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Saved by @CodyyyGardner

Here are 20 of my best threads from 2020 covering personal finance, entrepreneurship, economics & finance, investment banking ++ useful resources.

Massively grateful to everyone who took time out to read, comment & share these across the year. I really appreciate you.

[Thread]

 1. Breaking-in – study notes, free textbooks & past papers
https://t.co/vC2kAXeRWI
2. Breaking-in – the job connector thread
https://t.co/m1e6AX7ydJ
3. Breaking-in – book smart vs. street smart
https://t.co/SqeNkOQkMo
4. Personal Finance – MEGA Property Thread
https://t.co/pT1y4PfXPt
5. Personal Finance – Good time to buy a house?
https://t.co/rWAhV1hYeU
6. Personal finance – property stockvels
https://t.co/N4xSWIUZ8M
7. Personal Finance – Crowd1
https://t.co/AUbUv9D9H5
8. Entrepreneurship –Raising Capital
https://t.co/v81clU04xX
9. Entrepreneurship – Surviving corporate
https://t.co/fOv45afkQQ
10. Entrepreneurship – Privilege of capital
https://t.co/MbCsT8A4Pe
11. Entrepreneurship – networking
https://t.co/IU95NkxhIr
12. Economics & Finance – Oil Prices
https://t.co/fmVvK6J7a6
13. Economics & Finance – Fiscal stimulus
https://t.co/GqF5ajrruP
14. Economics & Finance – Net worth
https://t.co/obl2o1wewU
15. Investment banking – casual dining deals
https://t.co/AwLVJc967E
16. Investment banking – Kylie cosmetic deal
https://t.co/wyS9IyZHiS
17. Investment banking – IPOs
https://t.co/eZkeHS9lTx
18. Investment banking – Kanye, Yeezy deal
https://t.co/ELxXp9fHQg
19. Investment Banking – OnlyFans
https://t.co/BIza8YK215
20. Investment banking – Hertz deal
https://t.co/QXxDMaMRpQ
BONUS THREADS: The BankerX Mega Resource Thread
https://t.co/Hqvp941J4M
Shout-out for making to the end!

For more threads, resources & useful links - feel free to join our Telegram channel at https://t.co/v3uNq6IvBk

You can also check out @Banker__X & https://t.co/XU09rc61BD.

More from Koshiek Karan

Koshiek Karan
Koshiek Karan
@iamkoshiek
Bonds explained in 90 seconds! [Thread]

Wait, what's a bond?

Very simply, it's a loan.

Instead of borrowing money from a bank, a company (or government) will borrow from investors. So investors will give the company money & in exchange they get paid interest (called coupons)

Fancy term for the IOU is "bond issuance"


I'm an investor, how do the mechanics work?

Company sells you a bond for $100 and promises you 5% every year for 3 years. They also pay you $100 at the end.

Yr 1: $5
Yr 2: $5
Yr 3: $5 + $100

That's $115 (or a 15% return) after 3 years. Right?

The real return is closer to 10%


Why are my returns so much lower?

$100 today is worth more than $100 in 3 years from now - yes, inflation!

Even at a modest 1.5% inflation each year, the $100 you give up today is worth less than $96 in 3 years from now.

ILBs (inflation linked bonds) try & help solve this.


How come bonds are always quoted in yields (%s) instead of actual prices like shares?

Bonds have different maturities* & coupons - quoting a percentage makes it easy to compare different bonds & compare against other assets.

*Maturity = time to get paid back (3yrs in example)
BONDS
Koshiek Karan
Koshiek Karan
@iamkoshiek
Step by step guide on how to buy/ sell tweets

You're essentially minting a tweet, creating a NFT, transacting on the blockchain & settling payment in ETH


NFT is a non-fungible token

Fancy term for a digital certificate for intellectual property. Think of it like an autograph. Someone pays for your autograph and keeps it as an investment.

Your autograph (NFT) here is a digital certificate of your tweet.

What info is on the digital certificate?

The tweet remains on Twitter under your account. The digital certificate contains metadata of the original tweet.

Metadata = when you posted the tweeted, the time, contents, your digital signature from your crypto wallet

Here's the steps:

1. Verification & Tweet Listing
Login to https://t.co/2UhT8QJTFQ so Twitter can verify which tweets are yours

2. Set up crypto wallet
Add the metamask extension to your browser to interact with cryptocurrency https://t.co/59kxXX5JUt

3. Review & accept offers
TRADING TWEETS
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Koshiek Karan
Koshiek Karan
@iamkoshiek
You're about to invest in the next biggest company to list on the stock exchange. You dream of a luxury island & a private jet - but you end up eating canned food instead.

Here's a guide to the insider secrets of IPOs [Thread]

Hold on, what is an IPO? Indian Police Officer?

No, it's an Initial Public Offering

It's when a private company issues stock to the public to raise capital. Facebook, Airbnb & Apple are IPO companies

It's not just US companies. I worked on IPOs in London, Johannesburg & Lagos

"The Roadshow/ Marketing"

The IPO process can be long!

The company hires a few investment banks to go out & sell the story to investors. Think of it as a series of dates. Do you tell her you leave towels on the floor on the first date? No.

Investment banks sell the highlights

Pro-tip: NEVER invest into a company purely off the company roadshow materials. Having spent hours curating these docs - the wording is ALWAYS massaged.

Your go-to is the prospectus - the Bible for an IPO

Here's the Airbnb prospectus - check it

What should I be looking for in the prospectus?

Just like your cheating ex - don't focus on what he's saying, focus on what isn't being said.

- Forecasts: always take these with a pinch of salt
- Key risks: dry but important
- Why we need the money: MOST IMPORTANT!
TRADING
Don Petty Cash
Don Petty Cash
@iamkoshiek
Contemplating quitting your corporate job to become your own boss? [Thread]

Money

Making money is much easier when you have money. More importantly, having dry powder buys you time.

Starting with anything less than 6 months salary can be suicide. Bonus if you can get to a year saved up.

Flicking the switch on monetizing a new business isn't instant.

The fine print

Scrape through your employment contract to check for non-compete clauses, lock-in periods for approaching competitors, policy on recruiting existing employees.

Check what the notice period is, number of leave days you have to cash & how to transfer your pension.

IP

NEVER work on your personal business using a company device. Also resist the urge to send that sexy excel model to your personal email. Imagine chilling in Pollsmoor for a workbook.

Many companies run a check when you resign to check what you recently emailed & printed.

Skills

Level up as much as you can. Make a detailed checklist of everything you want to master before you bounce. Ideal skills are versatile, resilient and future-proof.

The more advanced your skills, the better your chances of someone paying you for those abilities.
ALL
Koshiek Karan
Koshiek Karan
@iamkoshiek
Running a small company or need cash for your side hustle? Here's the ultimate capital raising guide [Thread]

Ways to raise capital:

1. Bootstrapping
2. Bank Debt
3. Working Capital/ Revolving Facilities
4. Angle Investors
5. Venture Capital
6. Private Equity
7. Crowdfunding
8. Government Agencies
9. Get a Business Partner
10. Funding competitions

1. Bootstrapping

The cheapest way of funding. Build the company with savings & family contributions. Privilege is a massive factor in getting off the ground.

Jeff Bezos' parents ploughed $245k into his e-commerce startup. Bill Gates' parents funded his founding company.

2. Bank Debt

Banks take credit risk which means they're often fucking conservative. They will focus on your ability to repay the debt & pricing depends on the probability of you defaulting*

*Pro-tip: don't use bank funding to frequent strip clubs, use shareholder money instead

3. Drawdown facilities

Probably the most underused, useful type of funding. You can borrow against the assets of your company for really cheap. Most companies have short-term liquidity issues

I have worked on deals where these type of facilities were used to buy small companies
ALL

More from Twitter

Amanda Orson
Amanda Orson
@amandaorson
1/ Meta thread about "Going Pro" on Twitter.

I've been a Twitter power user since 2008 or so. Long time.

I've watched it change from an impromptu conversation or watch party platform to a place for people to build their professional reputations and network.

2/ In many ways it's matured into a more effective professional platform than LinkedIn.

LinkedIn is (mostly) about collecting the professional contacts you've met.

Twitter is a place to meet new people.

That much hasn't


3/ What also hasn't changed is its power for networking.

This is particularly useful if you break out of your echo chamber and talk, build relationships with people doing tangentially related things.

You're bricklaying and with patience it pays off.


4/ What has changed is a growing population of people being *intentional* about the use of Twitter for their professional lives.

Observations on what's working for them:

5/ They "Build in public" - sharing behind the scenes perspectives on whatever it is you're doing professionally.

What do people not know about what you do?

Stick within your expertise, with focus, where people see you are an authority - that’s where you grow a following.
TWITTER
Cosmic Penguin
Cosmic Penguin
@Cosmic_Penguin
So regarding to my "bombshell"...it's perhaps a bit less dramatic than many presumed, yet it still troubles me a lot, to the point that I wondered whether I should stop posting on certain things


You see, I realized in the last few months that, by translating information and news related to one of the fastest growing spaceflight powers of the world...I inadvertently became a spreader of PRC propaganda.

And with me exactly 180 degrees away from them, I feel scared.

It actually started a few years ago - it's not hard to meet Chinese Twitter users interested in spaceflight, either those living overseas or find a way to climb over the wall. Not surprisingly, many of these S/F enthusiasts are interested in their own military too.

This steadily grew with my followers' count until the flagship Chinese spaceflight missions of 2020 (Chang'e 5 especially but also many others) brought in dozens of them liking/re-tweeting my info tweets sometimes, and similar no. of such followers every month.

I do casually check these new followers/users sometimes. To my horror, far too many of them routinely insults, attacks, mocks others who they see as "anti-China" or spread potential mis-information, even blatant attacks, that started off w/ their state media/spokesperson.
TWITTER
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Alex Llull
Alex Llull
@AlexLlullTW
A big part of my tweets are inspired by other people's content.

I bookmark everything that looks interesting and go there when in need of inspiration.

This is a thread-recap of the best-saved tweets from 2020 (for me at least) and what you can steal from each one. 🧵👇


The year chart by @jakobgreenfeld

What to steal: the idea and the design

Create a chart with the key moments of your growth. It's a great reflective exercise for you and it can be a great learning experience for your


Let's collaborate by @aaraalto

What to steal: the idea.

Creating a blank piece of content (could be a sentence, a design, a video...) that your audience can later


Advice to first-time info product creators by @dvassallo

What to steal: the insight

This tweet was one of the sparks for me writing the Twitter Thief ($1,3k revenue says it's good


How to be a better writer by @JamesClear

What to steal: the insight

A world-class writer giving free writing lessons. The tweet is from 2019 but I discovered it this
TWITTER
Osmium Penguin, Certified Generalist
Osmium Penguin, Certif...
@osmie
Incoming rant.

I'm pressing the "tweet" button as I type, and I'm typing as I think, so there's every possibility that this will drift into tangents and/or nowhere. Of course, that's true pretty much every time I start threading.

I know diddly-squat about physiology.

Friends and family who *do* know anything about physiology regularly mock my (apparently bizarre) theories of how bodies work.

I am not a trustworthy narrator when it comes to things like How Vaccines Work.

I know diddly-squat about epidemiology.

Unlike physiology, where I am firmly in the domain of Messrs. Dunning and Kruger, I've read enough about the subject to understand how little I know.

This is a complicated subject, where obvious truths are seldom either obvious or true.

I also know diddly-squat about public health policy.

Public *transportation* policy is way more in my wheelhouse. But this at least lets me make some useful analogies.

…I mentioned digressions? Yeah, I just started to write a very long digression about public transportation paradoxes, and it was taking away from the point I wanted to make.
TWITTER
Cory Doctorow #BLM
Cory Doctorow #BLM
@doctorow
Today's Twitter threads (a Twitter thread).

Inside: Dependency Confusion; Adam Curtis on criti-hype; Catalytic converter theft; Apple puts North Dakota on blast; and more!

Archived at: https://t.co/Osts9lAjPo

#Pluralistic

1/


This weekend, I'll be participating in Boskone 58, Boston's annual sf convention, where I'm doing panels and a reading.

https://t.co/2LfFssVcZQ

2/


Dependency Confusion: A completely wild supply-chain hack.

https://t.co/TDRNHUX0Ug

3/


Adam Curtis on criti-hype: Big Tech as an epiphenomenon of sociopathic mediocrity, not supergenius.

https://t.co/MYmHOosTk3

4/


Catalytic converter theft: Rhodium at $21,900/oz.

https://t.co/SDMAXrQwdd

5/
TWITTER

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Patrick McKenzie
Patrick McKenzie
@patio11
Some people really benefit from hearing advice that everyone knows, for the same reason we keep schools open despite every subject in them having been taught before.

In that spirit, here's some quick Things Many People Find Too Obvious To Have Told You Already.

Your idea is not valuable, at all. All value is in the execution. You think you are an exception; you are not. You should not insist on an NDA to talk about it; nobody serious will engage in contract review over an idea, and this will mark you as clueless.

Technologists tend to severely underestimate the difficulty and expense of creating software, especially at companies which do not have fully staffed industry leading engineering teams ("because software is so easy there, amirite guys?")

Charge more. Charge more still. Go on.

The press is a lossy and biased compression of events in the actual world, and is singularly consumed with its own rituals, status games, and incentives. The news necessarily fails to capture almost everything which happened yesterday. What it says is important usually isn't.

Companies find it incredibly hard to reliably staff positions with hard-working generalists who operate autonomously and have high risk tolerances. This is not the modal employee, including at places which are justifiably proud of the skill/diligence/etc of their employees.
TECH
Andrew Chen
Andrew Chen
@andrewchen
👇Thread.

Published a new essay: The red flags and magic numbers that investors look for in your startup’s metrics – 80 slide deck included!


This was a deck that I created on my (longish) interview process with @a16z. It was a long path, starting with meeting folks at the firm 10 years ago. But the purpose of the deck was to explain how I would use my superpower in an investing context

Here's what I explain in the deck. As investors (whether angel or VC) we're often confronted with an up-and-to-the-right graph. Is it going to go up? Or down?


One solution to forecast these growth curves is the Growth Accounting Framework, where you add up New+Reactivated and subtract churned users. In each time period that gives you the difference in monthly actives.


The problem with this is that it's a lagging metric, not a leading one. We need to go one level deeper and look at the underlying loops that drive these numbers, to understand the quality.
STARTUPS
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Panic! in the Discord
Panic! in the Discord
@discord__panic
Neo-nazi group #PatriotFront held a photo op in #Chicago last weekend & is currently marching around #DC so it's as good time as any to compile a list of their identified members for folks to watch for

Who are these chuds?

Patriot Front broke away from white nationalist org Vanguard America following #unitetheright in #charlottesville after James Alex Fields was seen with a VA shield before driving his car into a crowd, murdering Heather Heyer & injuring dozens of others

Syed Robbie Javid a.k.a. Sayed Robbie Javid or Robbie Javid of Alexandria,


Antoine Bernard Renard (a.k.a. “Charlemagne MD” on Discord) from Rockville, MD.

https://t.co/ykEjdZFDi6


Brandon Troy Higgs, 25, from Reisterstown,
EXTREMISM
John Myles White
John Myles White
@johnmyleswhite
This post is pretty bizarre, but it manages to hit on so many false beliefs that I've seen hurt junior data scientists that it deserves some explicit

(1) The notion that R is well-suited to "building web applications" seems totally out of left field. I don't feel like most R loyalists think this is a good idea, but it's worth calling out that no normal company will be glad you wrote your entire web app in R.

(2) It is true that Python had some issues historically with the 2-to-3 transition, but it's not such a big deal these days. On the flip side, I have found interesting R code that doesn't run in modern R interpreters because of changes in core operations (e.g. assignment syntax).

(3) "Most of the time we only need a latest, working interpreter with the latest packages to run the code" -- this is where things get real and reveal some things that hurt data scientists. If this sentence is true, it's likely because you don't share code with coworkers.

(3) Really is a broader issue in data science: people only think of what they need to do their work if no one else existed and code was never maintained. Junior data scientists almost always operate on projects they start from scratch and don't have to maintain for long.
DATA SCIENCE
Brianne Kimmel \U0001f4ac
Brianne Kimmel 💬...
@briannekimmel
Shocking fact: Millennial men are less likely to work than any other age and gender demographic in America.

Today, there are 500,000 young men missing from the U.S. workforce.

Research suggests video games & improved leisure tech plays a role in the problem. 👇 Thread:

Following the 2007 to 2009 recession, 25 to 34 year old men exited high school with fewer middle-skill job opportunities than years prior.

During this time, we saw an increased number of men living with parents & choosing unemployment over lower paying jobs.

It's estimated that 24M millennials live w/ their parents.

1 in 4 living in their parents’ home neither go to school nor work.

What's more surprising? 9 in 10 who lived with their parents a year ago are still living there w/ no plans to leave.

Economists are calling millennial men a lost generation.

According to economist David Dorn:

“If you get to the point where you’re turning 30, you’ve never held a real job and you don’t have a college education, then it is very hard to recover at that point.”

Economists suggest this choosiness is a generational trait.

Forbes interview w/ a high school educated man:

"I’m very quick to get frustrated when people refuse to pay me what I’m worth."
“People feel that they have choice nowadays, and they
SOCIETY