INCENTIVES
“Show me the incentive and I will show you the outcome.” — Charlie Munger
I believe it should be a legal requirement for all creators of investing content to disclose their incentives. After all, it seems obvious to me that the incentives driving the content creator will inevitably affect their views and the content they create.
So what is my incentive? I would say there are three professional incentives behind this blog, and a personal incentive.
- Within the next 10 years, I plan to start an investment fund. I believe I have the right character traits, the passion and the discipline to succeed at it (whether I will actually succeed remains to be seen). This is why I believe building a great reputation as a knowledgeable and trustworthy provider of financial insights will help me in the long run.
- As an investor in public and private companies myself, it will benefit me greatly to be forced to conduct deep research, thinking and analysis on important investing topics. Reading and thinking are great, but writing about a topic forces the author to refine his understanding of the concepts discussed.
- I believe a financial blog may help me get access to interviews with management and key senior employees at companies I am considering investing in.
- As a lifelong writer obsessed with learning and thinking, I take great pleasure in sharing my thoughts on topics I’m interested in.
Should any other incentives come up, the points above shall be quickly updated to reflect them.
RISK
This is as much a legal requirement as an ethical disclaimer. I want to make it very clear that under no circumstance should you or anyone you know make any investment based solely on the information provided in this blog.
More specifically, the warnings below are extremely important:
- The content provided in this blog will be of no help to investors with a time horizon of less than 5 years. No short-term investment should ever be attempted based on the information on this website. In fact, I discourage all investors from conducting investments targeting short-term gains, period.
- Even long-term investments made based partly on the insights on this blog can decline in value by 50%, 70%, 90% or even lead to permanent loss of all the capital invested. Markets are volatile, the business world is extremely competitive, and it’s important to be prepared for the worst.
- Investing wisdom can be drastically different based on your life situation. You should only make investments that fit your personal and professional situation. Do not make investments with money you might need for short-term needs.
