Warren Buffett letter to Katherine Graham on pensions and how he saved the Washington Post.
Excerpt followed by full letter below.
“If above-average performance is to be their yard stick, the vast majority of investment managers must fail. Will a few succeed — due to either to chance or skill? Of course. For some intermediate period of years a few are bound to look better than average due to chance — just as would be the case if 1,000 ‘coin managers’ engaged in a coin-flipping contest. There would be some ‘winners’ over a five or 10-flip measurement cycle. (After five flips, you would expect to have 31 with uniformly ‘successful’ records — who, with their oracular abilities confirmed in the crucible of the marketplace, would author pedantic essays on subjects such as pensions.)”
