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It's not just Buffett though: https://www8.gsb.columbia.edu/articles/columbia-business/superinvestors https://www8.gsb.columbia.edu/articles/columbia-business/s

• Applejinx 10y ago
  The argument here suggests that there may be choices to make that guarantee LOSS, not success. In that case, learning how to avoid the 'automatic loses' is important and the more people that learn it, the closer things revert to the power-law distribution. I see no reason to conclude the hyper-winners are more than just luck. Perhaps all the '1% edge' associated with talent is simply avoiding bad mistakes that always deliver a loss. If everyone performs optimally, it becomes entirely and completely luck.
  • Godel_unicode 10y ago
    > ... If everyone performs optimally... I guess it's a lucky thing that'll never happen? I seriously think the only skill involved in investing is a combination of humility and an admission that you're not smarter than everyone else. It keeps you medium conservative and provides solid returns.
    • dsacco 10y ago
      It's impossible to empirically examine whether or not humility and reverse-Dunning-Krueger is important for trading acumen. On the other hand, it's demonstrable that domain knowledge and business acumen, or mathematically modeled market signals and statistical insight can result in reliably superlative returns.
• avn2109 10y ago
  Yeah, Buffet is actually not the best case to back up this argument with. RenTech/Jim Simons [0] is probably a better example of making money on pure skill. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Renaissance_Technologies https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Renaissance_Technologies