Leon Lin

Now on Threads actively checking Twitter

[Leon Lin @Leonlinsx]

Avoid Boring People in 2020: Year in Review

- 5 favourite free articles, subscriber articles, and links
- Reflecting on the newsletter
- Reader competition
- Reflecting on my year

https://t.co/v7PQfualom

1/23

[Leon Lin @Leonlinsx]

He was deliberate in his friendships, choosing to surround himself almost exclusively with people whose smarts and creativity he admired. (5/5)

[Leon Lin @Leonlinsx]

Who is Claude Shannon?

Claude Shannon published two foundational papers that earned him the title 'father of the information age' and invented the bit.

https://t.co/EuyFw0t5Vw

[Leon Lin @Leonlinsx]

Beyond his foundational work, Shannon was also a juggler, unicyclist, chess player, codebreaker, and stock-picker, valuing diverse interests. (4/5)

[Leon Lin @Leonlinsx]

Taleb advocates for skewed bets that avoid 'picking pennies in front of a steamroller' by targeting rare events with large payoffs. (5/5)

[Leon Lin @Leonlinsx]

Book Review: Fooled by Randomness

Nassim Taleb's 'Fooled by Randomness' argues that in expectation, a dentist is richer than a rock star when accounting for all who enter each profession.

https://t.co/60DzBaxO3V

[Leon Lin @Leonlinsx]

The scaling property of randomness means a 93% yearly success probability for an investment drops to 50% per second, hiding short-term volatility. (4/5)

[Leon Lin @Leonlinsx]

Many ancient sculptures are significantly restored, with some having entire heads filled with pins to maintain shape. (5/5)

[Leon Lin @Leonlinsx]

Public secrets

Industry insiders reveal that companies gain little value from M&A talks with investment bankers, as they already know the landscape better.

https://t.co/5cgB0TeKJt

[Leon Lin @Leonlinsx]

Fines based on fixed dollar amounts rather than wealth percentages effectively legalize certain activities for wealthy individuals. (4/5)

[Leon Lin @Leonlinsx]

This structure lets the company buy back stock risk while raising some cash, making it ideal for firms seeking repurchases more than pure funding. (5/5)

[Leon Lin @Leonlinsx]

Convertible arbitrage and short exposure

GoPro's 2017 convertible issuance let arbitrage investors short the stock directly to the company through derivatives, avoiding expensive market borrowing.

https://t.co/KYGhE1cE4K

[Leon Lin @Leonlinsx]

The solution involves the underwriting bank selling the company's stock to itself via a forward contract, then passing the short exposure to arbs through a swap. (4/5)