Value Investing World

Friday, October 26, 2007

So You Want To Be The Next Warren Buffett? How's Your Writing?

Great speech by Mark Sellers to Harvard MBAs.
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One thing I will tell you right off the bat: I'm not here to teach you how to be a great investor. On the contrary, I'm here to tell you why very few of you can ever hope to achieve this status.
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If you spend enough time studying investors like Charlie Munger, Warren Buffett, Bruce Berkowitz, Bill Miller, Eddie Lampert, Bill Ackman, and people who have been similarly successful in the investment world, you will understand what I mean.
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I know that everyone in this room is exceedingly intelligent and you've all worked hard to get where you are. You are the brightest of the bright. And yet, there's one thing you should remember if you remember nothing else from my talk: You have almost no chance of being a great investor. You have a really, really low probability, like 2% or less. And I'm adjusting for the fact that you all have high IQs and are hard workers and will have an MBA from one of the top business schools in the country soon. If this audience was just a random sample of the population at large, the likelihood of anyone here becoming a great investor later on would be even less, like 1/50th of 1% or something. You all have a lot of advantages over Joe Investor, and yet you have almost no chance of standing out from the crowd over a long period of time.
Posted by Joe at 10/26/2007
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Value Investing World is a blog dedicated to promoting the multidisciplinary approach to investing and development of – as Charlie Munger describes it – a latticework of mental models. Although largely focused on linking to investing and economic material it deems of interest, it will also post and link to material from other disciplines that it thinks worth reading or watching.

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      • Tandy Leather Factory – A Potential Bargain?
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Useful Links and Other Recommended Reading

  • 2007 and 2009 Interviews with Peter Bevelin
  • Buffett Partnership Letters
  • Berkshire Hathaway Shareholder Letters
  • Berkshire Hathaway Owner's Manual
  • Buffett FAQ
  • The Best of Charlie Munger: 1994-2011
  • Charlie Munger - The Art of Stock Picking
  • Charlie Munger - Academic Economics
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  • Charlie Munger - 2007 USC Law School Commencement Notes
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  • EDGAR Company Filing Search
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My Favorite (and biased) Non-Investing Related Site

  • Diane Meets World

All-Time Favorite Posts

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  • Second Interview with Peter Bevelin
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  • Dr. Peter Drucker: FEEDBACK: KEY TO CONTINUOUS LEARNING
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  • Tom Russo quote
  • Bill Gates quote from Charlie Rose interview (or, how the world's best companies are built by fanatics)
  • Charlie Munger - USC Law School Commencement - May 13, 2007
  • Charlie and Checklists
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  • Quote (on success, failure)
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  • Fortune: December 2001 - Warren Buffett on the Stock Market
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  • Complex systems: Ecology for bankers
  • Hussman Weekly Market Comment: Tending Seeds - Reacting, Responding, Planting, and Watering
  • What it takes to be great
  • Following the Path to Mastery with Robert Greene
  • THE CHECKLIST - by Atul Gawande
  • Carl Sagan - Pale Blue Dot
  • The Most Astounding Fact About the Universe

Charlie Munger

  • Poor Charlie's Almanack
  • The Best of Charlie Munger: 1994-2011
  • VIDEO: Charlie Munger - USC Law School Commencement - May 13, 2007
  • NOTES: Charlie Munger - USC Law School Commencement - May 13, 2007
  • Charlie Munger's "The Psychology of Human Misjudgment"

Warren Buffett

  • Warren Buffett's Letters to Berkshire Shareholders
  • Buffett inflation file
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Ben Franklin

  • Ben Franklin's 13 Virtues
  • Ben Franklin - 3 Essays - The Ephemera; The Whistle; Franklin and the Gout

Benjamin Graham

  • The Papers of Benjamin Graham (PDF)
  • The Rediscovered Benjamin Graham: Selected Writings of the Wall Street Legend (PDF)
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  • Securities in an Insecure World (1963 Speech)

Peter Bevelin

  • 2007 and 2009 interviews with Peter Bevelin
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  • PDF of Peter Bevelin interviews (2007 and 2009 with Value Investing World; 2016 with Farnam Street)

Howard Marks

  • Howard Marks memos
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  • Book: The Most Important Thing
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Seth Klarman

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Michael Mauboussin

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Diversification

  • Warren Buffett on Diversification - 1966
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Checklists

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Expert Performance / Self-Improvement

  • Bill Gates quote from Charlie Rose interview (or, how the world's best companies are built by fanatics)
  • Dr. Peter Drucker: FEEDBACK: KEY TO CONTINUOUS LEARNING
  • What it takes to be great

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