Joshua Kennon

joshuakennon.com · Personal blog · on HN since 2011

Joshua Kennon, an investor and entrepreneur, writes about wealth, stock investing, business lessons, and raising children.

What HN saysHN links it for stories like Charlie Munger's perseverance, and one commenter notes its post on biological sexes ranks first for a Google query.
33HN people shared it
15linked it in comments
21stories submitted
328story points
7 months agolast shared
2011people per year2026

Most-shared posts

  1. 1
    The S&P 500’s Dirty Little Secret
    3 people · 5 points · first shared 2016 · discussion on HN
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    Janitor Ronald Read Leaves Behind $8M Secret Fortune
    1 people · 12 points · first shared 2015 · 3 comments on HN
  8. 8
    The struggle of Knowledge Workers vs. Manual Workers
    1 people · 10 points · first shared 2011 · 2 comments on HN
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  10. 10
    The “Rules” of Social Class
    1 people · 4 points · first shared 2018 · discussion on HN
  11. 11
    An Investment Case Study of Eastman Kodak (2013)
    1 people · 3 points · first shared 2016 · discussion on HN
  12. 12
    The Psychology of Human Misjudgment by Charlie Munger
    1 people · 3 points · first shared 2015 · discussion on HN
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What HN people wrote when they linked it

mrep · 2018-01-17
>Do you believe that at any point in future, we will have a reliable store of value in form of digital information? Banks don't provide that, it's somebody else saying that he will take care of your money an give you when you need it. 1. Banks don't provide that? Care to provide a source for banks taking or losing your money after the great depression? 2. The money in my checking account is in USD which is accepted everywhere I go and the price for things hardly ever changes. The bitcoin to USD price can fluctuate by up to 50% a day. How is that a "reliable store of value". 3. You don't want to sit on money but instead use it to make more money. Assets like gold are the worst way to do that: https://www.joshuakennon.com/stocks-vs-bonds-vs-gold-returns-for-the-p…
j_lev · 2015-01-30
One of the benefits of growing up Jewish is that business talk at the dinner table each evening drowns out even the TV. Of course, you learn pretty quick that not all families are like this. I'm happy to give lessons but I'll never give an exact net worth. Stealth wealth FTW http://www.joshuakennon.com/stealth-wealth-why-americas-rich-hide-thei…
polygamous_bat · 2023-12-20
When I google this query, this is the first result that comes up: https://www.joshuakennon.com/the-six-common-biological-sexes-in-humans… “The Six Most Common Karyotypes The six biological karyotype sexes that do not result in death to the fetus are: X – Roughly 1 in 2,000 to 1 in 5,000 people (Turner’s ) XX – Most common form of female XXY – Roughly 1 in 500 to 1 in 1,000 people (Klinefelter) XY – Most common form of male XYY – Roughly 1 out of 1,000 people XXXY – Roughly 1 in 18,000 to 1 in 50,000 births When you consider that there are 7,000,000,000 alive on the planet, there are almost assuredly tens of millions of people who are not male or female. Many times, these people are unaware of their true sex. It’s interesting to note that everyone assumes that they, personally, are XY or XX. One study in Great Britain showed that 97 out of 100 people who were XYY had no idea. They thought they were a traditional male and had few signs otherwise.” Given this, Perplexity seems fine?
Empact · 2021-04-13
Why the bitterness? You could blame the politicians just as well for the climate disaster, or the corporations, why the wealthy?[1] What do you know of their family life or love of dogs? I think the rich are not who you think - if you put less energy into hating them you may have more time to improve your own life, e.g. by studying personal finance or investing: https://www.reddit.com/r/personalfinance/wiki/commontopics https://www.joshuakennon.com/add-jack-macdonald-list-secret-millionair… [1] Incidentally, one of the best climate mitigations, a source fuels carbon tax, has been blocked not because the wealthy but because its supposed impact on the poor (limiting travel & commuting). One hopes the Carbon Tax & Dividend proposals will gain traction, but how can they, when they pay out to the people, instead of the special interests? https://citizensclimatelobby.org
bluker · 2017-09-03
I love this story about Charlie Munger which can be found here: https://www.joshuakennon.com/if-charlie-munger-didnt-quit-when-he-was-… In the past five years, I've started and sold a company. Bought a house on a golf course, purchased expensive foreign cars and went on insane trips all over the world. Last year, my wife woke up one morning and told me that she no longer wanted to be married (that's a story for another time). Got divorced and lost almost everything except the stock that I still own in the acquiring company that may never have an exit. The house, the cars and the trips vanished. I guess my take away from this is that life is a series of ebbs and flows and it's our responsibility to gain greater self-awareness each day that we wake up. If you feel like you're behind then that is actually an amazing step in the right direction. Ask yourself why you're you're feeling behind and work through those emotions with yourself.(Literally talk out loud to yourself. It's weird but it works) Are you biased because your former co-founder still has his house and a new baby? Are you biased because your closest friend just took his company public? What I noticed about myself is that envy tends to create the anxiety that leads to feeling behind and the inadequacies associated with that emotion. If you understand and even accept those emotions then you can reverse it by playing devils advocate to your feeling…
talldatethrow · 2023-11-29
Is this a copy paste of a blogger that wrote an article about why you shouldnt give up, because charlie didn't either. Are you the author? It feels weird to take 95% of someones article and just post it. https://www.joshuakennon.com/if-charlie-munger-didnt-quit-when-he-was-…
hylaride · 2023-05-28
I hate, hate, hate country music, but I have an enormous amount of respect for Dolly Parton. She's just a plain old good person, and also extremely savvy from a business and money point of view (while having to plough through patriarchal barriers both emotionally and financially): https://www.joshuakennon.com/dolly-parton/
toephu2 · 2016-10-22
None, just put your money in an S&P 500 fund. I doubt you will be able to beat that in the long run anywhere else (Even though there are flaws w/ how the S&P 500 is run now [1]). [1] http://www.joshuakennon.com/sp-500s-dirty-little-secret/
chollida1 · 2016-06-29
This is a good question. The S&P 500 kind of dodges this question by its very nature. The S&P 500 constantly changes the stocks it holds. So if a stock falls out of favor, say Sears, its dropped from the index. It's also important to Note that comparing the S&P 500 from 100 years ago to today is very naive as the methodology for what it holds has changed significantly over the years. Comparing the returns of the S&P 500 from 1900 to now is kind of like comparing the statistics of a baseball player from 1900 and now in isolation and using that as the sole determination of which player was better. http://www.joshuakennon.com/sp-500s-dirty-little-secret/
pilom · 2016-02-12
For a less biased view about why Vanguard really does do things wrong in the eye of the law even if it sounds perfectly reasonable to you and me, try this: http://www.joshuakennon.com/vanguard-accused-of-nearly-35-billion-tax-…
brobinson · 2015-07-10
In Norway, you can find out how much anyone makes by looking up their public tax returns! http://www.joshuakennon.com/tax-returns-in-norway-are-public/
gruntled · 2015-02-08
Luxury isn't necessarily crazy, it can be rational economic signaling: http://www.joshuakennon.com/mental-model-veblen-goods/
danielweber · 2014-05-13
The master's requirement is nonsense. It was put in place as a credential roadblock to make entering the teaching profession more difficult, but it has zero effect on student results. If we are going to compare inputs in that way, we can look at the test scores of college students going for education degrees, and see that they have worse English scores than the math majors and also have worse math scores than the English majors.[1] For most education majors, their alternative isn't to become a lawyer or scientist or Python developer. The education degree is useful for people who are doing research into education, not actually teaching themselves. [1] First google hit among many for SAT scores of education majors: http://www.joshuakennon.com/sat-scores-ranked-by-intended-college-majo…
SnakePlissken · 2015-03-27
Not to defend stockbrokers, but part of what made the tech bubble so uniquely frothy was that it was the first time retail investors could easily circumvent the Wall Street gatekeepers via online, discount brokerages. No doubt many mom and pop investors were led into the bubble by advisors, but a sizable portion entered the fray on their own. For a brief time, many malls had trading boutiques, Internet cafés that catered to aspiring traders. Police officers and schoolteachers were quitting in droves to daytrade. CNBC was on in every coffee shop across the country. It's common to hear financial pundits comparing it to the mania of the 20s, when shoeshine boys were offering hot stock tips. I'm not sure we could ever see that level of participation from crowdfunding, but I think you're correct to worry that retail investors will continue to behave irrationally, with or without predatory advisors [0]. [0] http://www.joshuakennon.com/gt-advanced-technologies-bankruptcy/

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