Fortune’s Formula

I just read an amazing William Poundstone book called Fortune’s Formula. This book reads so well. Read it in two days, couldn’t put it down. I find that reading multiple books with overlapping information really helps me retain the info. Another book that compliments this one nicely is called Distant Force by George Roberts, it’s about a conglomerate called Teledyne and the CEO who ran it, Henry Singleton.

Claude Shannon, whose featured prominently in Fortune’s Formula, was a board member of Teledyne. A lot of smart gentleman at the head of that company. Another guy that’s mentioned, George Kozmetsky. Haven’t brought myself to buy any of his books. They look a little too dense for me.

From Amazon:

In 1956 two Bell Labs scientists discovered the scientific formula for getting rich. One was mathematician Claude Shannon, neurotic father of our digital age, whose genius is ranked with Einstein’s. The other was John L. Kelly Jr., a Texas-born, gun-toting physicist. Together they applied the science of information theory–the basis of computers and the Internet–to the problem of making as much money as possible, as fast as possible.

Shannon and MIT mathematician Edward O. Thorp took the “Kelly formula” to Las Vegas. It worked. They realized that there was even more money to be made in the stock market. Thorp used the Kelly system with his phenomenonally successful hedge fund, Princeton-Newport Partners. Shannon became a successful investor, too, topping even Warren Buffett’s rate of return. Fortune’s Formula traces how the Kelly formula sparked controversy even as it made fortunes at racetracks, casinos, and trading desks. It reveals the dark side of this alluring scheme, which is founded on exploiting an insider’s edge.