ScottAS

Made enough money to fund myself starting a company (Spellbook). Did an average of 40%/year over 8 years. However my active fund only started at 5% of my portfolio, now it's 95%+.

I think people underestimate how much easier it is to win when you're dealing with smaller amounts vs. being a billion dollar fund.

Fair point. I think the raw data is still too difficult for us to comprehend. So yes, this is more like what you end up with.

Zero AI used (author here)

Author here: I do passive invest, with maybe 1/3rd of my portfolio. It's a self-fulfilling prophecy. As long as people keep piling in money index funds will keep getting pushed upwards in price.

Passive investing works great when it's a minority of the market.

But it obviously does not work, as the majority of inflows become passive.

There is no case in history where: "Keep buying X, regardless of the price of X" has ever turned out well. We come up with new stories every generation around why it can work. Price matters, and as soon as you introduce a mass of buyers who don't care about price, it distorts markets massively.

Michael Burry has a pretty good article that shows how $1 invested into an S&P500 fund gets amplified into $5 of price pressure through perverse feedback loops.

Also: Active managers have no interest in pricing the market for you. They want to make money. Why would they bother pricing the market when they can siphon money off of passives instead? Passives are like a rock-paper-scissors player that always plays Rock. It becomes incredibly easy for funds to frontrun and take advantage of them, and one day they will be left with the bag.

For now, I am in passive. But I will be the first one out when the narrative starts to crack.

Sorry, there is no silver bullet in investing. We keep inventing them and saying "this time it's different". It's not true.

It's pointless because of the hedonic treadmill. Any feel good feeling is neurochemical in nature, and any moment of feeling good will be counterbalanced at one point or another.

A contrarian caution on exercise worship:

Everything that makes us feel good is neurochemical in nature, including exercise. Exercise can lead to a withdrawal period of feeling shitty and unproductive, and it can be quite addictive.

Really important not to confuse "feeling good" with being good for you. Have seen a lot of people overdo it and lose their lives to pointless exercise while accomplishing very little else. Also important to realize that most things in life that give you a boost in life also give you a debt to pay back at a later time/date.

Where I live in Atlantic Canada you can rent the same for $550 USD, or just buy a brand new modern home for $180k USD. People here work remotely for companies like Google. The government will also help fund your startup’s product development through various programs (hundreds of thousands of dollars).

Always wanted to move to San Fran but starting to feel pretty grateful about being here.

The ultimate technomurder mastermind was Charles Babbage. Rest in shame.

Shh... No one tell them what operating systems the army uses.

“Remember when we looked forward to every advance?”

No. Humans have always been afraid of change and skeptical of technology. Books and the printing press were considered destructive inventions that would prevent people from thinking for themselves. There were also extremely negative perceptions of television and the internet.

“Stop living in a bubble. Don’t be afraid to attend job interviews. Job interviews have nothing to do with job seeking.”

Huh? He is advocating to blatantly waste the time of employers? And presumably lie to them to get the interview?

I honestly don’t know if this is the greatest troll, or worst article, that I’ve ever seen on HN.