I received my copy of the Stripe Press version of Poor Charlie’s Almanack a couple of weeks ago after waiting for six months. I was thrilled to unwrap the book, and have been reading it during my free time this holiday season. Although I am still working through it, I have been thoroughly enjoying it.
- Think and behave long term.
- Be patient.
- Compound. (See #1)
- The world is a complex, dynamic system. (“The ecosystem approach”).
- Display conviction in concentration.
- Display conviction in contrarianism.
- Eliminate the red, hot risks, ie what not to do. This echoes Tom Perkins and Brook Byers’s approach at KPCB 1
- “A great business at a fair price is better than a fair business at a great price.”
- “Process protects us from the poverty of our intentions.”
- To learn, always ask why, why and why.
- Invert, always invert. Think forward and backwards.
- Recognise and accept reality as it is, not as you want it to be, especially when you don’t like it.
- Be as simple as you can, but never simpler.
- There are only one or two things that really matter in any game. Find those one or two things and be very, very good at it to win the game.
- Enjoy the process along with the proceeds because the process is where you live.
- “Brook Byers, who joined Kleiner Perkins a few years later as a young partner, reflected on the lessons that KP drew from this experience. By focusing exclusively on the “white-hot” risks in a project, you could find out whether the venture was likely to work while risking as little capital as possible.”
— The Power Law: Venture Capital and the Making of the New Future by Sebastian Mallaby
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