This is GSK (GlaxoSmithKline, large pharmaceutical company, UK) stock since 2001, relative to a World Healthcare Index. The stock has lost a lot of value relative to other healthcare companies over the last 20 or so years.

New CEO, Emma Walmsley has her work cut out for her. In a recent FT article:

Her advice for young women wishing to scale the heights of her own industry, or any other? “Take courage . . . be unafraid.”

On R&D: “I think having a fresh pair of eyes is actually incredibly helpful, whether you’re deciding which therapy areas you want to be in or which assets you want to back, or which people you want to hire or which people you think should be part of the company in the future. “I have no baggage and so it’s not been difficult to take a relatively clear-eyed view.”

Stock price is not everything. Nevertheless if it is a correlate in pharmaceutical companies for the amount of productive R&D created then the chart above highlights the scale of the problem.

Cross fertilise. Read about theautistic mind here. On investing try a thought on stock valuations.  Or Ray Dalio on populism and risk.

If you'd like to feel inspired by other addresses and life lessons try: Ursula K Le Guin on literature as an operating manual for life;  Neil Gaiman on making wonderful, fabulous, brilliant mistakes; or Nassim Taleb's commencement address; or JK Rowling on the benefits of failure.  Or Charlie Munger on always inverting.