Author, Investor, Speaker, Mentor
Just as Covid-19’s rapid arrival produced confusion, its rapid exit (at least in certain geographies) is producing similar confusion. To reduce this confusion, we should learn how to make decisions based on two different lenses: personal health, and public health. Since I’m most familiar with my own situation, I’ll explain how I’m thinking about these … Continue reading Exiting Covid-19: Personal + Public Health
If you just read news headlines, you would think that despite the development of remarkably effective vaccines, Americans won’t see relief from the pandemic until the end of 2021. That’s just plain wrong. Once again, we’re falling prey to the classic fallacy of treating the future as a simple extrapolation from the recent past. When … Continue reading Covid-19 Will “End” In America By June 1
One of my pet peeves is that way in which many people can’t seem to grasp the basics of statistics. Every day, I see news reports about the Covid-19 crisis in California, and some try to use these reports to argue that California’s problems prove that Covid-19 lockdowns are a waste of time, and that … Continue reading Lies, Damned Lies, and Covid-19 Statistics
Last night, my hometown baseball team, the Los Angeles Dodgers, won the World Series for the first time since 1988. I can still remember the 1988 World Series, which featured Kirk Gibson’s famous walk-off home run in Game 1 (my dad and I started off watching the game at our local Shakey’s pizzeria, and finished … Continue reading What The World Series Can Teach Us About Covid-19
One of the puzzling aspects of Donald Trump’s presidency is his inability to follow a coherent long-term strategy. Prior to the Covid-19 pandemic, strong economic conditions would have made any conventional president a shoo-in for re-election. All Donald Trump would need to do is to stay quiet and avoid saying anything other than, “Are you … Continue reading The Martingale Presidency
If you’re like me, endless Zoom calls and the inability to work out at your regular gym may have produced a “Quarantine 15” effect on your weight and fitness. For those who are fortunate enough to afford both a treadmill and the space to set it up, I offer a solution: The Zoom Treadmill, or … Continue reading The Zoom Treadmill (Treadzoomer? Zoommill?)
For many years, I have advocated what I call Hannibal’s First Law of Leadership: “Never give an order that won’t be obeyed.” Hannibal’s Law recognizes that war is fought in the real world, and that a general who gives orders that aren’t obeyed won’t be a general for much longer. We are now reaching that … Continue reading Covid-19 and Hannibal’s Law
Fact #1: Economists believe that the US unemployment rate is now over 15%, which is the highest it has been since the Great Depression. Fact #2: The S&P 500 is down from its February peak, but is still higher than it was on June 1, 2019.The only way to reconcile these two facts is to … Continue reading
* * * An exponential threat like Covid-19 requires us to scale up our responses at lightning speed. But how do manage the risks and strain of this effort, while making sure that we mitigate, rather than amplify, the existing structural problems in our society? In a week, Bob Sutton, Laura McBain, Marc Chun, and … Continue reading Scaling and Prevailing Over Covid-19
The Covid-19 pandemic may be the greatest threat the world has faced in over a century. All of humanity has a common enemy, a merciless, exponentially-spreading virus. If ever we needed to unite against a common enemy, now is the time. And of course, not only are nations at loggerheads, even within the United States, … Continue reading Resist Covid-19 Fundamentalism