Of all the weeks in the year this is the one I dread the most. I suffer from post-traumatic stress disorder which was triggered by my almost catastrophic heart attack that occurred 11 years ago this week. It is also the week that my mother died suddenly in 1993. I think about the heart attack every day of my life, wondering how I survived, why I survived, and when the final shoe might drop. I don’t try to not think about it, because that only causes me to think about it even more. The strange thing is that it wasn’t…
Author: Lloyd Graff
For most of my life I have made my good living by buying and selling physical things. My line of credit with my bank is still directly related to the financial institution’s belief in the value of inventory, machines, and cash on hand in relation to money owed to them. This is the traditional bible of finance. Our statistical yardsticks of wealth, both individually and as a country, are based on measurable, identifiable things. But increasingly I am doubting a lot of these old rubrics which the college Economics texts are based on. I am not the only one who…
Futurism newsletter ran a piece about Liam Zebedee, a software engineer in Brooklyn who struggles with diabetes while trying to live the semblance of a normal life. He built his own “artificial pancreas” because he was frustrated with the daily hassle of dealing with hospitals, doctors, insurance companies, and pharmacies. He started with a good piece of hardware, an insulin pump. He then developed his own software and purchased the necessary hardware for $979. He pays $225 per month for off-the-shelf glucose sensors plus his monthly cost for a supply of insulin. “I know that it’s pretty insane to run…
Today is the last day of the Major League Baseball trading season. I am a nutty baseball fan, Chicago Cubs variety, who follows such folly with a fanatic’s intensity. Maybe it’s the machinery dealer in me, but I love the trading. Every team is looking for that player who with change of scenery turns into a butterfly from a caterpillar. Other times non-contending teams will trade a star at the end of his contract for a potential star at the beginning of his career. The classic case of this was in 2016 when the Cubs traded their best young minor…
Trading in used machinery is sophisticated gambling. Some people find it strange that I am utterly indifferent about sports gambling. It has no allure for me. I once lost $25 playing 21 at a casino in Vegas and felt stupid – not for losing, but just for walking into the smoke-filled room. Yeah, it was a long time ago. And now, after such a long, long time in the screw machine trading and refurbishing business, we have the exhilarating and scary opportunity to reinvent a new business by finding a new cohort of machines to gamble on. I’m finding it…
I watched one of the greatest tennis matches ever played on Sunday. I suppose you are thinking, who cares about tennis on the TMW site, but give me a chance on this. Roger Federer, perhaps the greatest tennis player of all time with 20 Grand Slam titles, dueled Novak Djokovic, perhaps the greatest tennis player of all time with 15 Grand Slam titles (at the time). It was Wimbledon, in London, England, the biggest tournament of the year, perfect weather, playing on a grass court. Both players had their parents attending. Federer’s wife and their four kids were in the…
I just listened twice to a podcast with Dave Dahl, creator of Dave’s Killer Bread. It was the most recent “How I Built This” podcast, conducted by the finest interviewer I’ve heard, Guy Raz of NPR. Dahl slowly recounted his story of almost forty years, much of it about misery, depression, and failure, culminating in enormous financial success and more disappointment. From a journalistic viewpoint the podcast was a masterpiece of storytelling – a slow, meticulous, layered presentation of a man’s life of pain and, particularly, family resilience. From a business standpoint it was fascinating and revealing. David Dahl’s parents…
I just bought the first fabulous cherries and peaches of the 2019 farmers’ market season. The following blog is a past favorite of mine. I give you Fruitsposé! Every day another prominent guy is forced to admit how his desire got the best of him. Today I must reveal my secret passion. I have had a lifelong affair with fruit. I was reminded of this a couple days ago when I was in the produce department of Bizio’s, my local fruit seller of choice. He had THE BLUEBERRIES. I am very fussy about all my berries, and I usually shun blueberries…
This is just a guess, but I’m betting the following conversation took place recently between Warren Buffett, who owns $50 billion of Apple shares, and Tim Cook, CEO of Apple Corporation. “Hi, Tim, it’s Warren. I’ve been thinking about Apple’s China exposure, Tim.” “Yeah, me too, Warren.” “Tim, what if this Huawei stuff really gets out of hand, or Trump and Xi start to snarl at each other in Japan, or Hong Kong really blows up, do you think China might retaliate against Apple?” “Yeah, Warren, that’s our biggest nightmare. We have no backup plan in place, honestly.” “Well, Tim,…
What else doesn’t count anymore? PURCHASING DEPARTMENTS. The bottleneck of “purchasing” in big companies has become laughable to me as an outsider and to shop folks who make the money in manufacturing. The big gripe used to be “management,” but I don’t hear that as much now. Today, the outcry is with purchasing departments in larger companies that slow everything down with paperwork and “justifications.” When you need 1,000 pounds of 12L15 round tomorrow, and Central Steel is happy to get it to you at a fair price so the company can make five grand on a hot job, and…