Feldman's Faves: April 26, 2021

Happy Monday everyone. I think it is fair to say that it is now safe to take off your snow tires….oh April in Canada….

This week’s recommendations were inspired by current events (i.e., our current pandemic and the insanity we have been witnessing on the stock markets). We are living in interesting times for sure.

THE PLAGUE By: Albert Camus – It’s hard to believe that we are worse off today as a Province than we were a year ago. The good news for Ontario is that it seems that the vaccine roll out is finally picking up steam and that help is on the way. Let’s hope we can collectively get to a place sooner rather than later where we put this plague behind us and start planning for a better future. I won’t even try to understand how things have become so awful in both India and Brazil and what it will take to turn the tide in those countries - this situation is tragic. It is in this context that I went down a rabbit hole this week reading about plagues from years past. One of the best historical accounts of the “Spanish Flu” (as known to many of you, it actually started in the US during WWI and no country other than Spain admitted publicly it was happening) of “1918” (it actually lasted for three years) comes from John Barry in his classic book, The Great Influenza, which many of you have already read and I am not reviewing today. Suffice it to say, we have come a VERY long way scientifically speaking (scientists didn’t even know the flu was a virus back then so all of their efforts to fix the problem were completely misdirected…..in that case the flu just fizzled out naturally) and making some progress from a social and health policy perspective. This week I am recommending that you read Nobel Prize winning author, Albert Camus’ classic The Plague, which tells the story of what happens when a virus hits the Algerian city of Oran in the 1940s, which I believe is based on Camus’ experience studying the spread of the bubonic plague in Europe in general and in Oran specifically over its history (it had faced outbreaks of both the bubonic plague and cholera). Camus is famous for his “absurdist style” that he employs in this novel when describing what happens medically, socially and psychologically to a population when a plague hits and there is no way to stop it. The one key takeaway for me is that no matter where you live, when you live or how you live, human nature seems to be a constant. We have really come a long way as a society but this novel reminds us all of how quickly we can devolve (think of the “glory days’ of hoarding toiler paper….). I won’t spoil the plot for those of you who want to read it but here is a good review from Goodreads - https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/11989.The_Plague

How I Built This with Guy Raz - Robinhood: Vlad Tenev – What happens when two quants from Stanford decide they no longer want to be in academia. They move to Wall Street and collaborate on various business ideas that ultimately leads them to developing a platform that will “let the people” have access to trading. I’m pretty sure they never thought they could be leading enablers in the recent Game Stop “situation/fiasco” we have all witnessed but they have certainly done great work in democratizing access to markets. How I Built This is one of my favourite PODCASTS since it tells the origin story of some incredibly successful (and unlikely) entrepreneurs. The story of Robinhood is fascinating and described below by host Guy Raz for your reading/listening pleasure. Before Robinhood became one of the most loved and most hated stock trading platforms in the U.S., it was just another tech startup, launched by two mathematicians with an audacious idea: make stock trading mobile, make it fun, and make it free—with no commissions, and no minimum balances. In 2013, Vlad Tenev and Baiju Bhatt decided to pursue this idea full-time. They sidelined their first business—selling software that shaved milliseconds off high-speed trades—and began building an app aimed at anyone with a smartphone and a few extra dollars to invest. After launching in 2015, Robinhood steadily attracted users and rave reviews, but soon drew criticism for its business model, which came under even more scrutiny after the GameStop trading frenzy in January. Despite these challenges, Robinhood has grown to 13 million users and is now poised for a lucrative IPO. https://podcasts.apple.com/ca/podcast/how-i-built-this-with-guy-raz/id1150510297?i=1000516730531

Thank you for your ongoing participation.

And remember to stay safe, stay healthy and to docket daily.

Jon