Here is another quote that has often been paraphrased, and the recursive nature of that concept is particularly appealing in this context: It can scarcely be denied that the supreme goal of all theory is to make the irreducible basic elements as simple and as few as possible without having to surrender the adequate representation…

This WSJ article on identifying and analyzing mutual funds is interesting because of what’s not there. The article describes a new study by Fama and French, the prolific finance authors who continue to study the efficient market hypothesis and the effects of pretending it doesn’t exist. In short, the study tracked yet another big collection…

This recent memo from the president of Guidestar.org moved way beyond the typical self-congratulatory non-news and sales announcements and started off with a bang: start with these two simple and profound questions: what is your organization’s mission and how are you trying to accomplish it? It’s amazing how many organizations can’t answer this. I read…

We recently wrote about alternative fee structures for large law firms and their clients. A post from the WSJ law blog on Kirkland & Ellis’s foray into the field recognizes a point we’ve made before: some companies (and indeed, most law firms) don’t have good information about their usage of legal services. Without solid data-driven…