Liberty

Here's another possible scenario: A different cryptocurrency catches on (because of a better design, because of some event with Bitcoin, etc).

Absolutely. And even more important than that IMO is realizing that happiness and spending money are different things. Sometimes they can go together, but not nearly as often as most people believe. Only once that link is broken in your mind can you hope to one day truly have "enough".

Thanks for sharing, Cannibal. Welcome to the forum!

Sure. But I'm not sure that's really a problem with Musk. He seems very aware of his limitations and of the potential for failure. In interview, he says that he actually thought the more likely outcome for SpaceX was failure, and last year in a bloomberg interview he said that the thought Tesla's stock was overvalued. His focus is always on working harder, doing better, constantly improving. Doesn't sound like one of those entrepreneurs who let success get to their heads and then think they are invincible and everything that they thouch has to turn to gold. That doesn't meant that he'll always succeed, but at least he's working on important and hard problems that can make a difference in the world and that few others dare work on (who needs one more social network of mobile app company?).

Isn't that a macro fund, though? Kind of like Dalio's fund. Different approach. He mostly buys asset classes rather than businesses, afaik.

Very good, thanks for sharing your perspective. In between reading the MMM archives I've read a few of the about pages and foundation posts at ERE and so far I like it. Interesting that the guy was a nuclear astrophysicist, obviously quite smart and erudite.

Are you planning to retire early, or are you just using the tips/philosophy to reduce your expenses? Who here has actually done it (retired early)? Any advice, curveball, etc?

Your friends appear to be hipsters or trying to elevate their social status by looking down on someone that everybody else thinks has high social status, or something like that. Musk worked directly on Zip2 and Paypal, very complex projects (especially for their time). He then became head designer of rockets for SpaceX while running the business side (teaching himself rocketry), while running Tesla and also doing engineering and design work there, for a long time inspecting every single car off the assembly line and financing the company himself (check out the documentary Revenge of the Electric car to see how close they came to failure and how Musk basically kept the company going through sheer strenght of will), meanwhile having the idea that became SolarCity (a company that was created by his cousins, of which he's chairman). Oh, and on his free time, he designed the HyperLoop and released the plans in the public domain and says he has a design for a vertical-landing-and-takeoff electric plane. And he's in early 40s. Some people are good at finding good people and motivating them (Steve Jobs was more like that, though he was also deeply involed), but Musk is definitely up to his neck in the engineering stuff and knows his stuff. Listen to any interviews where someone asks a simple question and he goes off in the weeds on some rocket engine details, or check out his twitter discussions with John Carmack (another programming genius who now builds rockets) about rocket minutia.. Yeah, nothing to be impressed with there...

Have you checked out ERE (Early Retirement Extreme) as well? Next on my list (including the book). What are your thoughts on both MMM and ERE? Are you following the plan (either, both?). Do you prefer one over the other? So far it's mostly stuff I had read years ago in some of the old school versions of this philosophy (Your Money or Your Life, Tightwad Gazette, Simple Dollar, etc), but it's good to refresh the ol' memory and it does provide extra motivation (kind of like reading on value investing, even if the principles don't change).

I've been reading the Mr Money Mustache blog archives from the beginning and I think it could interest some people here (those interested in early retirement, or in tips on how to reduce their expenses). http://www.mrmoneymustache.com/2012/01/13/the-shockingly-simple-math-behind-early-retirement/

Nice chart of the past 150 years of oil prices in constant dollars. Gives some perspective:

http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20150116005985/en/Liberty-Broadband-Corp.-Announces-Completion-Rights-Offering

Only true if you are confident that the value is still there. Are you sure you can predict what will happen in this case?

Yes, thank you for sharing your hard-earned lessons with us Cardboard, I really appreciate it. I made some notes for each of your points in my investment journal, and hopefully rereading it someday will help keep me out of trouble when things have been going too well for a while and I become less careful.

Here's a Ted Weschler (I'm assuming it's him, sounds more like him than Combs) pick that is getting beaten up today because they released a lower guidance than expected: http://www.nasdaq.com/press-release/precision-castparts-corp-provides-preliminary-third-quarter-fiscal-year-2015-results-20150115-01118 It's not one I own, though I looked at it back when I was first researching Transdigm (TDG). Seems like a quality business with an impressive track record. I thought it was worth creating a thread for it.

Latest commentary by Stahl. Some very interesting stuff about indexes and ETFs: http://www.horizonkinetics.com/docs/Q4%202014%20Commentary_FINAL.pdf Also, FRMO Q2: http://frmocorp.com/_content/10q/FRMO_Corp_Q2_2015.pdf

Wild guess: Sanjeev :)

I'm still finding new ways that I was lucky last year. I sold my BAC warrants, some above $8, most in the $7+ range, to redeploy the capital in something else that I thought was a better idea. Never thought I'd see the warrants back in the mid $5 range...

Thanks for giving me your answer to that question.

http://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/885590/000119312515011440/d852898dex991.htm

Ah!... But that would have been impolite and presumptuous! Far from me! I know, that's why I said I thought the phrasing was problematic, and I ignored it the first time. I figured it wasn't what you meant, but then you specifically asked about it so I explained :) I know I said we should drop this, but there's one of the many things that I said that I'm really curious to hear your opinion on. What do you think of this: "If Buffett or Watsa or Munger or Klarman was running single-digit millions, do you think they'd be fully invested [if they saw enough things that met their criteria] or do you think they'd hold cash based on market-timing/macro factors?" Cheers!

I know! That's why I have written: ;) Gio I saw that, I just thought it was kind of a condescending phrasing, as if all I needed to do was read it again, because I didn't understand it the first time, and then I'd of course agree with you... ;)

Anyway, this is redundant, we've already said all this before. Let's drop it.

On the contrary: if you read again “Margin of Safety”, you'll find out that to Klarman the true opportunity cost is suffered by those who don’t have buying power when a great investment opportunity comes around. Because, if the market declines, the value of their whole portfolio will most probably follow suit. Instead, the opportunity cost suffered by those who hold cash is there for everyone to see: 9 years of compounding at 16%, instead of 9 years of compounding at 20% (just a numerical example of course!). Gio I've read margin of safety. What I'm telling you is that if you see good buying opportunities that meet all your criteria now you probably shouldn't hold cash. There might be better buying opportunities later (there can always be), but I'd rather spend years in good investments that create value, and then maybe have to sell cheap things to buy even cheaper things, or buy on margin, then spend potentially productive years sitting on dust gathering cash while I'm seeing opportunities that meet all my criteria. You can very well say that you're not seeing enough things that meet your criteria, and that's fine, but what's the point of having these criteria if you don't buy when you see things that meet them? You can be a market crash fetishist if you want, but that's market timing and that's not how I want to operate because I don't think I can do it. If it works for you, fine.

Ok... ThenI will warn Klarman that what he has written is meaningless… Though, I think I am already guessing how he might answer: “Lad, the numbers are not all that important… I was just trying to convey an idea through a numerical example!” ;) Cheers, Gio While you're at it, please ask him to get Margin of Safety reprinted. I have a PDF copy, but I wouldn't mind having a hard copy. You know what I meant. You come out with numbers that show that it's better to compound at 16% and not drop than to compound higher but have a higher drop. Well, sure. And I can make up numbers that show that it's better to have a temporary drop (as long as it's not a permanent loss) yet compound faster over the long term. That's another flaw in your example. You assume that the 30% drop in the last year is the end point and that's that, iit's a permanent loss. If you are in good businesses, it rarely is, and it can be an opportunity for these businesses to deploy capital, buy back shares, etc. How much would the market have to drop for Hussman to make up for the lost opportunity from the past 5 years when he was bearish? If someone holds 30% cash, what's the IRR that he would have to deploy that cash at to make up for, say, 5-10 15 years of holding cash when that cash was in the sidelines beacuse the CAPE was above average valuation or whatever? If you don't see opportunities, by all means hold cash. But realize what opportunity cost it has. If Buffett or Watsa or Munger or Klarman was running single-digit millions, do you think they'd be fully invested or do you think they'd hold cash based on market-timing/macro factors?