedback will directly improve this newsletter. And for that, she deserves a big round of applause!!
Amanda - Hope you have a great Thanksgiving week! Cheers to you š„
P.S. Good luck with the CPA this upcoming semester!!
-Paul
1 Great Book
There is no better bargain than a great book.
Full disclosure, Iām only about 75% of the way through Influence. It is a hefty boy at 500+ pages. But donāt let that scare you. It can be chunked up into sections.
The author, Dr. Robert Cialdini, is an American psychologist and academic. He has spent his entire career researching the science of influence. He is an expert in the fields of persuasion, compliance, and negotiation. In Influence, he distills years of research into a few critical principles that help you understand how to influence others and yourself ā and how to protect yourself from unethical persuasion.
-Paul
Photo of the Week
Hereās the most dangerous group of hoopers to ever play in Chicagoās West Suburban Catholic League.
-Paul
Thatās it for this week. See yāall next Sunday. Thereās no such thing as too much stuffing.
-Paul & Luke