chowyonghan Author

Margins don’t matter. Dollars do.

(Excerpt from Last Man Standing by Morgan Housel) Jeff Bezos had a different view: Margins don’t matter. Dollars do. A huge business with low margins was preferable to the opposite. He explained in 2014: Margins are...

December 19, 2020| Business Read More

Business and Investing are multi-disciplinary

(Excerpt from A Few Things I’m Pretty Sure About by Morgan Housel) An engineer can have a successful career knowing nothing other than engineering. Same for a chemist, meteorologist, or radiologist. Business and...

December 19, 2020| Business, Investing Read More

Book of the Year 2020

2020 is an unforgettable year and it will definitely go into the history books. Many lives have been lost due to Covid-19 and the rest of us alive should be grateful and we should stay positive to rebuild our world. I...

December 18, 2020| CYH Read More

What is more deadly than bombs, war and fire combined – evolution

Singaporeans should have heard about Robinsons closing down for good. I read the memory piece by Straits Times and had the following reflection. The outlet at Raffles Chambers was hit twice by Japanese bombs in 1942. It...

October 30, 2020| CYH Read More

I want to build something that is my own

(Excerpt from Shoe Dog by Phil Knight) I told her that I flat-out didn’t want to work for someone else. I wanted to build something that was my own, something I could point to and say: I made that. It was the only...

October 28, 2020| Business, Life Read More

Business first, management second

(Excerpt from Charlie Munger’s ‘Bag of Tricks’) “We have a very peculiar way of looking at things. We want to buy something that’s intrinsically a very good business, meaning that an idiot could run it and...

October 28, 2020| Investing Read More

Business and Life are full of temptations

(Excerpt from Invested by Charles Schwab) The world of business, like the rest of life, is full of wonderful temptations, and making a choice about where you are going to devote your energy is often as much about...

October 24, 2020| Business, Focus, Life, Via Negativa Read More

Lewicki and Hiam’s Negotiation Matrix

(Excerpt from Mastering Business Negotiation by Roy Lewicki and Alexander Hiam) Avoiding (lose-lose). In this strategy, shown in the lower left of the diagram, the priorities for both the relationship and the outcome...

October 18, 2020| Business, Matrix Read More

Network effects are hard to build before hitting the critical mass

(Excerpt from Modern Monopolies by Alex Moazed and Nicholas L. Johnson) network effects are a double-edged sword. Successful platforms are very hard to compete against, but the same network effects that drive growth...

October 18, 2020| Tech Read More

Surge pricing is to alter demand and supply inbalance

(Excerpt from Modern Monopolies by Alex Moazed and Nicholas L. Johnson) Uber’s “surge pricing”—dynamic pricing that rises in response to high demand—is a direct attempt to balance supply and demand. Surge...

October 18, 2020| Tech Read More

↑