Survivorship bias is a hell of a drug. The real test to see whether it's wisdom or luck is to predict the next Tesla. I don't think many people who point to their Tesla stock performance as vindication could come up with a repeatable theory of investing. If they could, their TSLA gains would be nothing next to their next investments.
That's how I know people who make that argument don't actually know anything. It's like someone still talking about that great touchdown in high school at 50. Where's the next one?
You don't see Elon Musk bragging about his $22 million from Zip2.
Those companies don’t come often, but you don’t need many winners to be all set.
I saw Google before the rise, Amazon, Apple, Bitcoin and Tesla. I only acted on Tesla after seeing all the other ones before but didn’t put my conviction into action.
It’s not very hard: you read HN daily/weekly and listen to the trends. Pick one that keep coming and interest you and dig deeper, you are not in a hurry as HN is way early in the cycle, the danger is being too early and giving up before it catch up. (Bitcoin)
Pick one big potential winner, calculate the expected value as good as you can Good/Bad scenario, place your bet, let the time do it’s thing.
An example of a bet I didn’t do: Bitcoin was 1$, I knew that if it worked very well it could go to 1M$. Let say you think that the probability of success is 20%: (1M$/1$)*20% = 200 000 to 1. You then place let say 5k$ on bitcoin and forget about it for 10 years.
At the moment, I don't see a trend that catch my attention beside AI and for the moment I think Tesla will be the winner in that trend.
That's how I know people who make that argument don't actually know anything. It's like someone still talking about that great touchdown in high school at 50. Where's the next one?
You don't see Elon Musk bragging about his $22 million from Zip2.