Investing is about predicting the future, and the future is inherently unpredictable. Therefore, the only way you can do better is to assess all the facts and truly know what you know and know what you don't know. That's your probability edge.
I was a college student in 1989 when I participated in the demonstration at Tiananmen Square. I was one of the organizers.
When I first came to Columbia University, I was dirt poor. I did not choose to come here - I just ended up here because I had nowhere else to go, having just escaped from China after Tiananmen. I was in a new country where I didn't understand the language, didn't know anybody, and didn't have a penny to my name. So I was desperate and afraid.
I graduated from Columbia University in 1996 and founded my investment company in 1997, thus starting my professional investment career.
Free market never succeeded without free men and free society.
I have three lovely children. They are beautiful, talented, and kind-hearted. I'm most proud of them. I love them so much that I will never want to burden them with a large amount of inherited wealth.
The game of investing is a process of discovering who you are, what you're interested in, what you're good at, what you love to do, then magnifying that until you gain a sizable edge over all the other people.
Mao Zedong's way was to make people crazy. It was like a religious cult.
I was born in April of 1966, on the eve of the Cultural Revolution. Soon after, my parents and grandparents all lost personal freedom simply for being intellectuals. So I spent most of my childhood rotating between adopted families of peasants and coalminers.
I grew up in Communist China and never had much money to my name, and then, all of a sudden, I had giant student loans.
In my view, the biggest investment risk is not the volatility of prices, but whether you will suffer a permanent loss of capital. Not only is the mere drop in stock prices not risk, but it is an opportunity. Where else do you look for cheap stocks?
