The Education of a Value Investor

“What I stumbled upon was this. Desperate to figure out how to lead a life that was more like his, I began constantly to ask myself one simple question: “What would Warren Buffett do if he were in my shoes?””

“Bryan Lawrence, Richard Bergin, Jane Buchan and Martin Calderbank:”

““When you see a good move, look for a better one.” Applying this insight to stocks, I modified his mantra, often telling myself, “When you see a good investment, look for a better investment.””

““Science advances one funeral at a time” as eminent but wrong-headed scientists bite the dust.”

“Latticework Club,”

“It reminded me of an old joke that Warren likes to tell: “How do you beat Bobby Fisher?” Answer: “Play him at anything other than chess.””

“When you’re surrounded by people like this, all of them trying to help one another, it sometimes feels like heaven on earth. People like Mohnish or John Mihaljevic, for example, are just gems—always looking to help, to support, to share. These are the keepers. The people we want in our inner circle. The people we should fly across the world to see if they live abroad.”

“Nick Sleep”

“liking principle.”

“John Mihaljevic:”

“Michael Burry”

“construct an environment in which my brain isn’t subjected to quite such an extreme barrage of distractions and disturbing forces that can exacerbate my irrationality.”

“I saw how he would focus first on creating a real relationship and would then constantly look for ways to give, not take.”

“No. I sat down at my desk and actively imagined that I was Buffett. I imagined what the first thing would be that he would do if he were in my shoes, sitting at my desk.”

“Kahneman, Dan Ariely, Jason Zweig, Joseph LeDoux, and Antonio Damasio. Reading works by these and other experts on behavioral finance and neuroeconomics,”

““Are the company’s revenues leveraged to the credit markets?””

“when your consciousness or mental attitude shifts, remarkable things begin to happen. That shift is the ultimate business tool and life tool.”

“This was an important revelation: so often, we focus our analytical efforts in the wrong direction and miss something vital. So it’s crucial to be open to the possibility that we might be mistaken.”

“Munger and his latticework of mental models.”

“Ronald Reagan loved, “There’s no limit to what you can do if you don’t mind who gets the credit.””

“Diana Fosha’s The Transforming Power of Affect: A Model for Accelerated Change,”

“Cresud,”

“For example, in chess, there’s a set repertoire of opening tricks and mistakes that lead unsuspecting players to a quick demise, usually within the first few moves. Initially, when I fell into these traps, I felt angry with my opponent. It seemed like an underhanded way to win. Then I’d become angry with myself for missing what’s known as a “gotcha game.””

“What’s important is the idea that a great company makes tons of money while adding real value for its customers.”

“The difficulty is that we can’t use the brain to override the brain. So we remain vulnerable to these mental shortcomings even when we know about them.”

“Charlie Munger, Bill Gates, Ajit Jain, Debbie Bosanek, and Carol Loomis.”

“Ernest Shackleton”

“These were elegant ideas. Not only were they remarkably cheap, but they each had catalysts that would inevitably emerge.”

“If your goal in life is to get rich, value investing is pretty hard to beat. Sure, there are times when it falls out of favor, when even the greatest practitioners find themselves dismissed as fusty has-beens who have lost their touch. But it’s such a robust and fundamentally sound way to invest that it eventually regains its luster.”

“the best way to learn is to surround yourself with the right people.”

“Santa Fe Institute, a transdisciplinary research community. I knew that Bill Miller, a remarkably smart fund manager at Legg Mason,”

“the economy as a complex adaptive system.”

“Robbins describes this process as “modeling” our heroes.”

“The Rule: Keep the market at a safe distance. Don’t let it invade your office or your brain.”

“Clearly, he has set up his life so that it suits him and so that he enjoys it. When I asked if he had consciously created Berkshire’s unique decentralized structure, he emphasized that it operates that way because it suits his personality, not because it maximizes returns.”

“the opportunity to observe people who were far better at business and life than I was.”

“We can all claim to have clear rules—for example, declaring that a stock must be sold when it reaches 80 percent of its intrinsic value.”

“Think and Grow Rich by Napoleon Hill,”

““Given that the player to my right has bid two clubs, how does that update my probabilistic assessment of what cards he’s holding?””

“John Mihaljevic to create an annual event in Switzerland called VALUEx—a”