Philip Koopman, Ph.D., is a professor at Carnegie Mellon University and an expert in the field of autonomous vehicles. The subtitle of his book is Measuring and Predicting Autonomous Vehicle Safety. I started reading this book with questions. After reading the wonderful book Autonomy by Lawrence Burns several years ago, which promised a new world […]

Yesterday morning, the New York Times reported that, “Macy’s Discovers Employee Hid Millions in Delivery Expenses.”  The article leads with this: “Macy’s said Monday that an employee had misstated up to $154 million in delivery expense over the past few years, forcing the retailer to delay a much-anticipated earnings report that Wall Street uses to […]

With the passage of October 15th, you probably thought you were done with tax reporting. Actually, you are. But there is a new report due for the first time this year called the Beneficial Ownership Information Report. This is not a tax report, and it is not filed with the IRS. Instead, it is filed […]

Is a recession coming? I don’t know and I don’t think anybody else does either. That doesn’t stop people from predicting an imminent recession, or at least whining a lot. I’m not going to predict a recession is coming, because I don’t know, and because I’m tired of hearing about it. Plus, I’ve already predicted […]

With thousands of others, I share admiration for Warren Buffet and Charlie Munger for what they built at Berkshire Hathaway, their commonsense approach to investing, and not the least, to the way they have lived their lives. Warren Buffet has always been the main public-facing persona of Berkshire, with Charlie Munger saying much less at […]

I’ve never reread and re-reviewed a book, so this is a first. About one year ago, I did my original review of Michael Lewis’s Going Infinite, the story of Sam Bankman-Fried, the crypto-currency tycoon behind FTX. The hardcover version of Going Infinite was published in early October 2023, the same day jurors were selected for […]

September brings the beginning of fall, autumn leaves, cooler temperatures and… budgeting. Most businesses of the size I deal with use the calendar year as their fiscal year. September is when most start their budgeting process, with the hope of completing the budgets by year-end. Does every company need a budget? I don’t think so, […]

Visual Literacy is an ongoing interest of mine. I’ve written previously about Edward Tufte’s wonderful series of books on the topic. More recently, I stumbled upon a great website I’d like to share with you. Professor Dr. Martin Eppler and Dr. oec. HSG Christian Muntwiler have created Visual.Literacy.org. The website is: https://www.visual-literacy.org/ Here you can […]

My last book review wasn’t too complimentary. I suggested that you do not waste your time reading Fluke. But this one you should read as it is a gem. Becoming Earth by Ferris Jabr, subtitled How Our Planet Came to Life, is one of those books that deals with some complex topics, but in language […]

This book, Fluke, was brought to my attention because I listened to an interview on NPR with the author, Brian Klaas. The interview was really good, and the author’s story was compelling. The subtitle of the book is, Chance, Chaos, and Why Everything We Do Matters. In a personal example of flukes providing world-changing outcomes, […]