And it's not Facebook, Twitter, Myspace, Buzz, Bebo, Digg, Xanga, Twackle, etc, etc. It's Charlie Rose.
Charlie is an American journalist who hosts a one-hour interview show, a job he's had since 1991. I enjoy watching Charlie Rose, not because he asks the tough questions but because he gets interesting guests and goes in-depth with them. I also enjoy exploring the archives of his website (www.charlierose.com), where interviews date back 15 years and where business leaders, movie stars and politicians opine on topical issues. A quick assessment suggests there are about 5,640 archived videos available on Charlie's website (141 pages * 40 videos per page), and thanks to classification by topic and keywords the videos are easily searchable.
Here's a video from 1995 where Charlie discusses Wall Street with Byron Wien (one of my favourite market strategists who spent his career at Morgan Stanley and now is a senior advisor at Blackstone) and Jim Cramer (long before he became a boisterous commentator on CNBC). At the time the DJIA just passed 5,000 and it appeared the early-90s recession was ancient history.
It's surprising, and maybe it shouldn't be, that a number of the topics discussed in this interview 15 years ago still are being discussed today. An understanding of history is important, especially in cyclical areas like the financial markets, because it often repeats itself and many market participants either a) have short memories or b) are too young to understand what took place during previous cycles. Charlie's website offers thousands of hours of free 'history lessons' to everyone.
In this video Wien offered an insightful view on the internet - "the internet could be the most important development since the television". Easy to see this in hindsight, but remember this is 3 years before Google was founded, only 3 months after the first version of Internet Explorer was released by Microsoft, when the founder of Facebook was 11 years old and when it took Jim Cramer 15 minutes to download a solitaire game to play with his daughter (on AOL, who at the time had a leading market position). Just think about what you can download today in 15 minutes...
I encourage all to explore Charlie's archives - I bet you'll be surprised who you find and be interested in hearing what they had to say.
Monday, April 26, 2010
Tuesday, April 13, 2010
Paris Marathon
Last weekend I ran the Paris marathon, a race of 40,000 people through one of the world's great cities. The route took us along the Champs Elysses, next to the Louvre, out to the Bois de Vincennes, back along the river by the Eiffel Tower before finishing at the Arc de Triomphe.
The other day I read that it's the 2,500th birthday of the marathon. I didn't know the race's history, so here's a recap of the marathon's history as written by the FT...
Back in 490BC, so the legend goes, a runner called Pheidippides was sent from the Battle of Marathon to Athens, carrying news of a crucial Greek victory against the invading Persians. Upon delivering his message, Pheidippides is said to have dropped dead. His legacy is the marathon, now run by hundreds of thousands of people around the world every year.
Pheidippides covered about 25 miles, the distance roughly replicated when the modern Olympics were established in 1896. Twelve years later, at the first London Olympics, the race was extended. The marathon began in Windsor and finished at the Olympic stadium at White City in west London - exactly 26 miles - but runners were required to go a painful extra 0.2 miles so that King Edward VII, relaxing in his royal box, could see the finish.
Training for a marathon takes a lot of time, effort and dedication, and it's hard. I believe most people can train for and complete a marathon (given that they're in relatively good health and they don't have any injuries), but I also believe a lot of people are discouraged by the monstrous training schedule. So, I include below a copy of my actual training schedule, alongside the schedule I attempted to follow. I tracked my daily training for 4 months, and as you'll see it's hardly an exact match to what I was supposed to do (click to enlarge).
During the four months I ran over 420 miles, and looking back that's hard to believe. I got blisters, my knees stopped working, I got sick a few times and I travelled a lot. But this was my fourth marathon, so none of this was new to me...all part of the fun of running a marathon!!
The other day I read that it's the 2,500th birthday of the marathon. I didn't know the race's history, so here's a recap of the marathon's history as written by the FT...
Back in 490BC, so the legend goes, a runner called Pheidippides was sent from the Battle of Marathon to Athens, carrying news of a crucial Greek victory against the invading Persians. Upon delivering his message, Pheidippides is said to have dropped dead. His legacy is the marathon, now run by hundreds of thousands of people around the world every year.
Pheidippides covered about 25 miles, the distance roughly replicated when the modern Olympics were established in 1896. Twelve years later, at the first London Olympics, the race was extended. The marathon began in Windsor and finished at the Olympic stadium at White City in west London - exactly 26 miles - but runners were required to go a painful extra 0.2 miles so that King Edward VII, relaxing in his royal box, could see the finish.
Training for a marathon takes a lot of time, effort and dedication, and it's hard. I believe most people can train for and complete a marathon (given that they're in relatively good health and they don't have any injuries), but I also believe a lot of people are discouraged by the monstrous training schedule. So, I include below a copy of my actual training schedule, alongside the schedule I attempted to follow. I tracked my daily training for 4 months, and as you'll see it's hardly an exact match to what I was supposed to do (click to enlarge).
During the four months I ran over 420 miles, and looking back that's hard to believe. I got blisters, my knees stopped working, I got sick a few times and I travelled a lot. But this was my fourth marathon, so none of this was new to me...all part of the fun of running a marathon!!
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