cmpnd15

Looks like you are already way ahead on the right path (entrepreneur, investor, on a path of learning... :) ), though I would recommend a structured reading of Financial Statement & Analysis and Economics volumes in CFA Level I prep, not for the exam but for yourself :) especially if you are not with an accounting background and as aspiring DoItYouself ActiveInvestor :). If you are on the path of learning and improving, there is no other outcome than getting better and making a lot of money (slowly, compounding works on both knowledge & money). Btw, you do not need to work under someone to get better, but if you can can, all the better :) I feel that most do not like the marketing aspect of fund management (to raise capital and handholding of clients), no wonder some went the route of buying businesses that let them invest the float (the business names are in this sites address :) ). If your goal is to make money for yourself at the expense of your investors, then you are in the right profession and well if you are lucky you investors might make some too :). Finally do not be disheartened if Active investing does not work for you (say after 10yrs of working at it, for most it does not - or does it-as they end up making a lot of money despite their investors being worse off than the market, seems 2/3rds of active investors fail to generate returns higher than the market), you can always fall back to passive investing (periodically investing in a low cost index fund or invest with another fund manager whose framework you can relate to :) ) As Munger aptly puts it, "If you invested Berkshire Hathaway-style, it would be hard to get paid as an investment manager as well as they're currently paid ‑ because you'd be holding a block of Wal-Mart and a block of Coca-Cola and a block of something else. You'd just sit there. And the client would be getting rich. And, after a while, the client would think, "Why am I paying this guy half a percent a year on my wonderful passive holdings?" Good Luck or should I say Good Skill :)

This from Klarman's latest annual letter just about sums it up. :) bolded some words for effect :) Did we ever mention that investing is HARD work — painstaking, relentless, and at times confounding? Separating relevant SIGNAL from NOISE can be especially difficult. Endless patience, great discipline, and steely resolve are required. NOTHING you do will GUARANTEE success, though you can TILT the odds significantly in your favor by having the right philosophy, mindset, process, team, clients, and culture. Getting those SIX things right is just about everything. Complicating matters further, a successful investor must possess a number of seemingly CONTRADICTORY qualities. These include, a) The arrogance to act, and act decisively [AND] the humility to know that you could be wrong. b) The acuity, flexibility, and willingness to change your mind when you realize you are wrong [AND] the stubbornness to refuse to do so when you remain justifiably confident in your thesis. c) The conviction to concentrate your portfolio in your very best ideas [AND] the common sense to nevertheless diversify your holdings. d) A healthy skepticism [bUT] not blind contrarianism. e) A deep respect for the lessons of history [bALANCED] by the knowledge that things regularly happen that have never before occurred. f) The integrity to admit mistakes [AND] the fortitude to risk making more of them. g) The intellectual honesty not to confuse luck [WITH] skill. "You don't become a value investor for the group hugs."

Didnt we just witness the Mungers Lollapalooza effect ? Lotteries/Games of Chance are immensely popular with people with low income, those dealt a weak hand by life and ignorant (its said lotteries/casinos is a tax on the ignorant). As the lottery pay out rises, more high income people, highly educated people and those who generally consider themselves to be smarter than the rest of the populace tend to play, mathematicians, physicists, engineers, economists, with the pool rising exponentially in the final moments and the longer there is no winner. Reasons probably discussed in books on behavioral sciences, why smart people make dumb mistakes, Predictably Irrational, The Social Animal, Thinking Fast and Slow, etc.. So why did you play ? any one of the below or all of it ? :) . fear of missing/losing out . utility/cost of dreams/fun for $2 vs disutility of loss of $2 . shame of looking foolish (if colleagues and friends win the pool) . peer pressure to participate (the social animal) . rationalizing it despite low odds

if incapacitated, would go with Li Liu http://www.himalayacapital.com/investphil.htm

its a good one, monopoly in matches, sounds like fiction unfortunately its not, first I read about anyone issuing perpetual preferred. By 1932, he had 225 subsidiaries, during prior 7 years loaned $300M, manufactured 2/3rd of world matches, had operations in every civilized country except Russia, monopolies in 24 countries. https://goo.gl/VLQqwa