If you can identify six wonderful businesses, that is all the diversification you need. And you will make a lot of money. And I can guarantee that going into the seventh one instead of putting more money into your first one is going to be a terrible mistake. Very few people have gotten rich on their seventh best idea. So I would say for anyone working with normal capital who really knows the businesses they have gone into, six is plenty, and I would probably have half of it in what I like best.
Mental Toughness
Golf requires a mental toughness to be great. I see it in my friends who are way better than me. They have the ability to hit a horrible shot and completely forget it and just focus on the next shot as if nothing happened. I cannot do that as hard as I try. That’s why they are single handicappers and I am not.
Meltdowns teach you something important. It teaches you that you are not infallible and that you can fail spectacularly and get up the next day and continue to be the best player in the game. That leads to the mental toughness that is required to play the game of golf at the highest level.
A Why To Live For
India Can Emerge As An Innovation Leader
Has the Indian startup opportunity been wildly over-estimated? Mahesh Murthy’s article on this question has triggered a debate. Mahesh feels the “copy-paste” approach will not work in India — provided that most of India’s highly-valued startups are simply clones of successful US…
Waiting
Obscurity
Piracy is not the enemy of the artist – obscurity is.
Introspecting Deeply Upon Succeeding
Spectacular success doesn’t lead to deep introspection, which in turn leads to wrong conclusions. You see this all the time, right? Successful companies draw conclusions about how smart and good they are, and then a significant number of them fall off the cliff because they drew the wrong conclusions.
Corralling Facts and Information
My job is essentially just corralling more and more and more facts and information, and occasionally seeing whether that leads to some action.
Value Investing Is An Art
It is important to remember that value investing is not a perfect science. Rather it is an art, and necessitates dealing with imperfect information. Knowing you will never know everything must not prevent you from acting. It requires a precarious balance between conviction, steadfastness in the face of adversity, and doubt, keeping in mind the possibility that you could be wrong.