After dinner at Pierpont’s in Union Station, we made our way over to the symphony hall, arriving a few minutes before the orchestra took the stage. Tonight is a big departure from our usual Haydn, Mozart, and Beethoven. Particularly of interest to us were the second and third groups on the program. The second was…
Aaron’s mom hadn’t been to the symphony here in town since the new performing arts center opened so we decided to take her to dinner and a performance. I completely forgot it was tonight because I started my first Korean drama in two months a few days ago and had scheduled some time to watch…
You need to read this magnificent article in The New York Times that breaks down the economic phenomenon we went over several years ago when we looked at the work of Harvard Professor Charles Murray, who demonstrated that a significant driver of income inequality in the United States was caused by a radical shift in the…
We talk so often about the divide that is slowly happening in the United States as a result of socioeconomic forces. I did a double take this afternoon when I came across the front page of The Wall Street Journal involving a story based on this reality. It has a profile detailing how vastly different life experiences…
The word Mokita is a fantastic word taken from a language called Kivila. It is spoken in Papua New Guinea. The best English translation you can get of Mokita is, “the truth we all know but agree not to talk about.” There are several concepts in the English language related to the notion of Mokita, such…
Tesla Motors, the Silicon Valley-based electronic car company that has revolutionized energy efficient vehicles and become a cult icon, operates its business like Apple. It designs amazing products, then sells them direct-to-consumers through specialty branded stores, staffed with knowledgeable sales associates. By cutting out the middleman, Tesla can pass more savings on to the consumer,…
Having reached the end of the road in the third installment of the Final Fantasy XIII trilogy, requiring 150+ hours of game play over a four year period to climb the highest levels of power in creation and culminate in a conclusion to the series, I’m struck how the entire thing is really a well-done…
Mental Model: Situational Knowledge Last night, I was talking with Aaron about the situational knowledge mental model and its implication for business innovation. For those of you who aren’t familiar with it, situational knowledge is a type of experience-based knowledge that arises either organically or through training, creating a database of relevant facts and implicit…
I’m taking it as a given that practically everyone who reads this site has already gone through Warren Buffett’s stockholder letter, which Berkshire Hathaway released today. Personally, I love how, for only the third or fourth time in his career, Buffett essentially provides enough mathematical evidence to say to people, “You’re a moron for not buying…
It’s like people never learned anything from the Oklahoma Satanist case last year. Unintended consequences matter. Yet, it seems like people don’t build them into their behavioral models. If you open that door, you’re not the only one that gets to walk through. It’s so simple. It’s so basic, yet people forget it time and…