From Whitney Tilson’s latest email to friends – presented without comment…
I’m on a flight to LA right now to attend Charlie Munger’s Daily Journal annual meeting tomorrow (at the Doubletree Hotel, 120 South Los Angeles St.), which I highly recommend (at 94, he’s isn’t getting any younger!). It’s not too late to go (you don’t need a ticket or be a shareholder) and you can do it as a day trip from NYC – just take the 6am flight tomorrow from JFK (though the airfare is now $943).
If you’re coming, please join Glenn and me afterward for a free lunch/reception we’re hosting immediately afterward in the Thousand Cranes room on the first floor. It’s open to all – just come by to say hi, meet fellow Munger junkies, and grab a drink and bite. Please RSVP here: www.eventbrite.com/e/kase-learning-lunchreception-registration-42726049765
(We will also be hosting five events in Omaha on Friday, Saturday and Sunday on May 4-6 – stay tuned for details.)
2) We had a great four days last week teaching our three-day bootcamp on Lessons from the Trenches: Value Investing, Entrepreneurship & Life, followed by our one-day seminar on How to Launch and Build an Investment Fund. Attached is the agenda for each day.
It occurred to me recently that lawyers and doctors are required to do continuing legal and medical education, respectively, to maintain their certification – there are big industries around both. That’s the way it should be for any high-level profession – you should see the ongoing training pilots and Navy SEALs do, for example.
Yet in the investing world, what is there? Pretty much nothing! There are not only no requirements – but even for those of us who want to invest in improving our skills as investors, portfolio managers and/or investment entrepreneurs, there are virtually no programs beyond the basics taught to MBAs. Over the last two decades, I tried to make up for this by going to every Berkshire meeting, reading every investing book I could find, going to conferences, sitting in on Joel Greenblatt’s class, cultivating mentors, starting investment newsletter and conference businesses in part to learn from other great investors, etc.
As a result of this enormous, focused effort, I was able to piece together a decent investment education – but no better than decent. I found that I was still learning so many lessons the hard way: by making mistakes and getting scars on my back. To my great regret, the end result was the failure and closure of my business.
That isn’t easy to admit – but will perhaps help you understand what I’m trying to do with my new business, Kase Learning: share all the lessons I (and Glenn and our guest speakers) have learned over two decades – the things I did right to grow over a dozen years from managing $1 million out of my bedroom to $200 million and, perhaps even more importantly, the many things I did wrong to then, slowly and painfully over seven years, lose it all.
If you think you still have something to learn as an investor and/or entrepreneur – and want practical, hands-on, real world lessons, taught by people who’ve been in the trenches for a long time – then join us at one of our upcoming programs. Here’s what we’ve scheduled so far (all at the NY Athletic Club, from 8am to 8pm):
1) An intensive, three-day bootcamp: Lessons from the Trenches: Value Investing, Entrepreneurship & Life
– March 26-28 and April 29-May 1
2) A one-day seminar: How to Launch and Build an Investment Fund
– March 29 and May 2
– Can be taken as an optional 4th day of a bootcamp or a stand-alone day
3) A one-day best-idea conference on May 3: The Art, Pain and Opportunity of Short Selling
You can learn more and register at www.kaselearning.com.
If you’re in NYC, please come to one of our free information sessions a week tomorrow (Wed., 2/21) from noon-1:00pm or 6:00-7:00pm at the ISIE Business School, 165 West 57th Street, 2nd Floor (directly across the street from Carnegie Hall). You can register here: www.eventbrite.com/e/information-session-for-whitney-tilsons-kase-learning-bootcamp-registration-41503441912 (we’re also doing an identical day on Monday, March 12).
I hope to see you at one of our events!
Kase Learning agenda-bootcamp and seminar-2-18Kase Learning agenda-bootcamp and seminar-2-18
