Herman Ye

A best practice in portfolio management is to own many companies across many sectors, countries and sizes. Reducing the risk of one bad apple spoiling it all. Diversification, the only free lunch in investing, produces better returns with lower risks.  Diversification is helpful beyond investing.  Retirement is a trying time. This is most clear with pro athletes. Countless examples of downward spirals and overnight bankruptcies. We're just as susceptible. Many retirees report depression and anxiety due to loss of identity and structure. So much of us is tied to our careers, when it ends, it's devastating.  This is why we diversify. We're more than our jobs. We are sons, daughters, parents, athletes, book nerds, investors, gamers, and so much more. Work is a single slice of a much bigger pie. It's foolish to save our best self for one and neglect the rest.  When we feed other areas, we become more resilient. A bad meeting doesn't destroy us because we were still...

In high school I wanted to be fit so I could be better at basketball. Really I just wanted to dunk.  Never happened but it sparked something that would serve me long after my hoop dreams faded.  Wanting to be fit led me to learning how, which led me to training well, which made me feel good, which made me keep at it. I learned more, trained more, felt better and on and on. Wrapped up in this positive feedback loop, decades later I continue to reap the benefits. A lifelong passion for fitness, where making healthy choices has never been a chore.  Feedback loops are powerful and are all around us.  Costco provides quality goods at low prices, this leads to more memberships, which leads to more sales, which gives them more leverage over suppliers, which enables lower prices...  Feedback loops can also go astray.  Drinking soda feels good, so you drink more. You gain weight, feeling bad you drink more to feel good again, which leads to more weight.... Cycles ar...

Focusing too much on how much . Many companies measure success based on how many things they can build. For tech companies, it's features, for factories, it's widgets.

Hey, it's been a while!  You may have noticed that the blog has been a tad quiet lately. Our first break in the action since roughly 2 years of weekly posting. There's a good reason.  I covered a lot of what I wanted to in investing & finance. While there's always more, the core was covered and I felt I was getting repetitive.  TLDR: think long term, be rational, and compound that interest.   During my break, I explored other interests. Business, health, technology, and more. There's a lot to learn, and writing is a great teacher.  Going forward, I'll be covering a wider range of topics. No set theme, just whatever I'm interested in the moment.  Given the broaden scope, we've outgrown our beginning banking roots. I'm going to rebrand to simply hermanye.com.  I'm excited to write again and welcome you all to the ride.