The freakishly strong base
This article isn't what I was expecting, but to satisfy my curiosity, the strongest known base is (according to Wikipedia) Ortho-diethynylbenzene dianion.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ortho-diethynylbenzene_dianion
https://www.chemistryworld.com/news/basically-record-breakin...
The $1.9B number is terribly ungrounded in reality. Buffet's is a success story not of compounding but of leverage. He bought an insurance company so he could play with as much money as he needed, and that is considered one of his great secrets.
Basically everyone in the world is dying to give Warren Buffet their money so he'd invest it for a fee. The reason he is now worth $81B and not $162B is that every investment strategy has a maximum AUM it can support, and trying to use more money than that will just lower your returns. Buffet is so amazing because he can reach consistent good results with such a huge AUM, by employing a strategy that acquires entire large-cap companies and grows them.
> Apple has a strong brand… because it’s consistently been building good products since the 1980s
This writer wasn't using Macs in the '90s.
Not crucial to the argument, I know, but seriously, Apple was famously inconsistent.
> If I ask you to calculate 8x8x8x8x8x8x8x8x8, your head will explode (it’s 134,217,728).
If only this question had asked for 8x8x8x8x8x8x8x8 instead... that's (2⁸)³=2²⁴=16777216, which many programmers would know. :-) (for example because it's the number of IP address in a /8 network, or the number of colors in a 24-bit color space, or the number of bytes addressable on by the Intel 286)
Edited with typographical correction pointed out a by commenter below (thanks!).
My favorite story about Buffett: I used to think Berkshire Hathaway was just a douchey name he chose to sound posh, like Stratton Oakmont -- but that's not the case. Before Buffett bought it, Berkshire Hathaway was a textile company he'd invested in. He wasn't fond of their CEO, so he bought the whole company just to fire him.
To this day, Buffett regrets his display of petty rage and wishes he'd taken the money he used to spite Berkshire Hathaway's CEO and invested in insurance companies instead. As filthy rich as he is, he could have been even richer (about $200 billion richer), and that bothers him.
The article mentions: Physicist Albert Bartlett put it: “The greatest shortcoming of the human race is our inability to understand the exponential function.”
Link to one of his video lectures : Arithmetic, Population, and Energy:
"wreak havoc", not "wreck havoc"...
TL:DR get on processes that grow exponentially early if benevolent or kill them in infancy if harmful.
Hardly earthshaterring epiphany for anybody that has played turn based rts in the last 30 years
Working on pretty much anything (besides the work required for basic sustenance or work under threat).....is something that defines WHO WE ARE; to a certain degree.So a person with highly creative tendencies, may be attracted towards sculpture art or sand art, depending on the ease of availability of tools for that activity in his immediate environment.
So to say that one should start early, is a bit difficult to follow through..I think one can only engage with activities which gives him/her great pleasure and try to repeat some of those activities from time to time.Some activities won't stick around and some will. And the activities that stick around will create a trajectory for you over a period of time(10-20 years).