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> [Graham] didn’t go to lunch that day—he just sat there and talked to me [Buffet] for four hours like I was the most important person in the world. When he ope

> [Graham] didn’t go to lunch that day—he just sat there and talked to me [Buffet] for four hours like I was the most important person in the world. When he opened that door to me, he opened the door to the insurance world.” The Snowball That's great! Guess what the vast majority of people don't have access to? Really great mentors. Unless, and hear me out here, those mentors wrote down their wisdom, say some great work of philosophy[0] or even a groundbreaking technical work[1]. Even better, you can access these founts of knowledge after their authors have passed on! [0] - https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/2680 https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/2680 [1] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Principia_Mathematica https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Principia_Mathematica

ksdale 5y ago
I think this is quite clever and it made me chuckle! I think it's plausible that access to a mediocre mentor could actually have better results, though, than reading books by the best mentors. Naturally there is room for both, but I have learned a ton from practitioners (for lack of a better work) who are decidedly average compared to Warren Buffett's mentors (or Isaac Newton).
- npsimons 5y ago
  > Naturally there is room for both, but I have learned a ton from practitioners (for lack of a better work) who are decidedly average compared to Warren Buffett's mentors (or Isaac Newton). That's fair, and it might even lead to the truism that access to a mediocre mentor could actually have better results than reading books by the best mentors. But we must also take into account that different people learn best differently. Me, I've never really gotten much out of the mentor/mentee model, possibly because I've never had a good mentor. But I feel it goes farther than that - even good lectures have problems holding my attention, and for reasons said elsewhere in the comments, I've found well-developed written sources to be immeasurably beneficial to my learning. One thing that strikes me is I wonder if there's any correlation to those who can work well remotely and those who learn better from books. This whole "in-person is always better" smacks of the chauvinism the corporate world suffers from in regards to work sites. That said, yeah, you have to apply and practice eventually. And having someone to imitate or model after, or better yet impart constructive criticism, is invaluable. But there's a whole heck of a lot that can be imparted from reading a book.
smitty1e 5y ago
The theory I heard was that if I read for 10,000 hours I would promote to Master of Reading and then just absorb other books via osmosis.

ksdale 5y ago

I think this is quite clever and it made me chuckle! I think it's plausible that access to a mediocre mentor could actually have better results, though, than reading books by the best mentors. Naturally there is room for both, but I have learned a ton from practitioners (for lack of a better work) who are decidedly average compared to Warren Buffett's mentors (or Isaac Newton).

npsimons 5y ago
> Naturally there is room for both, but I have learned a ton from practitioners (for lack of a better work) who are decidedly average compared to Warren Buffett's mentors (or Isaac Newton). That's fair, and it might even lead to the truism that access to a mediocre mentor could actually have better results than reading books by the best mentors. But we must also take into account that different people learn best differently. Me, I've never really gotten much out of the mentor/mentee model, possibly because I've never had a good mentor. But I feel it goes farther than that - even good lectures have problems holding my attention, and for reasons said elsewhere in the comments, I've found well-developed written sources to be immeasurably beneficial to my learning. One thing that strikes me is I wonder if there's any correlation to those who can work well remotely and those who learn better from books. This whole "in-person is always better" smacks of the chauvinism the corporate world suffers from in regards to work sites. That said, yeah, you have to apply and practice eventually. And having someone to imitate or model after, or better yet impart constructive criticism, is invaluable. But there's a whole heck of a lot that can be imparted from reading a book.

smitty1e 5y ago

The theory I heard was that if I read for 10,000 hours I would promote to Master of Reading and then just absorb other books via osmosis.