Learning from other’s mistakes is a better way to learn than hoping to make them all yourself and learn along the way. There’s far less pain involved – this typically involves big losses in investing – and you get a secondary lesson from other investors being humble. That second part you don’t see very often.
There are a few great investors who seem to bring it up mistakes all the time. Buffett does this annually in his letters. I came across two others – Seth Klarman and Howard Marks – discussing it in a transcript from the 2008 Graham and Dodd Symposium. Continue Reading…