The TED Conference (Technology, Entertainment, Design) is held annually in Monteray, California. TED brings together some of the most intelligent thinkers and leaders from across the globe to talk about innovation, technology and other interesting topics. Below I list some of my favorite talks relating to business and technology. Be sure to check out all the other interesting speeches across many categories.

Each clip is about 20 minutes long. Below the links is one of my favorite talks, Malcolm Gladwell on Spaghetti Sauce.

Sergey Brin and Larry Page: Inside the Google machine
Jeff Bezos: After the gold rush, there’s innovation ahead
Seth Godin: Sliced bread and other marketing delights
Barry Schwartz: The paradox of choice
Steven Levitt: Why do crack dealers still live with their moms?
Jimmy Wales: How a ragtag band created Wikipedia
Jeff Skoll: Making movies that make change
Richard Branson: Life at 30,000 feet
Chris Anderson: Technology’s long tail
Malcolm Gladwell: What we can learn from spaghetti sauce

By the time Buffett finished buying in 2003, Berkshire’s total cost for the 2.3 billion shares was $488 million. This gives the investment an average cost per share of about $21 for the ADSS (for the rest of the post, all figures will be in US$ and refer to the PTR shares traded on the NYSE). On October 18, Buffett sat down with Liz Clayman for an interview on the Fox Business Network where she asked him about his investment in PetroChina. In addition to confirming they had sold the entire stake, Buffett mentioned that at the time of purchase he read through the annual report and pegged PetroChina’s intrinsic value at around $100 billion.

PetroChina was established in 1999 as the publicly traded arm of China National Petroleum Corporation (CNPC), the largest producer of oil in China. PetroChina is vertically integrated where it explores, refines, and sells oil and natural gas. Because of the company’s duopoly in China with Sinopec, PetroChina is the most profitable company in Asia¹.

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1. Wikipedia: PetroChina [ ^ ]

After looking over the recently released Forbes 400 list (the richest 400 people in America), I noticed the list has included more and more individuals in the “Finance/Investments” category. The growth in assets managed by Hedge Funds and Private Equity companies has been a major cause of this increase. In the Forbes 400 magazine, it shows a graphic representation of each category since the first list in 1982 (25 years ago). In 2007, Finance and Investments had the largest number of members in the list. Below I list which categories have grown or shrunk over the years:

Higher: Service, Finance/Investments, Technology, Retail

Lower: Food, Oil, Media/Communications, Real Estate, Manufacturing, Other

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Victor Niederhoffer is a well-known hedge fund manager who got his start managing a trading firm in the 1980s. From 1982-1990, he partnered with George Soros and ran the Fixed Income and Forex divisions of Soros’ firm. Niederhoffer has published two books: The Education of a Speculator (1996) and Practical Speculation (2003). Since 2001 he has run Manchester Trading LLC, which manages three small funds with total assets under management of about $350 million at the end of June. Manchester’s main fund had returned 50% annualized through the end of 2006, earning it a prize for best performance by a Commodity Trading Adviser².

Despite the level of respect for him in the trading world, Niederhoffer is most well known for the blow-up of his hedge fund in 1997. After the Asian financial crisis and a 7% one-day drop in the Dow, Niederhoffer Investments lost a majority of its capital and was forced to close down. These losses wiped out virtually all of the gains the fund achieved racking up 35% annualized returns since inception.

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1. Fooled by Randomness, by Nassim Nicholas Taleb [ ^ ]
2. Wikipedia: Victor Niederhoffer [ ^ ]

MAIR Holdings (MAIR) - $5.17

MAIR is a very low risk / high uncertainty opportunity that has identifiable catalysts to unlock value in a reasonable amount of time. MAIR is a holding company that at the moment owns a very small regional airline (Big Sky Airlines) but is a majority cash and investments. It previously owned Mesaba Airlines, which went bankrupt in 2005, and was subsequently sold to Northwest Airlines (NWA) in April of this year. The current valuation numbers are below: ($Millions)

I look at this value as the downside, assuming management doesn’t do something stupid with the cash. There are two activist investors (owning over 14% of the company) pushing MAIR to distribute excess cash and sell Big Sky, so I’m hoping this helps things out a bit. The restricted cash account is collateral for a plane hangar MAIR guaranteed to Mesaba bondholders. As long as MAIR finds a sublessor for the hangar by March 2008, the $13mm will be released.

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