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Guy Spier Op-Ed: "The Golden Age of Value Investing Is Over"


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Posted
4 hours ago, Parsad said:

 

His best friend is a so-called "Paki"...you ever wonder why Mohnish and Guy travel hand in hand?  Guy has a ton of Indian and Indian continent friends, me included...Pakistani, Hindu, Punjabi, Gujrati, Jain...!

 

You don't extrapolate political leanings or the occasional post into exactly what type of person someone is or isn't.  That's a very shallow way to view humanity.  I have the type of issues you have with some on here...but I should be able to empathize with them as well.

 

Imagine yourself in their shoes!  Cheers!

 

Parsad, I was careful not to call Guy a racist. I do not know him personally or what is in his heart and mind. He retweeted a video that I can only describe as one of those old Nazi dehumanization cartoons of Jews in AI form, except with the Jews replaced with “brown” people. It’s a little vague whether they were Muslims or just generic “Pakis”. I don’t think racists care that much either way. I make no apology for calling him out, except that the timing was unfortunate. That is why I deleted my tweet. He knows what’s in that video since I described it to him. If he subsequently responds to me that he made a mistake, didn’t watch the video before retweeting it, etc I will relay that info here. Nobody gets a free pass doing what he did. I don’t care if he is a nice guy, Indian friends, great fee structure. His behaviour needs to be called out. 

Posted
3 hours ago, Rod said:

 

Parsad, I was careful not to call Guy a racist. I do not know him personally or what is in his heart and mind. He retweeted a video that I can only describe as one of those old Nazi dehumanization cartoons of Jews in AI form, except with the Jews replaced with “brown” people. It’s a little vague whether they were Muslims or just generic “Pakis”. I don’t think racists care that much either way. I make no apology for calling him out, except that the timing was unfortunate. That is why I deleted my tweet. He knows what’s in that video since I described it to him. If he subsequently responds to me that he made a mistake, didn’t watch the video before retweeting it, etc I will relay that info here. Nobody gets a free pass doing what he did. I don’t care if he is a nice guy, Indian friends, great fee structure. His behaviour needs to be called out. 

I am sorry, I did not watch the cartoons.  However, I have read the Koran.  It clearly calls for subjugation and murder of non-Muslims, it calls for perpetual war against non-Muslims.  How is that different from Nazi idealogy?  

Posted
8 hours ago, Rod said:

 

Parsad, I was careful not to call Guy a racist. I do not know him personally or what is in his heart and mind. He retweeted a video that I can only describe as one of those old Nazi dehumanization cartoons of Jews in AI form, except with the Jews replaced with “brown” people. It’s a little vague whether they were Muslims or just generic “Pakis”. I don’t think racists care that much either way. I make no apology for calling him out, except that the timing was unfortunate. That is why I deleted my tweet. He knows what’s in that video since I described it to him. If he subsequently responds to me that he made a mistake, didn’t watch the video before retweeting it, etc I will relay that info here. Nobody gets a free pass doing what he did. I don’t care if he is a nice guy, Indian friends, great fee structure. His behaviour needs to be called out. 

 

Not making any excuse for him if he did that...but take a step back and think about what happened October 7th and how his feelings may not have been any different than a U.S. person reacting to 9/11.  Would you have scolded every one who posted something bigoted after that day?

 

Lastly, how would you like it if it was your last moment on earth and you were recognized for...not all the good things you did during your life, but a caricature you posted on social media in a possible moment of anger?

 

You are right, no one gets a free pass...not for posting something bigoted and also not for being a bit of an unempathetic ass when someone is dying!  Cheers! 

Posted
1 hour ago, TB said:

I want to share a personal anecdote about Guy Spier - my son was running an investment club in his school and he had many schools from US/Canada join it as part of a larger organization. He invited Guy Spier to come and present - Guy couldn't do it but he sent a couple of books which were really good.

 

Fast forward to now; my son is in one of the top schools in the country (US) and is part of a group that manages a very small amount of the University's Endowment.

 

Guy has been very generous and kind - wishing him a speedy recovery!

 

 

@TB,

 

Thank you for sharing your experience in this situation [not easy], but how do you really 'read', interpret it, based on by now available information?

Posted

I wrote him once, a year or so after reading his book. I thanked him for sharing his knowledge and experiences and explained that they helped me avoid a lot of the pitfalls many investors experience at first. He responded and invested me to one of his conferences. I thought that was very nice especially for a nobody like myself. 

Posted (edited)
25 minutes ago, TB said:

I am not familiar with the mentioned social media posts or the context, so no comments. I have wished him speedy recovery personally and from the looks of it, he is doing well so far given the condition.


 

@TB,

 

You're just wrong, totally wrong,

 

Guy is hit by a materially life-shortening illnss to which there exists no cure. It has noting to do with SOME posts,- it's chiseled in stone by him self in his latest released investor letter, from him self [,which you obviously haven't read].

 

Please get real, and get your sources right in stead of posting *BS* noise here on CofB&F.

Edited by John Hjorth
Posted
3 hours ago, John Hjorth said:

 

@TB,

 

You're just wrong, totally wrong,

 

Guy is hit by a materially life-shortening illnss to which there exists no cure. It has noting to do with SOME posts,- it's chiseled in stone by him self in his latest released investor letter, from him self [,which you obviously haven't read].

 

Please get real, and get your sources right in stead of posting *BS* noise here on CofB&F.

 

@John Hjorth You are giving the guy a very hard time when he is well-meaning.  Below are the relevant parts of the letter.  If you don't know a lot about brain cancer, you could easily take from reading it that Spier expects to maybe live 10-20 years, when the reality, which he does not state for understandable reasons, is that the odds of someone with recurrent glioblastoma surviving even a few years are very low.  (Although I will caveat that by saying that his cancer may have certain features which vastly improve his odds vs typical recurrent glioblastoma cases.)  I wish Spier the best.

 

It's an interesting topic - doctors are generally <extremely> wary of giving even patients themselves the cold hard facts about specific illnesses.  If you hear someone has a disease and want to know their odds, search "Kaplan-Meier survival plot" and the disease.  That's going to give you the best numbers, and the more specific the chart is to the exact profile of the disease, the more useful it is.  For instance, say you are an adult with Acute Myeloid Leukemia (AML) - the first thing they do is run a test and it spits out the specifics mutations you have.  While the overall survival rate for adults with AML might be 20%, the ones with your mutation might have a 50% survival rate and those with some other mutation might have a 5% survival rate.

 

https://www.eortc.be/tools/recgbmcalculator/Curves.aspx

 

"The tumor was small, the doctors caught it early, and I immediately underwent the appropriate treatment, so my chances of beating the worst outcomes were good, and I continued my life as normal. However, that changed in September 2025 with an unclear MRI and minor (or focal) seizures. These led to a second craniotomy and the conclusion that the cancer had returned.

 

This recurrence changed the calculus for Aquamarine Fund. Previously, I could have every hope and expectation that the cancer was in remission and that my top priority of compounding our capital could remain unchanged. The recurrence meant I could no longer say that.

 

Although my mind and investing abilities remain intact today, we have no way of knowing when that might change. My condition could stabilize for a long time, or it might not.

 

While I continue to have every hope of living a long and productive life, that is less likely than before. The range of outcomes has widened considerably. Faced with that uncertainty, I knew I had to reprioritize my life. Up to this point, despite my many outside interests, my top priority was to continue to compound your capital at Aquamarine Fund. This is no longer the case. My top priority has become my health and spending precious time with my family."

Posted

Guy Spier is one of the kindest, humble and most genuine individuals you will ever meet.  I've talked to him several times, been to conferences with him and had dinner with him in Chicago.  He is always willing to help out, give you a referral, etc - he walks his talk. His book is completely genuine.

You can't ask for a better role model in how to live your life.

 

It's very clear to me that Oct 7th - and the reaction from much of the world horrified Guy - as it did many of us.  He's Jewish with friends of all faiths - and yes, I did see some of his posts expressing his outrage at the behavior of anti-semites. Every man has his limits - and obviously many crossed the line with Guy. That is 100% understandable.

 

I pray that such a good man gets a miracle cure and remains in good health with his family.

 

If you never met Guy in person - you missed meeting someone very special. I consider myself very lucky in that regard.

Posted
51 minutes ago, cubsfan said:

Guy Spier is one of the kindest, humble and most genuine individuals you will ever meet.  I've talked to him several times, been to conferences with him and had dinner with him in Chicago.  He is always willing to help out, give you a referral, etc - he walks his talk. His book is completely genuine.

You can't ask for a better role model in how to live your life.

 

It's very clear to me that Oct 7th - and the reaction from much of the world horrified Guy - as it did many of us.  He's Jewish with friends of all faiths - and yes, I did see some of his posts expressing his outrage at the behavior of anti-semites. Every man has his limits - and obviously many crossed the line with Guy. That is 100% understandable.

 

I pray that such a good man gets a miracle cure and remains in good health with his family.

 

If you never met Guy in person - you missed meeting someone very special. I consider myself very lucky in that regard.

+1

  • 3 months later...
Posted
2 hours ago, VersaillesinNY said:

Thank you for sharing that video.  At the end of the day, all this is "just money".  Your view on life can change in an instant when something unexpected like that happens.  All your life plan and what you value undergoes a dramatic reshuffling in these moments.  When you're young, you feel like there's plenty of time, and so you trade time for money.  When these moments inevitably arrive (hopefully through old age), your personal value of money depreciates precipitously relative to the stuff you really care about.  IMHO, it's a worthy exercise to try to imagine such a life-changing event happening to you, and rearrange your life to mitigate/account for such an event.  For all you know, these unexpected event can happen to you tomorrow.

 

At the end of the day, money is just a construct/tool to motivate people to be productive, with plenty of side-effects, for better or worse.  Don't let that be the main driver of your life.  Instead, be a little selfish and think about what you would really like to do in life, and do enough of that as well.  IMHO, there's a happy balance between YOLO and frugal FIRE.  Cut out the useless stuff that marketing shoves down your throat, and you can achieve FIRE without much of the extreme frugality.

 

Tagging @thepupil for this one.

Posted (edited)

Way back in the day I apprenticed in the dark arts under two masters; one a middle easterner who was a magician with numbers, the other an escapee from the former soviet block who was truly a 'one of a kind' 😇. Both very energetic and robust men, and in fine health ... despite one of them having a withered leg.

 

Both of them had lost family, relatives weren't really interested in their skills ... and I was the pet project. All of this while in Europe, changing nationalities, and before arriving in Canada. Thereafter, a very boring time learning how to do things honestly! Entirely on my own, while going through uni.

 

Both lived for the day, and a today a lot better than yesterday. Friends and community worth more than money. Each had more lives than a cat, and was disease free well into their 60's.

 

One got accidentally shot dead on a NY subway, by a hood aiming at someone else. The other eventually passed away with dementia. 

 

Live life to the fullest whilst you can, push the envelopes hard, and piss on regrets! You could be gone tommorrow, but until then ... a life well lived.

 

Doesn't hurt to find an apprentice either .... the more arrogant and  bloody minded the better 😅

 

SD 

Edited by SharperDingaan
Posted (edited)
On 6/5/2026 at 7:32 PM, nsx5200 said:

... money is just a construct/tool to motivate people to be productive...

 

LOL...aren't you an investor?

Money is just a contruct/tool to motivate you to sit on your a$$ and do nothing while other people struggle to work and pay bills...Guy Spier too he also has the same portfolio doing nothing ...underperforming...and getting rich in the meanwhile...get real

Edited by Sinbius
Posted
16 hours ago, Sinbius said:

 

LOL...aren't you an investor?

Money is just a contruct/tool to motivate you to sit on your a$$ and do nothing while other people struggle to work and pay bills...Guy Spier too he also has the same portfolio doing nothing ...underperforming...and getting rich in the meanwhile...get real

 

Not sure this is a fair representation of an investor or money manager.  If you've ever managed money or run a company, been responsible for other people's assets or to shareholders, or employed people who make their living from your decisions...sitting on your so-called "a$$" is the last thing you are doing!

 

I can't speak for others, and I don't have nearly as much money as the likes of Guy, Mohnish or whoever may be the target of the day by some people on here.  Most of my wealth came from me living frugally, scrimping and saving what I could, and then compounding the hell out of it over the last 20+ years.  We had a Buffett-like performance fee structure at our fund...so no management fee, and my salary was fixed at PDH for 12 years.

 

When I ran my fund, I had many nice partners, and I've had many nice shareholders in what was PDH...but there were a handful that were just plain assholes!  I've made my share of mistakes...that I wholly agree...but getting dozens of emails, phone calls, texts, telling you what a loser you are, or shitty CEO, or awful fund manager while you are recovering from a quadruple bypass or some other diagnosed illness, leaves a pretty big painful gash even after those things have healed and you have recovered.  But that comes with the territory and I'm a big boy...I asked for this!

 

But to say I was ever sitting on my ass is about as erroneous a statement as could be made about my profession!  Forget all the stuff you have to do on a day to day basis as a public company...from dealing with the board, employees, auditors, banks, service providers, shareholders, regulators, securities exchanges, governance, tax, etc.  There were times I was putting in my own money to keep the company alive...trying to find a way to fight another day such as the Pandemic.  Paying salaries and bills with my own funds...not calling it quits!  Even as we closed our investment fund, I gave half of our accumulated fees to the remaining minority partners to make them closer to whole.  They had taken the leap of faith with us all the way...the last thing I was going to do was walk away with the same as them!

 

The assholes didn't know all this and wouldn't have cared...nor should they care...especially as the two main ones enjoyed some of the best returns ever!  Those two were just plain assholes.  They were the type to call out Buffett or Prem on a regular basis...who the hell am I...some wannabee, website guy who wanted to be like them.  Oh wait, I see a lot of that on this message board at times...so there are obviously a bunch of assholes on here too!  🤣

 

The irony of the whole thing is, if luck had anything to do with wealth, and sitting on your ass was a prerequisite for success, the financial Gods shone their light brightly on these two lemonheads!  After the last bunch of emails and texts, I finally told them to "go fuck themselves"!  I hope they tried!

 

Back to my point...I don't know all of the things that Guy or Mohnish, or any other fund manager/executive goes through.  For some, it may mean just sitting on their asses...for others, it may mean getting over their heads and struggling to right a ship...and for others, it may mean they enjoyed a bit of success and hit many of their goals and they might be lucky enough to be living a life they dreamt of.  Regardless, a generalization about them all sitting on the asses is exactly that...an unwarranted generalization!  If nsx is sitting on his ass and enjoying success...all the fucking power to him!

 

Cheers!

Posted
36 minutes ago, Parsad said:

 

Not sure this is a fair representation of an investor or money manager.  If you've ever managed money or run a company, been responsible for other people's assets or to shareholders, or employed people who make their living from your decisions...sitting on your so-called "a$$" is the last thing you are doing!

 

I can't speak for others, and I don't have nearly as much money as the likes of Guy, Mohnish or whoever may be the target of the day by some people on here.  Most of my wealth came from me living frugally, scrimping and saving what I could, and then compounding the hell out of it over the last 20+ years.  We had a Buffett-like performance fee structure at our fund...so no management fee, and my salary was fixed at PDH for 12 years.

 

When I ran my fund, I had many nice partners, and I've had many nice shareholders in what was PDH...but there were a handful that were just plain assholes!  I've made my share of mistakes...that I wholly agree...but getting dozens of emails, phone calls, texts, telling you what a loser you are, or shitty CEO, or awful fund manager while you are recovering from a quadruple bypass or some other diagnosed illness, leaves a pretty big painful gash even after those things have healed and you have recovered.  But that comes with the territory and I'm a big boy...I asked for this!

 

But to say I was ever sitting on my ass is about as erroneous a statement as could be made about my profession!  Forget all the stuff you have to do on a day to day basis as a public company...from dealing with the board, employees, auditors, banks, service providers, shareholders, regulators, securities exchanges, governance, tax, etc.  There were times I was putting in my own money to keep the company alive...trying to find a way to fight another day such as the Pandemic.  Paying salaries and bills with my own funds...not calling it quits!  Even as we closed our investment fund, I gave half of our accumulated fees to the remaining minority partners to make them closer to whole.  They had taken the leap of faith with us all the way...the last thing I was going to do was walk away with the same as them!

 

The assholes didn't know all this and wouldn't have cared...nor should they care...especially as the two main ones enjoyed some of the best returns ever!  Those two were just plain assholes.  They were the type to call out Buffett or Prem on a regular basis...who the hell am I...some wannabee, website guy who wanted to be like them.  Oh wait, I see a lot of that on this message board at times...so there are obviously a bunch of assholes on here too!  🤣

 

The irony of the whole thing is, if luck had anything to do with wealth, and sitting on your ass was a prerequisite for success, the financial Gods shone their light brightly on these two lemonheads!  After the last bunch of emails and texts, I finally told them to "go fuck themselves"!  I hope they tried!

 

Back to my point...I don't know all of the things that Guy or Mohnish, or any other fund manager/executive goes through.  For some, it may mean just sitting on their asses...for others, it may mean getting over their heads and struggling to right a ship...and for others, it may mean they enjoyed a bit of success and hit many of their goals and they might be lucky enough to be living a life they dreamt of.  Regardless, a generalization about them all sitting on the asses is exactly that...an unwarranted generalization!  If nsx is sitting on his ass and enjoying success...all the fucking power to him!

 

Cheers!


do you no longer run a fund Sanjeev?

Posted
1 hour ago, gfp said:


do you no longer run a fund Sanjeev?

 

No, the fund closed after 2024.  We did awesome for the first 9 years beating the S&P500TR by about 6% annualized, and then the struggles and problems at PDH in the ensuing years took its toll.  If I had just focused on the stocks we were buying and selling instead of trying my hand at my own Fairfax or Berkshire, we would have been one of the best performing hedge funds over the last 20 years ending 2025 (just holding what we held at the end of 2024 instead of closing).  About 14.8% annualized versus the S&P500TR of about 10.7% annualized between 2006 and 2025.  Woulda, coulda, shoulda!  🥲

 

The irony is, shortly after taking over PDH, Mohnish called me after struggling with Dhandho and selling Stonetrust, and said "Sanjeev, whatever this is you are doing...just fucking stop!  Sell it, get out, whatever.  Just manage your fund and don't do this.  It's just a pain in the ass...fucking sell and just manage your investment fund!"  In hindsight, I should have listened.  But you dream of building this thing one day and you have no idea what the future looks like...success, failure, mediocrity...!  Que sera sera!  Cheers!

Posted
7 hours ago, Parsad said:

 

Not sure this is a fair representation of an investor or money manager.  If you've ever managed money or run a company, been responsible for other people's assets or to shareholders, or employed people who make their living from your decisions...sitting on your so-called "a$$" is the last thing you are doing!

 

I can't speak for others, and I don't have nearly as much money as the likes of Guy, Mohnish or whoever may be the target of the day by some people on here.  Most of my wealth came from me living frugally, scrimping and saving what I could, and then compounding the hell out of it over the last 20+ years.  We had a Buffett-like performance fee structure at our fund...so no management fee, and my salary was fixed at PDH for 12 years.

 

When I ran my fund, I had many nice partners, and I've had many nice shareholders in what was PDH...but there were a handful that were just plain assholes!  I've made my share of mistakes...that I wholly agree...but getting dozens of emails, phone calls, texts, telling you what a loser you are, or shitty CEO, or awful fund manager while you are recovering from a quadruple bypass or some other diagnosed illness, leaves a pretty big painful gash even after those things have healed and you have recovered.  But that comes with the territory and I'm a big boy...I asked for this!

 

But to say I was ever sitting on my ass is about as erroneous a statement as could be made about my profession!  Forget all the stuff you have to do on a day to day basis as a public company...from dealing with the board, employees, auditors, banks, service providers, shareholders, regulators, securities exchanges, governance, tax, etc.  There were times I was putting in my own money to keep the company alive...trying to find a way to fight another day such as the Pandemic.  Paying salaries and bills with my own funds...not calling it quits!  Even as we closed our investment fund, I gave half of our accumulated fees to the remaining minority partners to make them closer to whole.  They had taken the leap of faith with us all the way...the last thing I was going to do was walk away with the same as them!

 

The assholes didn't know all this and wouldn't have cared...nor should they care...especially as the two main ones enjoyed some of the best returns ever!  Those two were just plain assholes.  They were the type to call out Buffett or Prem on a regular basis...who the hell am I...some wannabee, website guy who wanted to be like them.  Oh wait, I see a lot of that on this message board at times...so there are obviously a bunch of assholes on here too!  🤣

 

The irony of the whole thing is, if luck had anything to do with wealth, and sitting on your ass was a prerequisite for success, the financial Gods shone their light brightly on these two lemonheads!  After the last bunch of emails and texts, I finally told them to "go fuck themselves"!  I hope they tried!

 

Back to my point...I don't know all of the things that Guy or Mohnish, or any other fund manager/executive goes through.  For some, it may mean just sitting on their asses...for others, it may mean getting over their heads and struggling to right a ship...and for others, it may mean they enjoyed a bit of success and hit many of their goals and they might be lucky enough to be living a life they dreamt of.  Regardless, a generalization about them all sitting on the asses is exactly that...an unwarranted generalization!  If nsx is sitting on his ass and enjoying success...all the fucking power to him!

 

Cheers!

Probably it depends on our definition....I define investor who can make his living investing his money only....and of course some of them (the very greedy ones or not good enough ones) reach for other people money to get more risk free upside...and I see nothing wrong with that BTW...but now acting like an hero or a victim is a bit of a stretch...

 

You definition of investor looks like is only people that use other people money to enrich themself... 

 

Ciao Ciao!

Posted
11 hours ago, Sinbius said:

Probably it depends on our definition....I define investor who can make his living investing his money only....and of course some of them (the very greedy ones or not good enough ones) reach for other people money to get more risk free upside...and I see nothing wrong with that BTW...but now acting like an hero or a victim is a bit of a stretch...

 

You definition of investor looks like is only people that use other people money to enrich themself... 

 

Ciao Ciao!

 

Sure I agree with that for the most part.  But it remains a broad generalization.  There are many investors who don't work normal jobs because of their financial position, but give back to the community with time, money, charitable fund-raisers, volunteer work, etc.  I've raised well over $1.2M for non-profits over the last 15 years.  I've donated another $200K+.  We don't necessarily know what many people do with their free time.  One of our well to do investors on this message board raised two children, not his own, to give them a better life, and many of us never knew until this year.  Cheers!

Posted (edited)

 

 

What investors do with their free time has nothing to do with the point I was making...and has nothing to do with the process of investing, it seems you just wanted to point out that some investors do charity (like every other people btw) to put a better frame on the fact that long term investor sit on their a$$ to make money while most people have to do the real hard work.

 

Ciao ciao!

 

 

Edited by Sinbius
Posted
2 hours ago, Sinbius said:

 

 

What investors do with their free time has nothing to do with the point I was making...and has nothing to do with the process of investing, it seems you just wanted to point out that some investors do charity (like every other people btw) to put a better frame on the fact that long term investor sit on their a$$ to make money while most people have to do the real hard work.

 

Ciao ciao!

 

 

You don't get paid for how hard your work is in this world, just the scarcity of your abilities. And good investing is very rare in this world, so it gets paid a lot. Its just that the outcome is hard to measure in investment a priori and thats why it looks like some have not earned their share. Sitting on your ass doing nothing is also sometimes very hard.

Posted
15 hours ago, Sinbius said:

 

 

What investors do with their free time has nothing to do with the point I was making...and has nothing to do with the process of investing, it seems you just wanted to point out that some investors do charity (like every other people btw) to put a better frame on the fact that long term investor sit on their a$$ to make money while most people have to do the real hard work.

 

Ciao ciao!

 

 

 

How does one accumulate enough money to sit on their ass and invest?  Does it fall out of the sky?  Barring an inheritance, a lottery win, or some fortuitous bit of circumstance, most people have to "do the real hard work" to get in a position where they can supposedly sit on their ass all day. 

 

Money managers take on the same responsibility as your common banker, mortgage broker, attorney, pension manager, etc...they are white-collar administrators.  If money managers simply sit on their ass, then all those other white-collar professions do the same.  What do you do for a living?  Sit on your ass or the real hard work?  It would be interesting to know the answer.

 

Cheers!

Posted (edited)

Again...I define investors as people who can make their living investing only their own money...we don't do "real hard work" (of course generally you have to break yourself in two to get enough money to get there if you don't get inheritance or if you don't start very young...)  ...about money manager you know, I know, everybody knows that generally they underperform while making tons of money and that's why indexing has exploded....

 

I get the impression that to "defend" your self image you have to protect the image of investors as something more noble of it really is...

Edited by Sinbius

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