MICHEL PIREU: Sticking to your out-of-the-box truth key to investing success
Being independently minded and bold enough to stand out from the crowd will stand you in good stead
Billionaire tech entrepreneur Peter Thiel likes to ask job candidates what important truth very few people agree with them on. The question is more difficult to answer than you might think, says Thiel in his book Zero to One, as it requires candidates to show both creative-thinking skills as well as the courage to voice an unpopular opinion. It’s intellectually difficult because the knowledge everyone is taught in school is by definition agreed upon. And it’s psychologically difficult because anyone trying to answer must say something she knows to be unpopular. It’s a question investors might want to ask themselves too. After all, a prerequisite for beating the markets is not only the need to think differently in a way few will agree with, but also to be correct on an important truth. As Howard Marks puts it: “Extraordinary performance comes from being different. It must be that way. When you do what everyone else does you’re going to get the same results everyone else gets. Nor is ...
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