Do you know how many Chinese university students will graduate this month (Jun'24)?

Did you know that this month 12m (million) students in China will graduate from College 🤯🤯🤯…. Let that number sink in !

- Pedro

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New certification: Stats and Math for Data Science from O'Reilly

I’m happy to share that I’ve obtained a new certification: Stats and Math for Data Science from O'Reilly! Great recap of several key concepts mainly on descriptive statistics, distributions, probability theory, central limit theorem, hypothesis testing, regressions - linear, polynomial, logistic-& Anova, and couple of new insights on decision trees and random forests. https://www.credly.com/badges/368bb43f-8214-4afe-9098-dee9f07a0567/public_url

- Pedro

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How to write a good CV - 8 key insights

The second post I make in the last 15 days, now in English the former was based on an “El Pais” article -https://substack.com/@pedrosantospinto/note/c-56708941-, thus in Spanish, related on how to write a good CV, based on an Economist’s article that I found very interesting and useful for all the ones pursuing a new job. Key insights: Your resumé is not extended list of everything you have done in the past; it is rather a marketing tool. On average a recruitment professional takes 7 seconds making an initial assessment and selection of the received CV, thus every relevant word per second counts, Make it user friendly and nice to read→ use a clean, simple format. Less is more! Eliminate typos, avoid clichés… Don’t forget to include your contacts :-) (strangely enough sometimes it happens) Take time to develop it, condense and filter it as much as you can. Using Saint-Exupery quote (by memory) “It will be perfect not when you cannot add anything else, but when you cannot remove anything from the document”. Adapt your CV to the company you are applying, tweaking it to the industry, company or job you are applying, Quantify, if possible, your accomplishments. Hope it can be useful and happy readings! How to write the perfect CV https://www.economist.com/business/2024/05/30/how-to-write-the-perfect-cv from The Economist

- Pedro

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When to "Kill" your investment

A great article from the Economist on the when to divest importance from an investment and how and when to make that decision. This would be equally applicable to your stock portfolio, but also at corporate level from business units. It is true that 90% of the literature is about on how and when to buy, but equally important and value generating, but oftenly forgotten, is when to sell. I have a simple rule when buying or selling, if the value is under the low range of my valuation by more than 20% i should buy and when it is higher that 20% of range of my valuation, I should sell :-). The range is the interquartile of my valuation (usually done via a Monte Carlo simulation of 6 to max 10 key business variables). Key takeaways from the article: 1- Buying and selling 2 side of the same coin, 2- Should track also the ones you have sold to check if it was appropriate and learn, 3- Define a “Kill- Criteria” for every investment and stick to it. Happy readings! When to sell your stocks https://www.economist.com/finance-and-economics/2024/05/30/when-to-sell-your-stocks from The Economist

- Pedro

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(re)Starting a new book: The Pyramid Principle: Logic in Writing and Thinking by Barbara Minto

(re)Starting a new book! The Pyramid Principle: Logic in Writing and Thinking by Barbara Minto “…The Pyramid Principle is the international best-seller on how to think creatively, reason lucidly and produce crisp, clear, compelling business writing. Join the tens of thousands of people worldwide who have benefited from Barbara Minto's technique, to present your thinking so clearly that the ideas jump off the page and into the mind of the reader. Can your writing do without it?…” https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/124582544-the-pyramid-principle?ac=1&from_search=true&qid=UUwCE5yDqk&rank=5

- Pedro

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Finalized: Strategy Beyond the Hockey Stick: People, Probabilities, and Big Moves to Beat the Odds → by Chris Bradley, Martin Hirt, Sven Smit

Finalized Strategy Beyond the Hockey Stick: People, Probabilities, and Big Moves to Beat the Odds → by Chris Bradley, Martin Hirt, Sven Smit Book Rating - 5 / 5 It was a pleasant surprise to read this book on strategy. Really enjoyed it and it is great food for thoughts on the way I would define and deploy Strategy from now onwards (it will improve my current framework in several ways). A must read for all the ones interested in the subject. Review to come shortly. https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/37916972

- Pedro

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Probabilistic forecast and sequential decision making - Joannes Vermorel (Lokad CEO) and Warren Powell (retired Princeton professor and Chief Innovation Officer at Optimal Dynamics)

A great discussion between Joannes Vermorel (Lokad CEO) and Warren Powell on probabilistic forecast and sequential decision making overall (and also on supply chain). An investment of 1h40m (normal speed) that is worth every minute. Really liked the business/hands-on approach from both on how to address these topics on the day-2-day corporate life and teh several great insights on how to approach and implement them from Academia to business. A couple of additional takeaways from my side: Will have a close look at the resources made available om Lokad (as it seems a great source of information and knowledge about this subject) Have bookmarked the course by Warren Powell on Sequential Decision Analytics and Modeling (Priceton) for future reference Downloaded Powell’s textbook on the subject “Modeling sequential decision problems” for future reading (available on the course site). Extended Summary “… In a recent interview hosted by Conor Doherty, Head of Communication at Lokad, Warren Powell, a retired professor from Princeton University and Chief Innovation Officer at Optimal Dynamics, and Joannes Vermorel, CEO and founder of Lokad, engaged in a thought-provoking discussion on probabilistic forecasts and sequential decision making in supply chain under the presence of uncertainty. Warren Powell, a seasoned veteran in the field of decision making across complex fields, began by sharing his career journey. His work started with the deregulation of freight transportation in the United States, which led him to focus on planning under uncertainty. He also discussed his role at Optimal Dynamics, a startup he works with, where he guides his former PhD students and contemplates new directions for the company. The conversation then shifted to Powell’s book, “Reinforcement Learning and Stochastic Optimization,” which delves into the realm of distributional or probabilistic forecasting. Powell shared an anecdote about a company that wanted to understand the value of offering a shipper a discount if they could predict future loads. This sparked his interest in the topic and led him to explore the challenges of forecasting in truckload https://www.lokad.com/third-party-logistics/ due to its stochastic nature. Joannes Vermorel, on the other hand, shared his journey from deterministic methods to probabilistic forecasting. He discussed his realization that deterministic methods were not working and the need to embrace uncertainty in https://www.lokad.com/supply-chain-management-definition/. He also criticized the academic community for its lack of real-world application and its focus on proving theorems and running numerical work. The discussion then turned to the difference between deterministic and probabilistic forecasting. Powell explained that while deterministic forecasting provides a single, actionable number, it fails to account for real-world variability. He argued that distributional forecasting, which provides a range of possible outcomes, is superior, although businesses often struggle to understand and apply this concept. Vermorel agreed with Powell, adding that probabilistic forecasting requires more complex metrics and a deeper understanding of probability distributions. He likened deterministic forecasting to looking at a tiny, detailed section of a desk through a microscope, while probabilistic forecasting provides a broader, more complete view. The conversation concluded with Vermorel sharing his experience implementing probabilistic forecasting at Lokad. He noted that it took several years to figure out how to optimize decisions based on these forecasts. He also discussed the lack of a unified community or paradigm for dealing with uncertainty in decision-making. Powell agreed, describing the field of decisions and uncertainty as a “jungle” due to the variety of different communities, languages, and notational systems. He shared his diverse experiences in various fields, from freight transportation to energy systems, and how these experiences led him to realize the limitations of certain approaches and the need for a broader perspective….” https://castle.princeton.edu/orf-411/ https://www.lokad.com/tv/2024/5/29/probabilistic-forecasts-sequential-decision-making/ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qxEI3g7q8S4

- Pedro

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