Getting it wrong over coffee
brontecapital.blogspot.com
brontecapital.blogspot.com
Could a simpler reason be that these chains make crap coffee
Failure has less to do with cost than understanding what the customer wants. Importing a supermarket/chain concept and then expecting the locals - I'm from Melbourne ~ http://www.flickr.com/photos/bootload/sets/72157600195992630... - exposed to multitudes of small well run cafe's with a heritage of coffee since the 1950's means the local population are quite sophisticated in their understanding and taste. Generic coffee chains with their cookie cutter approach can't easily match this. Not even by price.
My current theory about this has to do with the relative mobility of the populations. Speaking personally, when I'm at home I never go to Starbucks. There's a dozen other coffeeshops within walking distance and most make better coffee, and I know which are which. When I'm traveling to another city, though, I'm fairly likely to go to Starbucks simply because I know what I'll get there (a slightly overpriced, slightly over-bitter, but adequate, latte), while experience has shown that picking an unknown local coffeeshop leads to, on average, a worse cup of coffee, with high variation.
From a recent review of an independent that is next to a Starbucks:
"Best to throw the coffee in the Thames, and remember to offer a brief prayer for the fish."
How about "acceptance of a lower standard of coffee?", different culture (Melbourne historically more influenced by Europe than America) and the relative youth of "business franchises" in Australia?
"... I'm fairly likely to go to Starbucks simply because I know what I'll get there (a slightly overpriced, slightly over-bitter, but adequate, latte), while experience has shown that picking an unknown local coffeeshop leads to, on average, a worse cup of coffee, with high variation. ..."
That's a good explanation - take the safe, reliable option even if it's not quite the real thing.
I'd offer another, theory. Starbucks also happens to choose their locations near known coffee locations to offer customers an alternative customers with the hope of putting them out of business. This is what happened in Melbourne and it backfired. The competition was too great ~ http://www.melbournecoffeereview.com/2008/07/celebrate-good-...
The problem of "finding a good coffee" might be solvable in the US by Starbucks. But in a city where Italian migrants created the "Cafe` lifestyle" through respect of produce, technology and setting, Starbucks efforts are a poor imitation.
Edit: Sorry-- I forgot to say this is a book! It's by Burton Malkiel. (It's not particularly US-centric.)
http://www.classiccmp.org/transputer/finengineer/
But there's probably also lots of information available on your intranet - there's bound to be a wiki with some good information. And if your company subscribes to the ISDA library (about £11k pa) you can get a userid & dig out stuff there. What I found most useful was to get a copy of trade confirms & read them until I understood - plus copy some modelling spreadsheets & tinker with the inputs to see what effect they have on the outputs. For really heavy financial maths subscribe (for free) to Willmott & search around there. Good luck.
The thing is - Charlie Munger, Warren Buffett, Philip Carret, and a few others DON'T operate like normal financial firms and have done spectacularly better. To understand financial firms you need to know what works better - and Berkshire Hathaway works a whole lot better. And Charlie Munger is Warren Buffett's sounding board.
Read Charlie Munger's advice and compare it to what you read elsewhere about financial firms knowing that Charlie is right.
In fact, the OP reasons in much the way of Buffett (I read several of his eariler articles), except that his noodling around with shorts is a departure from what I take to be Buffett's strategy of buying good management and good companies at good prices, and waiting as long as it takes to get good prices.
The problem with things like _A Random Walk..._ is that they're geared towards helping independent investors; that's great, but it's not super relevant to a tech career in finance. On the other hand, knowing how shopping a block works: pretty handy.