New Yorker

Fam!

Just got Middle Market IB internship offer

If you’re coming to college as a business/finance/econ major, don’t buy a Mac.

For sure Mac is a great thing to have but not for financial modeling. It is better to have your hands dirty with Windows.

Buy either Lenova ThinkPad or HP and of course an IPad.

After finals:

When you are in being the depressed person competition, but your opponent is a NYU Shanghai student after finals.

You are cooked

Finals finished every International:

Coming to a college where student body is 50% chinese is definitely a big step. The tests aren’t made for Internationals, it is made so hard to a level where Chinese student can barely pass and the structure of tests as of what I heard is in so called Chinese style (God know what that means but eventually it means multiple choices are way difficult than short-answers).

When preparing for Microeconomics final midnight, I overheard that people are crying like literally crying for a Pass grade (Grade that is above D).

This semester was definitely the most challenging with the hardest chinese class (Ele2), hardest Programming class here (Intro to Programming), yep you heard it right, Intro is the hardest and it gets slightly better as you move up which in my case there is no move up and Micro was also end of me.

But what I truly learned is that class grades are a competition based, and my mistake was I didn’t even know who the opponent was. I have never prepared for a test so hard and still got humbled by the test. Test is so hard some people tried to copy from me and yet I am the dumbest in the room.

That was some crazy stuff there. Just reflecting on the finals, I noticed that those are made hard to get Internationals actually compete against Chinese or not compete but to a degree get their ass grinded for a better grade.

If you are coming to either NYU Shanghai or Duke Kunshan, I suggest you consult with the kids there and start preparing right now.

For a lil context:

Ivy League valedictorian grad from an ultra wealthy family named Luigi Mangione kills a healthcare Ceo due to past trauma in insurance and health care industry . But I believe the reason is made-up, he just wanted to remake American psycho.

NYU decision will be out in 5 hours, Good luck to those who applied ED 1 to NYU.

Do we have any prospective NYU Shanghai students who applied?

Are we the example of Newton’s first law?

Newton’s first law says: objects in motion tend to stay in motion.

Which can be translated into real life as if you stop doing which equals to staying in motion, then your output also stays in motion.

In economics, In production you have to act (change the variable input) to get a higher output otherwise, your line stays in the origin (0).

Whenever we face rejections, struggles, we tend to give up on that or wait thinking that path reveals itself. But what we don’t understand is those rejections and struggles are the part of the path and we have to step in them to continue on our way and getting out of the motion.

What I’ve learned from the two concepts above is that it’s about moving forward and taking action even when the path isn’t fully clear.

As you take action (increase the variable input) the path starts to reveal itself and unfold by giving you more returns in the long run.

Whether it’s drafting your personal statement after the rejection, sending that email, applying to one more internship, starting that project, or reading that one page in the morning —these steps create momentum.

There is also a punchline. These concepts do apply to watching movies, scrolling instagram, wasting time on unnecessary work, conversation and unnoticed missed opportunities which are variables inputs of your curve will eventually lead you to miserable life (output/return) at the end.

Whenever you are taking an action, be it good or bad, you should know you don’t decide your future but the actions you are taking right now will decide it for you.

But personally, I would say, be on the negative or positive side but never be in the motion, ACT!

Don’t be the example of the Newton’s first Law.

Transportation or Unnoticeable missed opportunity

One of the things I love about Shanghai is how easy it is to commute from place to place. It seems as if every place is very close and easily reachable even if they are like 9-10 km away.

People also prefer public transportation (Subway) over private. You can easily get to the metro station by either walking or cycling. I am amazed by how these bikes are so cheap for utility and ubiquitous everywhere to use. It costs 17-25 yuan which is like $3 per month, crazy right? It reminds me of the saying from Uncle Gustavo Petro “A developed country is not a place where the poor have cars. It's where the rich use public transport.”

One of the things I hated during my time in Uzbekistan over the summer that made me realize was how hard was the commuting. It seems as if the country or the city is so big that it takes me hours to reach to the other side of the city. This summer for example, I used to wake up at 7-8 a.m and got to the office like at 10:30 or close to 11 a.m. Be it using taxi (traffic jams), be it using subway (You gotta walk miles to reach or take a taxi) but still didn’t really work out for me.

However even if I can commute easily in China, I realized that going place to place (dorm to school), setting up your table, grabbing the coffee, getting into the study vibe takes nearly 2 hours, which makes me get done less in a day. At days when I study in my room, it is much convenient and more time will actually be used to study and learn things.

The point I want to make is that are we aware of how much of our time is spent on these little unnoticeable things and how little of that time is actually spent on learning?

How sugar is going to kill you:

I had been not consuming white sugar for a long time probably like (a year or so), but I did something of an experiment that revealed a secret about the sugar side effects.

First off, when the midterms hit, I was so cooked at a level where my dopamine got so low. To compensate for it, I started eating from low sugar to high sugar (cakes, chocolate, ice cream, and ect). The second day of my consumption showed that my body became incapable of handling instant high level of sugar, so it signaled me with acne.

Eighth day in, I became a bit lazy, wasn’t able to maintain long boxing session, was hungry for air. In the middle of the 2nd week, I realized I was forgetting things quickly, wasn’t too attentive and was already attached to sugary products.

Another thing was I was gaining fat too quickly, my belly fat got noticeable, my face fat made me unable to mog my friends. Keep in mind that though, I was still eating healthy whole food, no soda, only thing that was unhealthy in my daily consumption was chocolate (81%, still has white sugar and low sugar cakes and high sugar ice cream 4-5 sticks a day).

Considering all the side affects after 3 weeks of consumption including for the memory, overall body health, gym sessions, acne and possibly any long term side affects, I started my No BS Diet.

For those who not only consume high level of white sugar but also consumes unhealthy snacks and drinks, are you sure you are going to last 75 years?

I am not sure how sugar is going to kill you since I didn’t consume much to find out, but it made my days unhappy and gym sessions worse since I was basically getting cheap dopamine quickly.

If I were in 2022 when I was in college application process, I would definitely invest in myself by taking “Writing Supplemental Essays” by Levsha.

Definitely worth every penny, I have known him for couple years, I would describe him in three words as nerd, weird, writer.

No offense for the weird part, Levsha!

On Valuation

A business valuation is the process of determining the economic value of a business. It's also known as a company valuation. All areas of a business are analyzed during the valuation process to determine its worth and the value of its departments or units.

A business valuation is often used during the process of negotiating the merger or acquisition of one company by another but it might be used in other situations as well like in investing.

Crucial Concept:

Time value of money: it means a dollar today worths more than a dollar tommorow. It is because of people want to have something now than in the future, inflation and risk. That's why in valuation, we always discount the forecasted cashflows back to the present.

Valuation Methods:

Market Cap (Market Capitalization/Equity Value) is the simplest method of business valuation. It's calculated by multiplying the company’s share price by its total number of shares outstanding. This method is mostly used in the early stage of businesses when they do not have liabilities (debt).

To value: DCF (Discounted Cash Flow) is one of the mostly used valuation methods to value an intrinsic value of a company.

To price: CCA/Comps (Comparable company analysis) is another method used in valuation but to price a company compared to other peers.

DDM (Divident Discount Model) - Although out-dates, this method is mostly used for mature companies that constantly pay out dividents and you assume the companies's divident paying capability and forecast it and discount it to present.

But can you value/price a startup with these methods?

probably not, to learn more about how you value a early stage start-up, stay tuned for my next post On Valuation.

Resources:

I do recommend reading The little book of Valuation by Aswath Damodaran a.k.a God of Valuation who also teaches at NYU Stern.

Keraksiz Darslar:

Looking back when I was still in high school, one of the things I regret is not doing the extra work for most of the school classes. If you are studying at a school, one of the common misconceptions about school curriculum is that “you don’t have to study everything, just study what you want, other classes are (keraksiz darsliklar)”.

Especially when you are in the application season for colleges, you just give up on the school classes. I think that trend took off and influenced a lot of school kids to ignore the importance of school curriculum which prepares them for the life beyond (college, networking, ect). The school curriculum makes you multi-dimensional coming from STEM, math, social science and ect. Knowing at least the basics will help you tremendously later in college or professional life for networking.

You can argue about the teachers which I might agree to an extent but it is all about self-teaching and asking & discussing with the educators, once you have the understanding. It is all about coming prepared, having questions and pre-assumptions about the subject.

One thing I saw at college was the guys who are good at everything by just focusing on improving themselves. You can talk to them about anything. Be it what to eat, they are the dietologists; ask about skincare, they are the dermatologists, ask about training, they are athletes and academics? They can entertain you with any subject you bring to them. Yet this is not the end, they can play musical instruments, speak 3-4 languages and some other hobbies.

Coming to college, one of the most influential thing I learned or adapted is to have interest in everything and have that willingness to learn more. This, in its own place, removes judgmental and counter-revolution part of you making you to listen more, adapt and upskill yourself.

At the end of the day, there is no “Keraksiz darslar”, there is unwillingness to learn and be exceptional.