Thoughts on Things

Why should you not treat the final round of an interview as a binary outcome? Because your ability to negotiate the offer is predicated on your performance relative to the company’s true maximum budget. When an offer is extended to you via phone call, it is usually an HR employee or hiring manager who is calling you to congratulate you and provide the high-level offer details (salary, benefits, potential start date, etc). And of course with any offer you receive, you should negotiate it. Say for example, you are calling back the hiring manager, she will have to contact someone in HR to see if the max budget can be pushed, assuming your ask is above that number. The amount of effort she puts into fighting for you is directly proportionate to how much you impressed her and the team in the final round (and whatever else you told her in your negotiation follow up call). She will write up a case to senior HR or whatever budgeting team she has to work with and highlight your x y z skills,...

While I believe that picking individual stocks can be perceived as gambling, I still do it, because it’s a game where with some proper research and luck, you can beat out the consensus estimate for particular companies. I am still completely of the belief that for most investors looking to dabble in stocks, the best way is still to buy an index of the broader market (ex. SPY). Here, I wish to expand on the sentiment that you should “Never invest in a business you cannot understand” – Warren Buffett. The corollary of this is “Buy what you understand”, which includes such tactics as investing in products or services that you use the most (eg. Apple, Microsoft, etc.). Buffett’s rule seems very simple and unimaginative at first, but I believe that there is more to it than meets the eye and I will show you one way I turn this motto into an investing strategy.   The Case of Apple   When we begin to think about the companies we know, Apple quickly comes to mind. It’s a ...