BlogSat

If you're in the Internet space, or care about it, you've likely heard about Digital Sky Technologies , and almost certainly know about Tencent . If you're based in the USA, my guess is its less likely that you've heard of Naspers . That's why this great article in the Economist was an eye-opener. These companies aren't just growing and building an incredible investment portfolio, but are very closely aligned. Here's the article's summary on these firms: "The websites of Digital Sky Technologies (DST) account for more than 70% of page-views on the Russian-language internet. Naspers is Africa’s biggest media group, both offline and online. And Tencent is China’s largest internet company by market capitalisation—and the third-largest in the world." This is great, but here's where things get interesting: "...they are financially intertwined. Naspers owns part of mail.ru and was an early investor in Tencent, of which it now holds 35%. I...

About five years ago in my first quarter of business school, as professor gave me a piece of advice during his office hours that affected me far more than I could have anticipated. He said, "I really need to hear more from you in class. In the last 2 months, you've spoken exactly twice. I remembered you because you said something smart, but you seem to enjoy listening and thinking a little too much. That's ok, but that's not the way to excel either in this class or whatever it is that you will do after you leave here." My hand went up in all my classes (except Accounting!) a lot more often after that and by the end of my first year I'd become one of those people that still kinda annoy me. The high point was when a friend came up to me after one particularly loquacious performance when I really felt strong and remarked "I think I just parted with good money to listen to you have an hour-long conversation with the prof." I've dialed it back, bu...