The tradition of always looking for the answer in the most fundamental way available – that is a great tradition, and it saves a lot of time in this world.
Of course the self-serving bias is something you want to get out of yourself. Thinking that what’s good for you is good for the wider civilization and rationalizing all these ridiculous conclusions based on this subconscious tendency to serve one’s self is a terribly inaccurate way to think.
Any time anybody offers you anything with a big commission and a 200-page prospectus, don’t buy it. Occasionally, you’ll be wrong if you adopt “Munger’s Rule”. However, over a lifetime, you’ll be a long way ahead-and you will miss a lot of unhappy experiences.
How you behave in one place, will help in surprising ways later.
I always like it when someone attractive to me agrees with me, so I have fond memories of Phil Fisher. The idea that it was hard to find good investments, so concentrate in a few, seems to me to be an obviously good idea. But 98% of the investment world doesn’t think this way.
It’s a finite and very competitive world. All large aggregations of capital eventually find it hell on earth to grow and thus find a lower rate of return.
Just keep your head down and do your best.
Darwin paid particular attention to disconfirming evidence. Objectivity maintenance routines are totally required in life if you’re going to be a great thinker.
If it is wisdom you’re after, you’re going to spend a lot of time on your ass reading.
If you can get good at destroying your own wrong ideas, that is a great gift.
When you mix raisins and turds, you’ve still got turds.
There are worse situations than drowning in cash and sitting, sitting, sitting. I remember when I wasn’t awash in cash – and I don’t want to go back.
To me, it’s obvious that the winner has to bet very selectively. It’s been obvious to me since very early in life. I don’t know why it’s not obvious to very many other people.
If the value of a company doesn’t just scream out at you, it’s too close.
Spend less than you make; always be saving something. Put it into a tax-deferred account. Over time, it will begin to amount to something. This is such a no-brainer.
One metric catches people. We prefer businesses that drown in cash. An example of a different business is construction equipment. You work hard all year and there is your profit sitting in the yard. We avoid businesses like that. We prefer those that can write us a check at the end of the year.
I’m proud to be associated with the value system at Berkshire Hathaway; I think you’ll make more money in the end with good ethics than bad.
If you buy something because it’s undervalued, then you have to think about selling it when it approaches your calculation of its intrinsic value. That’s hard. But if you buy a few great companies, then you can sit on your ass. That’s a good thing.
I find it quite useful to think of a free-market economy – or partly free market economy – as sort of the equivalent of an ecosystem. Just as animals flourish in niches, people who specialize in some narrow niche can do very well.
It’s a good habit to trumpet your failures and be quiet about your successes.