Undershoot
If you’re African-American and richer than Oprah, Forbes will find out.
Robert F. Smith has been leading his investment firm Vista Equity Partners for a couple of decades and has clearly done well, especially since he has been curious about the tech industry for very long:
Over the weekend, as I revisited Penn’s campus in Philadelphia, I received an alert that Mr. Smith told the graduating class at Morehouse College that he was going to pay off their student loans:
Of course, that news is a lovely commencement headline while it is also the plotline of the “Scott’s Tots” episode of The Office (Season 6, Episode 12):
“The principal told me that 90% of Scott’s Tots are on track to graduate, and that’s 35% higher than the rest of the school. So I think if you hadn’t made that promise, a lot of them would’ve dropped out. Which is something to think about, I think.”
Entrepreneur and venture capitalist Paul Graham reminded me of a Charlie Munger quote, which I covertly mentioned to undergraduates on Saturday:
“In my whole life, I have known no wise people (over a broad subject matter area) who didn’t read all the time — none, zero. You’d be amazed at how much Warren [Buffett] reads — and at how much I read. My children laugh at me. They think I’m a book with a couple of legs sticking out.”
Earning a diploma is a worthwhile accomplishment.
But it is not the end of education. Otherwise, it’d be a dead end.
A lot of former classmates asked me several investment questions, which I tried to answer briefly without going into a full Shakespearean monologue.
Today, Josh Brown sent out a good tweet, which indirectly poked a bit of fun at Deutsche Bank, but was meant for most money managers and that ilk:
Part of the reason why I like independent money management is that it cuts out middlemen, who are many in number as Ben Carlson points out:
“As of the end of 2018, there were not only 118,000+ open-end funds around the globe but nearly $47 trillion in assets in these funds.
The sheer number of choices available is mind-boggling.
Almost $50 trillion in assets is why index funds will never completely put the active management industry out of business. There’s way too much money sloshing around for people to leave this industry.
The biggest trend in the fund space over the past decade or so is the explosive growth in index funds and ETFs and the commensurate outflows from the active mutual fund space.”
Starting one’s adulthood without any debt on the way to financial independence isn’t an immediate option for everyone.
The proverbial ‘millionaire next door’ is one who has a million dollars in assets and does not need to spend a million dollars on anything.
There are many good decisions to start making at age 22 that can move people in the right direction.
Maybe learn to dance while your knees still work.
As the Freaks & Geeks pilot reminds us, someone always needs a partner:
“If the worst thing in your life is somebody makes you go to a dance, then I’d say you have a pretty good life.”
