It's the 4th time being there and the excitement started to fade away. Munger is no longer there, and that just made the whole experience a bit less fun. Some friends decided not to come as a result, which was a disappointment.
I started to feel more and more about the true meaning of value investing. I think it's a more like a marketing term. The principles of the value investing is already well known. I feel this is just the beginning. There is so much more you need to know before actually being able to beat the market.
I find hard to connect to Buffet as he is laser focused on earning money for whatever purpose. I believe life is bigger than that. There is more to enjoy in life than work. Today I spent a great evening with the boys, playing soccer, watching movies and writing diaries together. It's a really sweat night.
I know now the kids have a lot of different tasks. I listed the seven or so different tasks that my sons are working on everyday. It's a lot. How to better allocate the time and achieve these different objects? It's almost impossible. I have no idea how anyone can achieve that. In my knowledge, parents and the kids need to prioritize one way or another. They either decide to drop Chinese or to drop something else. Most often kids will drop sports when they grow older.
I remember talking with some parents who are older than me. They mentioned that their kids dropped some interests when they are in middle school or high school. I guess that's normal. What's innormal is that my sons have very little time for unstructured play. They are just too busy with one thing or another. I fear they become unhappy when they grow older, as the merry time during their childhood is so little.
I also need to manage my temper.
I have been waiting for a long while before I can play soccer or basketball together with my kids. Now they are playing as good in soccer as me. That's amazing.
There are so much fun in little things in life that you can enjoy, from walking in the woods to feeling the spring winds. It must be the best time in the Pacific Northwest when you can finally enjoy some mild weather and go outdoors everyday!
Another fun thing is I found a lot of old DOS games and installed several into my laptop. It's great fun playing some of the old games. That really reminds me of my youth.
I spent a little time downloading and playing several DOS games from the old days. It turns out those games are really bad in game mechanics. Most of them won't attract a modern day player at all. Time has changed and it's time to move on.
What can I learn from these games? I feel it's just a way to kill some time and have some simple fun. Other than that, don't expect too much.
It also reminds me that hardware technology and computer technology has advanced so much. In a few years, I believe computer games would become so real and high performance would be so available that we won't need to spend too much to get those fantastic effects. It would be a wonderful time to play some new games.
This afternoon Ariel and I spent some time deciding on what desks we should buy for the kids. Eventually she found some really affordable light-color adjustable desks. The plan is to buy two more desks in the study room, and move some the existing furnitures around to make room for the kids' desks. They desperately need a good environment to sit down and do their homework.
I can't wait to set up the new room with them. I have seen some really great game PCs and desks in CES this year. I want to duplicate that kind of design. In fact, it won't cost much. Nowadays a game PC is only less than 2k. I probably won't spend that much and will settle for much less. The really important thing is to have the desks ready so the kids can have their own study space. Right now, it's a chaos when kids are trying to get their materials and homework that are scattered everywhere. I want the kids to form a habit to keep things organized and tidy. Hope they will really enjoy the new study area when it finally gets ready.
I am listening to the audible book of Hawaii. The initial part of the story is about the people who initially travelled to Hawaii islands. I feel much of the human suffering was due to human being themselves. It's unnecessary in modern days with all these sufferings. I just hope that we can prepare my kids enough resources that they can really enjoy life without that much sufferings. Luckily, they were born American so they can live a better life.
What's good about the immigrants is that they are resilient of the obstacles. They have to overcome so much to come here and they have to learn to endure what they are facing. That's the spirit of the first generation immigrants. I hope the second generation won't lose that spirit. That should become the legacy of the family. But all in all, I am still hopeful, still optimistic.
Today a friend of a friend came to visit our office and had some chat with me for a hour. He was a portfolio manager who just starts his own fund. Travelling through the US, he is visiting different places to investigate and learn from other people. I found him fascinating. Having worked in one of China's biggest fund, he has accumulated valuable knowledge about the China market and the high tech industry. Sometimes people need to build upon what he has got. I think it's vitally important that we work with our advantages and make the best use of them.
For the different cities I feel eventually we got to move back to Asia. That's the place we came from and that's where it's better for the elderly. It's a question of whether the kids will find a better life there. I believe one motivation to make them learn Chinese is to make sure they can still fit into the society there should we decide eventually to make a living there. After all, financial freedom should not be a dream after two generations' accumulation and our kids should be better prepared than ever to start their lives.
That reminds me of Davidson Institute that we just got Jace enrolled in. I feel it's a wise move to learn from other parents. Even if we are not as good or diligent as they are, we are improving our parenting abilities and the kids should benefits greatly from this endeavor.
I should change the title to say every leading semi company. There are certainly a lot of commonality among second tier companies. But for the leading ones, everyone is different. Among them, Qualcomm is really unique.
Apparently, a company's stock will rise the most when its addressable market size increases dramatically. There will be a lot of debates about what's coming. But as long as you get the taste of the wave, you can ride it for a long while.
Qualcomm stock rose 23 times in 1999. It's an incredible story when the company just turned profitable. We ought to dare to find unique business model and new, successful companies. Even today, a lot of businesses are innovating in their respective areas. We just need to sit down and look at some interesting names. Is the growth sustainable? If the answer, then we just need to be open minded to learn their strength and understand why such companies deserve higher valuation. Oh I have drift a lot away from value investing. In my mind, value investing is the basis, is the fundation, is just a phase of learning. It's time to move on.
I am excited when I think of going to Taiwan again in summer time. June is such a nice time to visit there. This time I got to plan ahead and prepare a list of things I want to do. It will be a great trip, especially when you got to meet all kinds of companies in the computer industry. I will learn and play at the same time.
The most important company is certainly TSMC. I am also interested in learning other companies. What's everyone's story. How did they grow to become the current size. What's the rising star in the island. I need to figure out.
Every week I am learning some companies new. I think semiconductor industry is interesting and hard to learn. It gives you a lot of chances to learn new knowledge. After several years, I might become a rather capable investor in the space. Hopefully, we can all become rich in the due process.