Author: loganfrederick

Books Read in the Second Half of 2021

~ loganfrederick

As a reference, my grading scale is:

Two Stars: Not recommended, except for those very interested in the subject.

Three Stars: Recommended, may cover too niche a topic to get a stronger recommendation for a broad audience, is only high-level coverage of its theme, or just moderately interesting fiction.

Four Stars: Recommended, well-written, and covers material I think most people would find useful or interesting.

Five Stars: Strongly recommended to everyone.

Additionally, I pick one book every six months as the “best book I’ve read” during that time period.

Themes from these six months:

  • History of Movies and The Sopranos
  • Science Fiction
  • Elon Musk
  • Food
  • Authors with Multiple Books Featured:
    • Michael Pollan
    • Shea Serrano
Continue reading “Books Read in the Second Half of 2021” →

Books Read in the First Half of 2021

~ loganfrederick

As a reference, my grading scale is:

Two Stars: Not recommended, except for those very interested in the subject.

Three Stars: Recommended, may cover too niche a topic to get a stronger recommendation for a broad audience, is only high-level coverage of its theme, or just moderately interesting fiction.

Four Stars: Recommended, well-written, and covers material I think most people would find useful or interesting.

Five Stars: Strongly recommended to everyone.

Additionally, I pick one book every six months as the “best book I’ve read” during that time period.

Themes from these six months:

  • Con Artists
  • Product Management
  • Poker and Las Vegas
  • Chess
  • Debt
  • TV Sitcom Family Ties
  • Amazon
  • Venture Capital
  • CRISPR and Gene Editing
Continue reading “Books Read in the First Half of 2021” →

Books Read in the Second Half of 2020

~ loganfrederick

As a reference, my grading scale is:

Two Stars: Not recommended, except for those very interested in the subject.

Three Stars: Recommended, may cover too niche a topic to get a stronger recommendation for a broad audience, is only high-level coverage of its theme, or just moderately interesting fiction.

Four Stars: Recommended, well-written, and covers material I think most people would find useful or interesting.

Five Stars: Strongly recommended to everyone.

Additionally, I pick one book every six months as the “best book I’ve read” during that time period.

Themes from these six months:

  • Comedians: I love sitcoms and standup comedy, and I’ve included stories from stars of both related worlds.
  • Netflix: A new set of separate books by the Netflix co-founders teach the lessons learned from launching an entertainment revolution.
  • Mad Men: Two books analyzing my favorite televised drama.
  • 2001: A Space Odyssey: Also two books telling the stories around the making of the classic Stanley Kubrick film.
  • Business of Biotech: Continuing my education in the natural sciences, I focused on learning the histories of Vertex Pharma, Genentech, Amgen, and the broader drug business.
Continue reading “Books Read in the Second Half of 2020” →

Books Read in the First Half of 2020

~ loganfrederick

As a reference, my grading scale is (without any one or two star books this time):

Two Stars: Not recommended, except for those very interested in the subject.

Three Stars: Recommended, may cover too niche a topic to get a stronger recommendation for a broad audience, is only high-level coverage of its theme, or just moderately interesting fiction.

Four Stars: Recommended, well-written, and covers material I think most people would find useful or interesting.

Five Stars: Strongly recommended to everyone.

Additionally, I pick one book every six months as the “best book I’ve read” during that time period.

Themes from these six months:

  • Technologist Gene Kim: The cofounder and CTO of TripAdvisor now dedicates much of his time to writing books about how to best run technology organizations. Applicable to large companies and startups alike.
  • Uber and How We Work: As part of my research for working at Bluecrew, I delved into the temporary staffing industry, modern “gig economy” companies such as Uber, and some general history of labor.
  • N+1 Magazine: I’ve reviewed books written by the staff of literary magazine n+1 in the past, and this year I’ve added three more to that list.
  • Bill Simmons Colleagues: Simmons is best known as a founder of two successful online media brands (Grantland and The Ringer). After I learned he’s good friends with Chuck Klosterman, I’ve dived into books by more of his colleagues.
  • Adult Entertainment: The confluence of Dave Chappelle Netflix special, a new book by one of my favorite authors, working for Tinder’s parent company, and Hugh Hefner’s semi-recent death all converged into me reading a lot of material around sex. Readers are forewarned.
Continue reading “Books Read in the First Half of 2020” →

Buying Biotech – 10x Genomics

~ loganfrederick

I own $TXG as of June 15th, 2020. This is part of a new series I’m starting studying publicly traded biotech companies. The below is my take and analysis, but all investing decisions are your own. Their latest annual report and investor presentation are downloadable here.

10x Genomics is a provider of hardware and software tools for “academia, governments, other biopharma and biotech companies.” TXG’s products help these institutions research scientific solutions for a wide range of fields, including cancer, neuroscience, drug development, and beyond.

The 10x products have resulted in scientific acclaim (having helped their customers get 700-plus papers published in major science journals by using 10x tools) and patent defensibility (over 200 currently owned or exclusively licensed with another 480 pending).

Before explaining their solutions, the challenges these customers faced before 10x Genomics include (from page 5 of the TXG annual report):

  • Average, or bulk, measurements obscure underlying differences between different biological units, such as individual cells
  • Low throughput prevents requisite sampling of the underlying complexity–for example, when only a few hundred cells can be evaluated at a time.
  • Limited number of biological analytes are interrogated, giving a myopic view of only a few biological processes….
  • Inefficient use of sample to generate a signal of sufficient strength to analyze the biological molecules of interest
  • Inadequate bioinformatics and software tools

In plainer English, even with modern advances, scientists still run into limitations in their ability to analyze, faster and in larger volumes, the smallest “biological units” like cells and their molecules.

How does 10x solve this problem?

Continue reading “Buying Biotech – 10x Genomics” →

Buying Benefytt Technologies (HealthInsurance.com)

~ loganfrederick

 
Disclosure: I am an owner of BFYT as of March 23, 2020.

What is Benefytt Technologies?

Benefytt Technologies, Inc. (BFYT), formerly known as Health Insurance Innovations, is (in the company’s own words): “a technology driver distributor of Medicare, health and life insurance products.”

In other words, it is primarily a lead generation service for other health insurance companies. For those unfamiliar, “lead generation” is jargon for “gets a fee for finding customers for the companies actually providing the insurance, without taking the insurance policy risk itself.”

Continue reading “Buying Benefytt Technologies (HealthInsurance.com)” →

Short-Selling During the Coronavirus

~ loganfrederick

“In 2008, it was the entire financial system that was at risk. We were still short. But you don’t want the system to crash. It’s sort of like the flood’s about to happen and you’re Noah. You’re on the ark. Yeah, you’re okay. But you are not happy looking out at the flood. That’s not a happy moment for Noah.” – Steve Eisman in Michael Lewis’s The Big Short

There’s a third type of investor during these times: the short-sellers.

I didn’t intend to become someone who makes money from suffering from others. It’s a mindset some people have, gained often through negative life experiences, a desire for truth, or just genetic skepticism. For me, it’s the first two.

That said, I’ve been having my most profitable month in the stock market at a time when many people have been panicking.

This is because, in January, I took short positions on four companies:

Continue reading “Short-Selling During the Coronavirus” →

Books Read in the Second Half of 2019

~ loganfrederick

As a reference, my grading scale is (without any one or two star books this time):

Two Stars: Not recommended, except for those very interested in the subject.

Three Stars: Recommended, may cover too niche a topic to get a stronger recommendation for a broad audience, is only high-level coverage of its theme, or just moderately interesting fiction.

Four Stars: Recommended, well-written, and covers material I think most people would find useful or interesting.

Five Stars: Strongly recommended to everyone.

Additionally, I pick one book every six months as the “best book I’ve read” during that time period.

Themes from these six months:

  • “Gig Economy” and Temporary Work: Since I’ve started working at Y Combinator alum Bluecrew moving industrial temp staffing to a tech platform, I’ve dived into the industry’s literature.
  • Accounting: Brushing up my knowledge on the field in which I’ve occasionally worked.
  • The Legal System: Between the current state of our politics and an increase in my own experiences with lawyers over the past year, both personally and professionally, I’ve got multiple books which cover how our legal system works.
  • Japanese Culture: Three books spent time covering Japan, two for a couple chapters and one entirely.
  • Books from Mad Men: The show is my favorite drama and features multiple books from the shows time period. I’ve now read a couple of them.

Continue reading “Books Read in the Second Half of 2019” →

Paul Graham Essays Categorized by Theme

~ loganfrederick

Since I live in a different town from my family, the holidays are the majority of the time I get to spend with my twelve year-old brother (we have a 17 year age gap).

Now that he’s nearly a teenager, he’s almost the age I was when I started thinking independently from family and friends. For me, a big part of that was discovering Paul Graham’s essays. Hopefully one day my brother reads through them (but I won’t force him).

This got me thinking: if I were to recommend them to him, would I want him to read them chronologically? Or should I point him to specific essays based on his interests?

Alternatively, if one were to compile all of Paul’s essays into a collection or a Hackers and Painters sequel, how would it be organized?

So below is my attempt at tagging Paul Graham’s essays by subject matter.

Continue reading “Paul Graham Essays Categorized by Theme” →

Books Read in the First Half of 2019

~ loganfrederick ~ Leave a comment

As a reference, my grading scale is (without any one or two star books this time):

Three Stars: Recommended, may cover too niche a topic to get a stronger recommendation for a broad audience, is only high-level coverage of its theme, or just moderately interesting fiction.

Four Stars: Recommended, well-written, and covers material I think most people would find useful or interesting.

Five Stars: Strongly recommended to everyone.

Additionally, I pick one book every six months as the “best book I’ve read” during that time period.

Themes from these six months:

  • Chuck Klosterman: I’ve completed the Chuck Klosterman collection, including his two novels.
  • Alan Lightman: A physicist-novelist recommended by my good friend Ritoban Thakur has a unique voice which bridges spirituality with science.
  • Technology Company Growth and Management
  • Stripe Press: A new publishing company with the goal of advancing economic and technological ideas also puts great care into their uniquely designed and high quality physical book covers.

Continue reading “Books Read in the First Half of 2019” →