Continuing with my new protocol, here I’m going to share content I consumed and learned from.

What I consumed this week and what I learned from it:

• The true cost of stock-based compensation – Interview with Kevin Koharki, associate professor of accounting. Koharki provides a thorough explanation of the true economic cost of issuing stock options, RSUs, and PSUs to employees. He walks through an example that includes actual financial statements of a public company. His point is that the true cost of issuing shares to employees and buying back shares to offset share dilution is significant and isn’t reflected in the cash flow statement or income statement. Cash flows are significantly less than investors realize, especially now, when many companies are investing heavily in AI-related capital expenditures. He highlights how Nvidia recently announced they’re changing their disclosure around stock-based compensation.
• Google CEO on capital allocation  – YouTube interview with Sundar Pichai. Great perspective on how he thinks about allocating capital to investments that won’t pay off for many years. Great insights into why Google was caught flat-footed when ChatGPT launched, how he evaluates long-term bets, and how he thinks about leading one of the world’s largest companies.
• Marginal gain learning fallacy – YouTube presentation with Justin Sung explaining how to be more productive. To stay on track and productive, you have to make micro adjustments that are directionally accurate. To make the right micro adjustments, getting feedback on them is vital. You get marginal gains only when you measure what actually matters!
• How to blow $1.3 million in 1 week – Hilarious YouTube interview with Lil Yachty, where he shares what he did when his first check from his record label cleared. This video is lighthearted but has a message embedded in it. Lil Yachty is brutally honest about various topics, acknowledges how ridiculous his early spending was, and highlights the importance of having wise people around. Clear example of making irrational decisions because he didn’t know any better (i.e., he had a mindware gap as discussed in this book).

That’s what I consumed and learned from last week.