Hello, I'm Jian Yang.
I write about investing, software, books, cooking, and other things that interest me.
This site serves as a public journal to document ideas and capture insights. By putting them into writing, I hope to further develop these concepts and look back to see how my understanding changes over time.
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I missed you today, but no one knew.
I didn’t cry tears and I didn’t look blue.
Nobody thought I seemed slightly askew.
I walked all through the day thinking all about you.
I missed you today and nobody could tell.
I felt heavy and sad, but I covered it well.
I laughed out loud at jokes, didn’t once undersell.
Barely got through the day and I hurt like hell.
I missed you today, but I did it so quiet.
No one knew I was selling, but made everyone buy it.
Thought of you every second, didn’t try to deny it.
It might have seemed small, but to me it felt giant.
I missed you today from the morning to night.
From my dawn alarm clock till I closed both my eyes.
You drove with me to work, helped me turn out my lights.
It looked like a breeze, but it felt like a fight.
I missed you today and it made me wonder.
If I feel like this, then there must be others.
Making grief look like sunshine when it feels like thunder.
How many I spoke to also gained full thunder.
I missed you today and will every day too.
Still discreetly miss theirs and I’ll softly miss you.
We’ll see all the colours of the black and white hue.
And that is just something that grief will do.
This poem is from an Instagram reel, and it resonated deeply with me.
Wouldn’t it be great if AI could generate videos using other videos as references? That way, the movement in generated videos could resemble real life more closely. For example, imagine a generated video of your dog moving just as she does in real life.
Such a joy to watch videos like this. Ikea’s philosophy reminds me of Costco.
Terravest just bought back 1% of outstanding shares after the fiasco with Charles Pellerin caused a sharp contraction in share prices.
Recall this snippet from Chris Waller’s writeup on TerraVest:
Terravest also buys back stock from time to time, viewing the attractiveness of a buyback as about judging the return from its stock rising to intrinsic value vs the more certain return from making an internal investment. The company has not been afraid to aggressively buy back stock when it is trading well below intrinsic value, buying back 36% of shares outstanding in 2012.
Management has better insight into returns than outside shareholders, and this management will do what it takes to get the highest returns.
DCF valuation with wishful inputs is as good as saying “if I’m able to make a million dollars by year 5, I will be a millionaire.”