How investors think about edge, price against value, and the conditions that let returns compound.
The market misprices what is hard to measure, so a consistent cheap signal can beat an expensive expert.
Quant interviews, any debate about discretionary against systematic investing, and understanding how you yourself are being assessed in recruiting.
From Moneyball · 2011
Judge a chief executive by what they do with the cash, not by how well they run what produces it.
Private equity interviews, assessing a management team, and any question about buybacks, dividends or acquisitions.
From The Outsiders · William N. Thorndike
Judge a decision by what was knowable when it was made, and keep the outcome in a separate column.
Reviewing a trade or a deal that went wrong, answering a question about a failure, and any post-mortem.
From Thinking in Bets · Annie Duke
Results come from a few outcomes, so the job is to survive long enough to be there when they arrive.
Position sizing, venture portfolio construction, and any moment of frustration that most of your effort seems to produce nothing.
From The Psychology of Money · Morgan Housel
When the filings are what is in doubt, the evidence has to come from outside them.
Building a short thesis, or any diligence where the reported numbers seem too good for the business described.
From The China Hustle · 2017
Expect an edge to be small, to fade, and to cost more to find than to run; a large, durable, obvious one is probably not an edge.
Quant interviews, and any conversation about whether a published strategy can still work.
From The Man Who Solved the Market · Gregory Zuckerman
Separate a bad year into your errors and the market's mood, name the errors specifically, and say whether the method changes.
Reviewing your own record, reading any manager's bad year, and the interview question about a mistake.
From Giverny Capital's 2025 annual letter, on a year of underperformance · François Rochon
Start from an observation you can make and others cannot, then do the work to see whether the market already knows.
Stock idea generation and the stock pitch question in any buy-side interview.
From One Up on Wall Street · Peter Lynch
Before estimating, ask what number is anchoring you and what the base rate is for cases like this.
Valuation, deal pricing, forecasting, and the behavioural finance questions in hedge fund and asset management interviews.
From Thinking, Fast and Slow · Daniel Kahneman
Ask what period a model was fitted to, and whether that period contained the event you are worried about.
Any risk model, stress test or structured product that reports a probability of loss.
From Berkshire Hathaway's 2008 letter to shareholders · Warren Buffett
Ask how a business escapes competition before asking how large its market is.
Venture and growth interviews, any moat discussion, and any pitch that leads with market size.
From Zero to One · Peter Thiel and Blake Masters
Duration beats brilliance in compounding; arrange your life and portfolio so you are never forced to stop.
Thinking about personal finance, about a long career, or about why survival matters more than any single year's return.
From Becoming Warren Buffett · 2017
A forecast is a story written in numbers; if a row cannot be said as a sentence about the business, it should not be in the model.
Building or defending a DCF, writing a stock pitch, or reviewing someone else's model.
From Narrative and Numbers · Aswath Damodaran
Before weighing advice, work out how the adviser is paid and what that pays them to say.
Evaluating any product, fund or recommendation, and in interviews about asset management economics.
From Where Are the Customers' Yachts? · Fred Schwed Jr.
Ask what would make this fail and who is paid for what before asking anything else.
Diligence, deal structuring, reading any management proposal, and preparing for any decision you cannot easily reverse.
From Poor Charlie's Almanack · Charles T. Munger
Look for situations where the range of outcomes is wide but the chance of permanent loss is small, because the market prices both as risk.
Idea generation, special situations, and any pitch where the obvious objection is that the outcome is unknowable.
From The Dhandho Investor · Mohnish Pabrai
Ask how many people ran the same method and are not in the sample before treating a record as evidence of skill.
Reading any success memoir, evaluating a manager's record, or presenting your own.
From How I Made $2,000,000 in the Stock Market · Nicolas Darvas
The price of risk tracks the mood, so the useful time to buy is when the mood is worst, and the dangerous time is when it is best.
Any question about market timing, contrarian investing or what to do in a crisis.
From Berkshire Hathaway's 2008 letter to shareholders · Warren Buffett
Decide what a business is worth before looking at the price, then act only when the price is far enough below.
Any stock pitch, any conversation about whether a market move is a reason to act, and any valuation that starts from the price.
From The Intelligent Investor · Benjamin Graham
A track record with no bad months is a question, not a credential.
Due diligence on any manager, strategy or product that reports steady positive returns.
From Madoff: The Monster of Wall Street · 2023
Measure risk as the chance of ending the holding period with less buying power, which makes volatile productive assets safer than stable unproductive ones.
Any debate about what risk means, portfolio construction over long horizons, and questions about gold or cash as safe assets.
From Berkshire Hathaway's 2011 letter to shareholders · Warren Buffett
Write the thesis with its test attached: the variant view, the evidence, and the event that would confirm or refute it.
Writing a stock pitch, reviewing a portfolio, and any investment committee that wants to know what would change your mind.
From Greenhaven Road Capital's Q2 2026 letter, on changing how the portfolio is built · Scott Miller
A hedge is a premium paid every year; over a long bull market the premium is the whole story, so account for it as a cost from the start.
Portfolio hedging decisions, insurance company analysis, and any discussion of tail protection.
From Fairfax Financial's 2016 letter to shareholders · Prem Watsa
Investors as a group earn what businesses earn minus what they pay to helpers; every layer of advice is a claim on that pool.
Asset management economics, the active-passive debate, and any fee discussion.
From Berkshire Hathaway's 2005 letter to shareholders · Warren Buffett
A short thesis is a public claim set against a fact the company does not control, with the arithmetic that joins them shown.
Short pitches, forensic work, and any thesis that depends on reported figures being false.
From Muddy Waters' initiating report on Sino-Forest · Muddy Waters Research
The common factor among people who last is not how they pick trades but how they limit what a wrong one costs.
Sales and trading, hedge fund and any markets interview that asks how you would manage a position.
From Market Wizards · Jack D. Schwager