The Wisdom Wall

“And by the way, when I say the value investor does this and the growth investor does that, Probably the biggest single theme of the memo was that that dichotomy should not be so hardwired.”

“Human knowledge is cumulative, and lately it's been rushing forward at an incredible pace, so it's hard to imagine that there's a piece of information that I can get off the internet that's going to make me any money for the simple reason that everybody else can get it off the internet. This is a zero-sum game for a…”

“I always say that I don't think that a computer can sit down with five business plans and figure out which one is Amazon in advance, or meet five CEOs and know which one is Steve Jobs.”

“People say to me, can you teach somebody to be a second level thinker? And I said, I don't know. It's kind of like asking the basketball coach to coach height. All his efforts won't make his players any taller. Some people get it, some don't.”

“This idea that as soon as there's a profit, you should take some of it off the table, seems like a huge mistake.”

“Most firms, if they have a very successful fund, will follow it up with another fund which is larger on the back of that. But if you think about it, if you had a success in a given area, the good performance of that fund is synonymous with appreciation. In other words, everything in that area is now more expensive. So…”

“How can they insure people's lives when they know they're all gonna die? And the answer is, number one, it's risk they're aware of... Number two, it's risk you can analyze... Number three, it's risk you can diversify... Number four, it's risk they're well paid to take... And I said, this is exactly what we do in high…”

“if everybody has all the company data about today and the means to massage it, How do you get a knowledge advantage? And the answer is you have to either somehow do a better job of massaging the current data, which is challenging, or you have to be better at making qualitative judgments, or you have to be better at…”

“You know, it all comes down to maybe we can think better about the selling decision if we rebrand it and we call it the decision to unbuy. The thought process should be the opposite of the buying decision and not some chicken stuff about being afraid to lose.”

“And a huge amount of people's preoccupation, in my opinion, is with avoiding regret. Embarrassment in front of others, regret themselves.”