I grew up in Communist China and never had much money to my name, and then, all of a sudden, I had giant student loans.
In my view, the biggest investment risk is not the volatility of prices, but whether you will suffer a permanent loss of capital. Not only is the mere drop in stock prices not risk, but it is an opportunity. Where else do you look for cheap stocks?
When I first came to Columbia University, I was dirt poor. I did not choose to come here - I just ended up here because I had nowhere else to go, having just escaped from China after Tiananmen. I was in a new country where I didn't understand the language, didn't know anybody, and didn't have a penny to my name. So I was desperate and afraid.
Investing is about intellectual honesty. You want to know what you know. You want to know, mostly, what you don't know.
The financial crisis of 2008-09 was in large part the result of the so-called 'success' of people who did not understand their fiduciary duty. This kind of 'success' is extremely harmful to all of society.
Politically, China suppresses its people, but because the government allows some freedom in economic matters, business has become the ultimate expression of individuality.
Investing is about predicting the future, and the future is inherently unpredictable. Therefore, the only way you can do better is to assess all the facts and truly know what you know and know what you don't know. That's your probability edge.
Everyone has blind spots, and even the brightest people are no exceptions.
Management is always part of the equation of making the company successful, so the quality of management always matters.
Only by a process of peaceful evolution can China accomplish its own goals of being a free, prosperous, and strong country.
Without a free man, there is no free market. That's called exploitation.
Management always has a big influence on your success, no matter how good or how bad the business is itself.
You can't imagine a free market coupled with a dictatorship.
The game of investing is a process of discovering who you are, what you're interested in, what you're good at, what you love to do, then magnifying that until you gain a sizable edge over all the other people.
A 'competence' that has no defined borders cannot be called a true competence.
Part of the game of investing is to come into your own. You must find some way that perfectly fits your personality because there is some element of a zero sum game in investing. If you buy, somebody else has to sell. And when you sell, somebody has to buy. You can't both be right.