Money and education musings from a $100K drop

Last Friday, Oct 10th, the NASDAQ composite dropped 3.6% following the threat of renewed tariffs on Chinese goods, and tech stocks dropped $770 billion dollars. My retirement account dropped over $100,000 in a single day!

That's not pocket change. That's a sizable hit that would make most people lose sleep.

But I didn't panic. I've seen this movie before. The market drops, people freak out, and then it bounces back. Sometimes it takes weeks, sometimes months. But it seems to always comes back.

What They Taught Us vs. What We Needed to Learn

Eight people from my high school just reunited in New Jersey last Saturday. We were from different batches or cohorts. Six of us studied at IIT—India's brutally competitive, world-class engineering college!

Among the topics we discussed were Teachers, Politics, Philanthropy (how can we give back to the school, which still has several aging facilities and looks like time stood still), Investment philosophies, and Risk Mitigation.

I personally believe staying out of the market is riskier than being in it. There's a funny video showing how inflation feels in the US.

The art of Spending Money

This week I also wrote blog posts on two books about money.

One framed spending as art.

The other outlined five types of wealth.

Both circled back to the same truth: up to a certain point, money makes life comfortable. Beyond that, you're just buying things to impress people. This ridiculous behavior can be summed up in the following video, where someone bottled tap water that "experts" said could sell for $500-$1000!

This week, I made some more choices about where my money and attention go.

I signed up for The Economist. It was not available on Libby App, where I get thousands of books and magazines free through the library, so I paid for two years for $225 (at 50% off).

I cancelled and auto-renewing annual subscription to Masterclass. I wasn't using it enough to justify the cost.

I took a course this weekend on ComfyUI for Architects, about effectively using AI.

I cancelled an annual subscription to Coursera. At my age, I don't need certificates on LinkedIn to prove I know some topics. The learnings matter but credentials don't anymore.

Miscellanous Musings on Education

I often learn a lot from Youtube. I pay for the family Premium plan so we can watch ad-free.

Brian Sykes discussed personalized learning coming from Google, that adapts to how each person learns best, using examples that resonate with each student.

My friend Ioan shared a tutorial on Wisk, another fun and easy free art tool from Google.

When What You Know Stops Mattering

Gen AI, of course, has been making a lot of professionals less relevant. Artists, creatives, also photographers, analysts, certain medical professionals, and legal folks, as well as entry-level computer science students and coders. The areas that AI doesn't touch seems perhaps presently limited to more of the physical professions like plumbers, HVAC technicians.

Meanwhile, I observed some Tableau experts—people who spent years mastering a Dashboarding platform—are watching it shift in ways that make their expertise less relevant.

1. Tableau Tim made a video about how he is losing passion.
2. Donabel Santos aka SQLBelle pivoted from free detailed Tableau tutorials to create a course on digital sales.
3. Andy Kriebel mentioned he will stop offering free previews to his courses as some people abused the system.

All these experts invested years learning something valuable. The landscape changes. The time invested transforms into something you didn't plan for.

Education and money

The credentials fade. The learning compounds.

The market dips. Your discipline holds.

If you're wondering whether education is worth the cost, ask how it changes how you see the world.

If you're wondering whether investing is worth the risk, ask whether you understand what you're really risking by staying out.

Because at the end of the day, money and education are just tools. They're only as valuable as what you build with them and whether they help you live more fully while you still have the health and people to enjoy it.

The market dropped significantly last week. I am betting that it will bounce back. History shows it almost always does.

I do have two of Nassim Taleb's books: The Black Swan and Antifragile that I have yet to find time to read 😦

My advice is to keep on learning. That's the only way we can prepare for the uncertain future. Life-long learning FTW !