Friday, April 29, 2005

Buffett on interesting investments


Via the always excellent Rajesh Jain (who got it from one Yuvaraj): a paraphrase of remarks by the legendary Warren Buffett, aka the Oracle of Omaha, made to the students of Dartmouth's Tuck School of Business:

If there's one thing that you leave here with today, it should be this: And I'll start with a question to get to my point. If you could pick 10% of one person in this room to own or 'go long' for the next 30 years, who would it be? It wouldn't be the person with the highest IQ; it wouldn't be the star athlete; you would look for certain other qualities ... And if you had to pick one person to 'short' for the next 30 years, who would it be? Now ask yourself why you have made those selections. If you've considered these questions properly, the person you've gone long is probably someone who is honest, courageous, and dependable; the person you've shorted is probably someone who is egotistical and likes to take the credit. The point is that success is mostly dependent upon elective qualities, not anything with which you are born. You can choose to be dependable or not. And it's not easy to change, so choose correctly now. Bertrand Russell once said, "The chains of habit are too light to be felt until they're too heavy to be broken." So ask yourself, "Who do I want to be?" At the end of this process you should determine that the person you want to buy is yourself. You all are holding winning tickets.

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