Newsletter – May, 2019

On My Mind: Warren Buffet, Chairman and CEO of Berkshire Hathaway, and Charlie Munger, Vice Chairman, fielded questions for roughly five hours on May 4, 2019 at The 2019 Berkshire Hathaway Annual Shareholders Meeting in Omaha, Nebraska. The questions related to such diverse topics as stock buybacks, human nature, alternative energy, railroads, insurance industry, global economy, index funds, business ethics, and many more. Buffet—known as The Oracle of Omaha—and Munger did not know the questions in advance. This annual meeting has become a must see event for anyone interested in business and investing. Yahoo Finance broadcasted the event live on the internet and the video is now available on YouTube. If you want to learn more about business and investing, then check out this valuable and entertaining video. Interesting Stories: He was the first athlete in UCLA history to earn a varsity letter in four sports (basketball, baseball, football, and track). He broke the color barrier in Major League Baseball (MLB) on April 15, 1947 when the Los Angeles Dodgers started him at First Base. He went on to win the Rookie of the Year Award in 1947 and the Most Valuable Player Award in 1949. Who was he? #42 Jackie Robinson. Every MLB player wore #42 on his uniform on April 15 and April 16 in honor of Jackie Robinson. It’s fun to watch those games . . . and a nightmare if you are scoring the game. “Now pitching is #42 . . . now batting is #42 . . . #42 made an amazing catch in the outfield . . .” The number “42” has now been retired by every MBL team. Mariano Rivera of the New York Yankees was the last MLB player to wear the number on a regular basis. Some numbers have a special meaning for me . . . and I instantly think of Jackie Robinson when I encounter #42. Company News: I was an exhibitor at the PENworks Conference held May 2-3, 2019 at the Mystic Lake Center south of the Twin Cities. The next public Strategic Improvement Systems, LLC courses for the Spring/Summer time frame are the following: Basic Statistics & Analytics will be held May 16-17, 2019; Strategic Improvement Black Belt starts May 20, 2019; and Advances in Strategic Planning will be held June 20, 2019. The brochures for these courses are available on the PUBLIC SEMINARS page of this website. New offerings are in the works including a three day Introduction to Multivariate Data Analysis course to be held in late summer (dates TBD). Intriguing Reads: One of the most interesting books about the future that I’ve read in a long time is the book titled, Life 3.0: Being Human in the Age of Artificial Intelligence by Max Tegmark. The book is hard to describe, but it really stretched my thinking. I especially liked the Prelude on The Tale of the Omega Team and the descriptions of Life 1.0, Life 2.0, and Life 3.0. Topics in the book ranged from intelligence, AI, technology, evolution, memory, computation, and learning. If you want to stretch your thinking about the future, then give this book a try.