Although We Deal With Probabilities And Expectations,

If We Start Deciding, Based On Guesses Or Emotions, Whether We Will Or Won't Participate In A Business Where We Should Have Some Long Run Edge, We're In Trouble.

Charlie And I Decided Long Ago That In An Investment Lifetime, It's Too Hard To Make Hundreds Of Smart Decisions. That Judgment Became Ever More Compelling As Berkshire's Capital Mushroomed And The Universe Of Investments That Could Significantly Affect Our Results Shrank Dramatically. Therefore, We Adopted A Strategy That Required Our Being Smart And Not Too Smart At That, Only A Very Few Times. Indeed, We Now Settle For One Good Idea A Year.

If You Own The Only Newspaper In Town, Up Until The Last Five Years Or So, You Have Pricing Power And You Didn't Have To Go To The Office.

You Get What I Call The Natural Progression, The Three Is. The Innovators, The Imitators, And The Idiots.

Fund Consultants Like To Require Style Boxes Such As "long-short," "macro," "international Equities." At Berkshire Our Only Style Box Is "smart."