Essential Listening: A Force of Nature

Slate was an early player in the podcast game. As a result, many of its offerings rank very highly on iTunes. Slate recently expanded its foray into the medium with the launch of the Panoply network. In this episode of The Digiday Podcast, Slate president Keith Hernandez talks about the advertising challenges of the form and what Slate is doing to remain the “most interesting person in the room.”

Speaking of Slate, its Whistlestop series landed on this Business Insider list of “20 Podcasts That Will Make You Smarter.”

Among the challenges of listening to podcasts is managing all of them. Previously, I recommended the Overcast app. Version 2.5 of Overcast is now available and helps maximize battery life and data usage and creates a better listening experience all around. Best of all: It’s free!

If you’re interested in additional podcasts, previous installments of Essential Listening offer a broad selection of choices.

• According to Barry Ritholtz, Vanguard Group founder Jack Bogle is a “force of nature.” During this discussion, the two touch on the origins of the Vanguard, the long road to index fund domination, and what Bogle thinks of topics like “smart beta.” (The Big Picture)
• It’s funny to mention Ben Graham and “growth investing” in the same sentence, but there is something to it. In this video, Hewitt Heiserman reviews a checklist for growth investors and looks at how it applies to Alphabet. (Talks at Google)
• Not many investors look forward to a bear market, but bear markets can offer opportunities for value investors. Sean McLaughlin of StockTwits talks with Todd Sullivan about how he looks for value stocks and where he sees potential this year. (The Must Follow Podcast)
• When a sovereign nation is unable to pay its debts, it usually makes some accommodation with its creditors and life goes on as before. In Argentina, however, some recalcitrant lenders decided to hold out and took the country to court. David Kestenbaum and Robert Smith tell the (long) story of how these creditors eventually received 100 cents on the dollar. (Planet Money)
• The Amazon Echo has been earning a lot of praise as perhaps the most effective implementation of voice command technology. Ben Thompson and James Allworth discuss the prospects this opens up for Amazon and why the Echo is a great example of how Jeff Bezos‘s strategy for the company continues to create great growth opportunities. (Exponent)
• Unlike Amazon, Viacom has seen better days. Eric Jackson interviews Jason Hirschhorn of ReDEF about his experience during the company’s heyday and what Viacom needs to do to become relevant in the cable-cutting digital age. (The Eric Jackson Podcast)
• In the minds of the experts, artificial intelligence  (AI) has been on the cusp of mass adoption for quite some time. Now, however, advances in hardware and software may have made real and widespread application of AI possible. AI veterans Frank Chen and Steven Sinofsky of Andreessen Horowitz explain why this time is different. (a16z)
• Most investment management firms operate in some form of a team environment. Optimizing the performance of those teams is critical. Jeffrey Klein talks with Mario Moussa, co-author of Committed Teams: Three Steps to Inspiring Passion and Performance, about how teams can organize to maximize their performance. (Knowledge@Wharton)
• To many, tipping seems like an anachronism, and for those in the fine dining industry, it can be a real headache — creating strife between staff in the front and back of the room. Restaurateur Danny Meyer explains to Stephen J. Dubner why he eliminated tipping at one his restaurants, how the policy has performed, and why he plans on continuing it. (Freakonomics Radio)
• These days, it seems like there is a market for just about everything. But breast milk? Not so much. PJ Vogt and Alex Goldman explore the great lengths to which one mother had to go to find some for her child. While there are some indications of change on the horizon, purchasing breast milk is still an inefficient (and expensive) process. (Reply All)

Feel free to leave a comment or recommend other podcasts that Enterprising Investor readers and listeners might enjoy. I may highlight them in the next edition.

You can read more from Tadas Viskanta on his blog Abnormal Returns or follow him on Twitter @abnormalreturns.

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All posts are the opinion of the author. As such, they should not be construed as investment advice, nor do the opinions expressed necessarily reflect the views of CFA Institute or the author’s employer.

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