Lately at Titanium Birch
Accounting and investment reporting, hiring, an evolution-accelerating virus, absurd what ifs, and NBA playoff predictions...
What we’re thinking about
Accounting and investment reporting. In his latest blog post, Peter describes our approach to making it possible and easy for any team member to find insights in data about our investment portfolio. The post covers why we think that’s important, what use cases we envision, what we’ve learned in researching solutions, and how we’re now going about solving the challenges.
Interview training. Last month, we gathered a few friends of the firm for interview training with Andy and Scott from Topgrading. In four hours, we learned a lot, like how to dive into a candidate’s career history to uncover patterns of behaviour and what follow-up questions will elicit the most useful insights.
Hiring. We have two open portfolio manager roles: private-markets PM and public-markets PM. If you know someone who might be interested, please share. And here’s some information about our cultural values and how we cultivate people at Titanium Birch.
What we’re consuming
Peter: While on vacation in Perth and walking around the city, I came across a bookstore specialising in science fiction. I chatted with the staff about what I’ve enjoyed or found a bit dull, and based on that, they recommended Children of Time. Spot on! I enjoyed it a lot. Many of the ideas felt new to me. Humans have developed a nanovirus that can accelerate the progress of evolution in biological species. They use that to try to seed life on planets. They can also go in and out of cryo sleep as they please and thus stick around to see what happens.
TJ: My current unwind book is What If? Serious Scientific Answers to Absurd Hypothetical Questions. There’s something really relaxing about thinking up actual answers to absurd hypotheticals, such as, “What if someone’s DNA suddenly vanished?”, or “When will the bandwidth of the internet surpass that of FedEx?”. There are two books in the series, and I’m eager to start on the second.
I also think about how the data profession will change over this time. Benn Stancil talks about how we have succeeded at operational and reporting work, but largely failed at analytics and insight. I share his belief that a better way of producing real insight will be having more domain experts with a minor in analytics rather than the other way around.
Justina: Since I tend to seek out stuff that doesn’t take itself too seriously, I watched the new Mr. & Mrs. Smith television series. Awkward, intense, mildly violent, weirdly intimate, and so funny! (I’ve also been watching Season 46 of Survivor because my sister Jess is one of the “castaways”.)
And now: my NBA playoff predictions. Young stars eclipse the old guard and bulldoze their way to the conference finals. West: Thunder defeats Timberwolves in 7. East: Knicks beat Cavs in 6. Finals: Thunder stomps out Knicks in 5 to become your 2024 NBA champions. And Shai Gilgeous-Alexander is crowned both Season and Finals MVP. Am I delusional? Let’s see…
We hope you’ve enjoyed this latest edition of the Titanium Birch newsletter. If you haven’t yet, follow us on LinkedIn for our latest updates.
All the best,
The team at Titanium Birch
Disclaimer: The materials linked in this newsletter do not reflect the views of Titanium Birch and should not be taken as investment advice.