Using computer vision and AI to unlock autonomous transportation (podcast)
Artificial intelligence will play a critical role in the transition to self-driving cars, trucks, and pretty much any other form of transportation that relies on human navigation. In this podcast, Andrej Karpathy, who leads Tesla’s Autopilot team, goes deep into how his team is leveraging neural nets, machine learning, and computer vision— as well as a truly ‘First Principles’ engineering approach—to tackle autonomous driving.
“On the first ever episode of The Robot Brains podcast, our host Pieter Abbeel sits down with Andrej Karpathy, director of AI at Tesla. Andrej is a world-leading expert when it comes to machine learning and training neural nets. In this episode he talks about what it’s like working with Elon Musk, training driverless cars with machine learning and the time he had to sleep on a yoga mat at Tesla HQ.”
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How to pick the stock pickers
Picking stocks is hard—picking stock pickers can be even more challenging. Ted Seides has interviewed thousands of money managers: he began his career under David Swensen in the Yale University Investments Office, and he was later a founder, president, and co-CIO of Protégé Partners. Seides now hosts the excellent Capital Allocators podcast, and his recent book, “Capital Allocators: How the World’s Elite Money Managers Lead and Invest” is a great window into the world of how institutional investors can (and should) select money managers.
“Most manager meetings take place across the table in a conference room, a directly confrontational set-up. Over time, allocators find ways to spend time with managers away from that setting. Scott Malpass regularly invited managers to attend Notre Dame football games. Jon Harris of Alternative Investment Management goes out to dinner with a manager and their spouse or significant other in advance of allocating capital. CIOs exercise, play sports, and attend cultural or charity events with managers to learn more about their personality. I once backed away from an investment after playing golf with a manager and observing how abysmally he treated the caddie. The outing helped explain why his organization had experienced an unsettling amount of personnel turnover.”
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The five psychological attributes of any successful long-term investor
This smart post from Morgan Housel, a partner at Collaborative Fund, captures a few key elements of the cognitive and mental mindset that’s required to become a great long-term investor. If you’re curious to read more by Housel, here is a link to the original 2018 essay that inspired Housel’s compelling 2020 book, “The Psychology of Money.”
“An idea that’s obvious but overlooked is that investors on the same field play different games. We buy the same companies, read the same news, talk to the same people, are quoted the same market prices – but we’re everything from day traders to endowments with century-long time horizons. Even investors who think they’re playing the same game – say, stock pickers – have wildly different goals and risk tolerances. My view is that most investing debates do not reflect genuine disagreement; they reflect investors playing different games talking over each other, upset that people who don’t want what you want can’t see what you see. Understanding your game, without being swayed by people playing different games, is a rare investing power.”
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The second boom of renewable technology innovation is here
The Financial Times has a deep-dive this week into the current crop of startups (and their investors) who are tackling climate change through innovative technologies. The piece emphasizes what’s changed—and what hasn’t—in the decade since many US-based solar companies saw a frenzied boom and bust cycle with plenty of collateral damage. This time around, the “clean tech 2.0” boom is focused not just on wind and solar, but a rather a diverse basket of technologies, from long-duration storage batteries to lab grown meat.
“Developing a technology from the lab into a low-cost, mass-market product with the potential to reduce global emissions is notoriously hard and can take years, as many investors discovered painfully over the past decade. But analysts say this time is different as entrepreneurs are focused on a much broader set of challenges and are backed by deep-pocketed corporate investors, which have promised to decarbonise their operations.”
“No one can say for certain what the future holds. Our advice for founders and CEOs in this uncertain environment: remain deliberate and measured, but don’t be afraid to dream and be optimistic about where the world is going. This will enable you to focus on your long-term aspirations while navigating the next few quarters, no matter what they bring.”
“The historic sale, and the accelerating market for N.F.T.s, is causing a bout of soul-searching within the traditional art world: Could such vulgar Internet kitsch really be worth as much as masterpieces that have been carefully anointed by critics and curators? (Koons may be a divisive figure among critics, but even his detractors recognize his innovations in scale and craft.) In the Times, under the headline “Beeple Has Won. Here’s What We’ve Lost,” Jason Farago was unfazed by the N.F.T.’s ultimate price tag. As the adage goes, art is worth whatever someone is willing to pay for it.”
“As investors hunt for industrial properties tethered to e-commerce, developers are buying golf courses and converting them into space for warehouses. A languishing course is often the largest tract of unbuilt land for miles around, and there are plenty of them. As the jump in golf’s popularity driven by Tiger Woods in the early 2000s fades, scores of courses are closing each year. ‘When Tiger came on the scene, everybody started building golf courses,’ says Chris Gary, executive vice president at real estate firm NAI Hiffman, who built a golf facility in the Chicago area earlier in his career. ‘There was a surge in interest, and they basically overbuilt.’”
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Welcome to The Nightcrawler, a weekly collection of thought-provoking articles and analysis on technology, innovation, and long-term investing. The Nightcrawler is published every Friday evening by Eric Markowitz, Nightview Capital’s Director of Research. Subscribe below. In this evening’s email… Quote of the week: “Doubt is not a pleasant condition, but certainty is absurd.” Voltaire Embracing uncertainty as a competitive edge In …
