I am not an oligarch. I am a servant and I try to align my interests and those of my investors.
Rising interest rates are considered bad for stocks because they raise the cost of doing business and depress corporate earnings and because higher yields make bonds relatively more attractive than stocks to investors.
But successful investors tend to be not too self-destructive. They tend to be patient, they tend not to follow the crowd, and they tend not to be too guilty about winning.
I think good private equity investors create a lot more economic value than they destroy.
Beware angel investors: they can be disruptive.
My view is that one should diversify broadly across different fund investments. However, it's tough for investors to try to pick the appropriate risk level that they should manage their funds at. Having a personal adviser would be helpful.
Investors covet past improvements but also always believe pricing unimaginable future creativity and efficiency gains is Pollyannaish. And they're always wrong. Bet on it.
It's nice to stay up nights worrying about the material, and not about the investors who gave you $10 million to do your musical.
Audiences aren't fools - their judgement really is important. And the true heroes of films are the investors. They take the risk, after all.
I don't think it ever occurred to me that I wouldn't be an entrepreneur. My dad became a real estate developer, and that work is usually project-based. You attract investors for a project with a certain life cycle, and then you move on to the next thing. It's almost like being a serial entrepreneur, so I had that as an example.
Investors tend to discover 'hot' mutual fund managers just after a successful run and just before the inescapable force of mean reversion is about to kick in.
The 'copy, paste' mentality of some investors and entrepreneurs - be careful of that. Do something that is unique to you, not because someone else's journey is mirroring it.
So many folks in the venture capital business are sheep that just want to follow the herd. They are momentum investors purchasing highly illiquid investments. That is a recipe for disaster.
It is important for investors to understand what they do and don't know. Learn to recognize that you cannot possibly know what is going to happen in the future, and any investment plan that is dependent on accurately forecasting where markets will be next year is doomed to failure.
The amount of U.S. debt held by countries such as China and Japan is at a historic high, with foreign investors holding half of America's publicly held debt. This dependence raises the specter that other nations will be able to influence our policies in ways antithetical to American interests.
