Circle of Competence

As we’ve known since the annual meeting of Western Sizzlin’, Biglari has been searching for a new CEO for Steak N Shake (SNS).  It seems he has found one: himself.
Before we go nuts here, read this quote from the filing:
 I would like to thank Wayne [Kelley, interim CEO] for his guidance over the last several months. In [...]

Note, 08/06/08: I made some horrendous editing mistakes in this piece.  I’ve gone through it again and fixed up most of the mistakes.  Sorry for the sloppiness, readers.   In the future, if you notice them, leave a scathing note so I get sufficiently motivated to do better editing work.
Sorry for the dearth of writing lately.  [...]

Steak N Shake (SNS), led by newly installed Chairman Sardar Biglari, has had a quite an interesting week or two.  I want to highlight 3 pieces of news for those following the story:
1. Administrative Outings:
The first is the resignation of CFO Jeff Blade, who had been subject to the criticism of Biglari and Co. since their [...]

Last week, I answered 20 Questions for Geoff Gannon, author of the always amazing Gannon on Investing.  Geoff has been running this series since his early days a few years ago, and has accumluated some awesome interviews that I’ve enjoyed reading.  There are intereviews in there from Jonathan Heller (Cheap Stocks), John Bethel (Controlled Greed), and [...]

About a week ago, I came across an interesting article called The Checklist on the blog Street Capitalist. The piece, from the New Yorker, was about a doctor who, through the use of checklists, was able to dramatically improve the critical care unit of Johns Hopkins Hospital.
Today, I posted a Reflection on the other blog [...]

Note 5/20/08:
Based on the excellent comments and questions coming in below, I want to make this clear: I am agnostic as to how Sears achieves it success and valuation.  This column was not to argue the merits of retail, or to even suggest that I am betting on a retail turnaround for Sears, merely what [...]