Ep. 258: Megan McArdle Interview with Michael Covel on Trend Following Radio

Michael Covel's Trend Following

Michael Covel

Investing, Business

4.6 • 732 Ratings

🗓️ 20 July 2014

⏱️ 36 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

My guest today is Megan McArdle, a Bloomberg View columnist who writes on economics, business and public policy. She founded the blog "Asymmetrical Information".

The topic is her book The Up Side of Down: Why Failing Well Is the Key to Success.

In this episode of Trend Following Radio we discuss:

"Trophy kids" and taking the monkey bars away
The idea of a regulator out there trying to guarantee our safety
Why the companies that make it aren't the ones with the best strategic plan–it's the ones that execute (and fail well)
The power of experimentation
Nobel winner Vernon Smith and experimentation
The idea of learning in crisis
How sunk costs are difficult for a large part of the population to grasp
Van Halen, errors, and M&M's
Normative error
Small, manageable risks
Forager morality vs. farmer morality
A story about Kentucky Fried Chicken (KFC)

Jump in!

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I'm MICHAEL COVEL, the host of TREND FOLLOWING RADIO, and I'm proud to have delivered 10+ million podcast listens since 2012. Investments, economics, psychology, politics, decision-making, human behavior, entrepreneurship and trend following are all passionately explored and debated on my show.

To start? I'd like to give you a great piece of advice you can use in your life and trading journey… cut your losses! You will find much more about that philosophy here: https://www.trendfollowing.com/trend/

You can watch a free video here: https://www.trendfollowing.com/video/

Can't get enough of this episode? You can choose from my thousand plus episodes here: https://www.trendfollowing.com/podcast

My social media platforms:
Twitter: @covel
Facebook: @trendfollowing
LinkedIn: @covel
Instagram: @mikecovel

Hope you enjoy my never-ending podcast conversation!

Transcript

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0:00.0	This is Trend Following Radio, where great thinking comes alive.
0:10.9	Nobel Prize winners, legendary traders, bestselling authors, and the pros that know what drive us irrational human beings.
0:21.2	I am your host, Michael Covel.
0:24.0	Not filtered, raw, honest.
0:27.3	That's my passion.
0:33.3	Today in the show I have Megan McArdle,
0:35.9	her book, The Upside of Down,
0:37.8	Why Failing Well is the Key to Success.
0:41.0	We cover a lot of territory today.
0:43.5	From my two black eyes as a teenager, to the start of KFC, to Van Halen,
0:50.1	to why there's no more monkey bars.
0:53.0	Ah, a society of you know what.
0:57.0	But the key is to fail well.
1:01.2	Not just to fail well and stop there,
1:03.3	but to fail well and come back,
1:06.0	to take the iterative step to get back in the game.
1:10.0	But you're going to fail. If you don't think you're
1:12.3	going to fail, you're going to fail. Megan brings great wisdom. I hope you enjoy.
1:22.9	Thought a great place to start would be the idea of trophy kids.
1:30.4	And as you describe it, no winners, no losers, no scrubs, no MVPs, and no high monkey bars on any playgrounds at all anymore.
1:39.6	Yes, exactly.
1:40.5	I mean, there's actually evidence from research that taking down the high monkey bars can help confront kids development.
	...

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