I’m continuing to lean into my curiosity about the late 1960s through roughly 1982. This was a period of social and economic change. Interest rates were near 20%, and inflation was double digit.

Last week, I shared a biography I read about how Thomas Rowe Price Jr, founder of T. Rowe Price Group, navigated that period. This week, I dug into how Warren Buffett handled it by reading Warren Buffett’s Ground Rules. It was pre-Berkshire Hathaway, so Buffett was managing an investment partnership, Buffett Partnership Ltd. (BPL), and investing other people’s money (his LPs’).

This book isn’t specifically about the period in question. It’s more of a framework that details the principles that governed Buffett’s investments and how he applied them during the years he was actively investing via BPL, 1956 to 1969. The book is unique in that each chapter focuses on a Buffett principle, which is explained and then supported with excerpts from various BPL letters Buffett wrote. It does a great job of explaining his thinking and some of the investments BPL made. It devotes a section to the structure of BPL. It describes the three investing strategies Buffett used at BPL to generate outsize returns: generals (buying generally underpriced securities), workouts (profiting from merger arbitrage), and controls (taking majority ownership to influence a company’s direction).

This book also explains Buffett’s thinking regarding how to navigate the period I’m interested in. I learned that Buffett opted to sit on the sidelines and not invest. In May 1969, he announced that he was closing BPL and would return investors’ money. He went on to send a 17-page letter to his investors in early 1970 about the mechanics of tax-free municipal bonds, which he suggested they invest in. After BPL closed, the stock market experienced a very volatile period with significant declines in several years.

It was great to learn about the early Buffett days, his strategies, and why they worked. It was also eye-opening to see how he sidestepped the period I’m curious about. Anyone interested in BPL or Buffett’s early days should consider reading this book.

Current Project: Reading books about entrepreneurs and sharing what I learned from them

Mission: Create a library of wisdom from notable entrepreneurs that current entrepreneurs can leverage to increase their chances of success

Cumulative metrics (since 4/1/24):

• Total books read: 75
• Total blog posts published: 490

This week’s metrics:

• Books read: 1
• Blog posts published: 7

What I completed this week (link to last week’s commitments):

• Read Warren Buffett’s Ground Rules, a framework for how Warren Buffett ran his pre–Berkshire Hathaway partnership, Buffett Partnership Ltd., from 1956 to 1969
• Added two more books that I read in 2020 and 2023, these about venture capital deal structures and financial crises, to the library on this site—see more here

What I’ll do next week:

• Read a biography, autobiography, or framework book
• Add two more books that I read before 2024 to the library on this site—see more here

Asks:

• Seeking technical lead or cofounder – I’m looking for a senior full-stack developer skilled in AI retrieval. If you know one who’d have an interest in working on the software project related to books, please introduce us!

Week two hundred eighty was another week of learning. Looking forward to next week!

Current Project: Reading books about entrepreneurs and sharing what I learned from them

Mission: Create a library of wisdom from notable entrepreneurs that current entrepreneurs can leverage to increase their chances of success

What I struggled with:

• No material struggles this week

What I learned:

• Books often link to concepts in other books, but those connections aren’t visible. You have to read a book to uncover them. This week, with the help of a friend, I added to the library the ability to see the number of each book’s connected books. This simple quantification of the number of connections added a lot of value for me—and I read the books! I suspect it will add tremendous value to others. If this can be done on a larger scale, not just the books I’ve read, I think this could create.

That’s what I learned and struggled with last week.

This week I had a conversation with an early-stage founder who’s building software for micro SMBs. After being at it for several years, he’s finally hit product–market fit. He’s doing over $1m in annual recurring revenue, is cash-flow break even, and wants to raise from VC firms to accelerate growth.

As we chatted, he told me that he’s made it to several final meetings with VC firms where he presents to the entire partnership. They love the product, but they don’t understand how the go-to-market will work for micro SMBs or how big the market opportunity is. So, they pass.

This conversation reminded me of a post I wrote a few months ago (see here). There’s no tried-and-true playbook for selling to micro SMBs like there is for enterprise SaaS, so lots of people avoid it. They don’t understand how big the market is or how to find potential customers.

To me, it’s an obvious white space that people—even some VC firms—are overlooking. And to this founder, the opportunity is crystal clear. He’s dumbfounded that forward-thinking investors don’t get it.

Micro SMBs is an overlooked and great market to go after. The entrepreneurs who get it now will end up building massive businesses with diversified and loyal customer bases. By the time others realize how big this opportunity is, these early entrepreneurs will have a first-mover advantage that will be hard to compete with.

I’m rooting for this founder. He finally found one firm whose people get it. They’ve agreed to be the lead and write a large check in his fundraising round. He’s on his way!

A friend read my post yesterday about adding all the books I read years ago to the Library section of this site. Their question was, “How do you know which books you read, and when, from so many years ago?”

Great question. The simple answer is that I remember most books I’ve read but I don’t remember exactly when I read them if it was before mid-2023. The detailed answer is that I buy all my books (mainly used) on Amazon.com, so my purchase history is there, going back over 10 years. I went through that history and noted all the books I’ve bought and the date of purchase. Some of them are still in the to-be-read pile. I’m adding those that I’ve read to the Library and using the Amazon purchase date as the month and year I read them. It’s not precise, but it’s roughly accurate, which is good enough for me. Done is better than perfect.

Every weekend since the Memorial Day Challenge (see here), I’ve been adding all the books I read before 2024 to the Library section of this site. As of this past weekend, I’ve officially added all the books I’ve read from 2020 through today—roughly five years’ worth of reading.

I still need to add books from the years before 2020, and I’ll continue to do that over time. But getting 2020–2025 done felt like a nice milestone. I now have a place where I can go back and see how my reading and learning have evolved over several years (and they’ve evolved a ton!). This project isn’t going to win awards or generate any revenue, but I’ve put a ton of energy into it over the past few months, and I’m proud of how it’s turned out.

As of today, I’ve added a total of 110 books, and I’m excited to add more as I continue learning.

In 2024, I challenged myself to accelerate my learning by reading a book (usually a biography) a week. To date, I’ve done it for 74 consecutive weeks. I wanted to share what I was reading and also keep track for myself, which was difficult (see here), so I created a Library section on this site. I added to it all the books I’ve read since my book-a-week habit began in March 2024, and I’ve committed to adding my latest read to the Library every Sunday (see the latest here).

That left the books I’d read before 2024 unshared and untracked. I set a goal to add my old reading to the Library over time. It began with a Memorial Day Challenge to add five books (see here) and continued with my challenging myself to add two books every weekend until my backlog is gone. This past weekend was my tenth weekend, and I added two more books:

• Manias, Panics, and Crashes by Charles P. Kindleberger and Robert Aliber
• Venture Deals by Brad Feld and Jason Mendelson

That’s the latest update on my weekend goal. I hope that sharing these books will be of value.

I’m increasingly curious about the late 1960s through roughly 1982. Inflation was double digits. Interest rates were right at 20%. Lots of social and economic change was going on.

I’ve been digging into this period for the last few weeks to understand what happened, why it happened, and what can be learned. This week’s book, T. Rowe Price, is a deeper dive into the time. This biography of Thomas Rowe Price Jr., founder of T. Rowe Price Group is a reread; when I read it before, I noted that Price was ahead of the pack in seeing what was coming in the ’60s and ’70s and positioning himself and his portfolios to sidestep the turmoil.

The book has a chapter dedicated to the period from 1971 to 1982. In that chapter, it details the macro events that Price focused on to understand what was happening and determine what was likely to happen. It also provides perspective on the political climate and discusses how the actions of Richard Nixon and Arthur Burns accelerated inflation. It details how Jimmy Carter appointed Paul Volcker Fed Chairman and the drastic actions he took to get inflation under control. This chapter talks about a lot more and does a great job of describing how the dominoes fell during this period.

Lastly, this book uses Price’s private notes to highlight his thoughts on the trajectories of inflation and monetary policy. Understanding the raw thoughts of someone as they navigated this period was very helpful. It also details the actions he took with his portfolios, why he took those actions, and why his portfolios performed so well.

I’m glad I read this book again. It was even better than the first time because it helped me answer specific questions and fill in the gaps. The chapters covering the 1960s through the early 1980s were exactly what I was looking for and I absorbed more from them the second time around.

Anyone interested in learning more about one of the great investors and entrepreneurs or the changes in the investment landscape from the 1930s through the 1980s might enjoy reading T. Rowe Price.

Current Project: Reading books about entrepreneurs and sharing what I learned from them

Mission: Create a library of wisdom from notable entrepreneurs that current entrepreneurs can leverage to increase their chances of success

Cumulative metrics (since 4/1/24):

• Total books read: 74
• Total blog posts published: 483

This week’s metrics:

• Books read: 1
• Blog posts published: 7

What I completed this week (link to last week’s commitments):

• Reread T. Rowe Price, a biography of Thomas Rowe Price Jr., founder of T. Rowe Price Group (having read it earlier this year) because I was curious about how Price navigated the 1968–1982 period of high inflation and a volatile stock market
• Added two more books that I read in 2020 and 2018, these about building daily habits and Saudi Arabia’s crown prince and his rise to power, to the library on this site—see more here

What I’ll do next week:

• Read a biography, autobiography, or framework book
• Add two more books that I read before 2024 to the library on this site—see more here
• Create a digest of one biography, autobiography, or framework book

Asks:

• Seeking technical lead or cofounder – I’m looking for a senior full-stack developer skilled in AI retrieval. If you know one who’d have an interest in working on the software project related to books, please introduce us!

Week two hundred seventy-nine was another week of learning. Looking forward to next week!

Current Project: Reading books about entrepreneurs and sharing what I learned from them

Mission: Create a library of wisdom from notable entrepreneurs that current entrepreneurs can leverage to increase their chances of success

What I struggled with:

• No material struggles this week

What I learned:

• I met with a software engineer who’s actively trying to learn more about the non-engineering side of the business he works for. He expressed interest in my project and how it could help fill his gaps. I haven’t seriously considered this use case because non-entrepreneurs’ ability to create value from what they learn isn’t clear to me. I’m still not sold, but this developer has me thinking about this more, along with several feature ideas.

That’s what I learned and struggled with last week.