TALEB: STRONG FILTERING as GENERALIZED FLANEURING

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By   Nassim Nicholas Taleb

H/T ValueInvestingWorld 

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STRONG FILTERING as GENERALIZED FLANEURING
This page is not about finance except when the idea generalizes. Here it helps us connect flaneuring to successes such as those of Buffet.
The best thing is to not have to do anything *as a default*. So one commits in those cases that are way too obvious.
+ No schedule except when you can't do without
+ Have no personal assistant.
+ Have no office, or only use one when strictly necessary.
+ Only write things that you find compelling.
+ Take only those offers that you can't refuse.
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So I figured out something about the success of Munger-Buffett. It is not in the strategies they run, but in their very, very, very strong filtering.
Simply it is generalized flaneuring. Charlie Munger: "We have no system for estimating the correct value of all businesses. We put almost all in the "too hard" pile and sift through a few easy ones". "Warren (Buffett) talks about these discounted cash flows. I've never seen him do one". (in Tren Griffin's book)

The implication is that the nuances of the "genre" as strategy matter less than filtering. Because of such nonlinearity, Buffett's performance is no longer correlated with that of the strategy.

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