Sunday Reads And Listens - A Personal Best, Saudi Arabia Owns Everything, The State of Golf and Some Evergreen Podcasts

Good morning.

I hope everyone is having a great weekend.

On Friday I took another ride up Palomar. This time with my pal Mike Dean who helped me focus and make it to the top in a personal best under 2 hours to the peak. Great for me, but for context, the best pros are well under an hour for this brutal 12 mile climb.

I have a lot of links to share so will get right to it.

First…$UBER. I own some shares again. I enjoyed reading this Wired story on Dara and the company.

This Wisconsin Town got Trumped. I imagine this goes on way too often and may get worse this election.

Next up…odds are you will be doxxed. If not doxxed, hacked. How? Why?

The Secret Weapon Hackers Can Use To Dox Nearky Anyone in America For $15.

How Saudi Arabia Is Buying The world.

While I have not gone to a mall or retail store in years, my wife and friends are telling me about the theft they are seeing at stores they shop at. We are starting to hear more about it in quarterly earnings reports as well. Pro Publica takes the story much further further blaming Dollar Stores as magnets from crime and killing. Yeesh.

Speaking of ‘retail’…the most obvious (famous last words) secular trend continues to be e-commerce:

At Social Leverage we are following the golf industry with our investment in Grass Clippings which is all about incredible par 3 ‘lit’ golf for the public and amateurs.

I really like this golf blog ‘Perfect Putt’. Two recent pieces were relevant to how we have been thinking about the industry and growth include:

A 6 Month Check In On the State Of The Golf Industry.

Amateur Golfers Have Left Millions On The Table.

The Grass Clippings Team has a fun twitter account that shares great links on the progress of the company and the industry. I do not think people understand the massive opportunity that lights for night golf will have on the game, specifically par 3 golf.

For podcasts this week I turn to Trung Phan who recommends 5 great evergreen podcasts.

Also from Trung…I liked this piece he did titled ‘Nike’s Marketing Blindspot’. I do not own the stock which has struggled the last few years. I had not thought about it being a possible marketing problem.

Enough for today…have a great Sunday.