I do not believe in inheriting your position in society based on which womb you come from... I think a rich person should leave his children enough so they can do anything, but not enough so they can do nothing.

Read Ben Graham and Phil Fisher read annual reports, but don't do equations with Greek letters in them.

Having first rate people on the team is more important than designing hierarchies and clarifying who reports to whom.

Tell me your heroes and I'll tell you how your life will end up

In our view, though, investment students need only two well-taught courses-How to Value a Business, and How to Think about Market Prices. Your goal as an investor should simply be to purchase, at a rational price, a part interest in an easily-understandable business who's earnings are virtually certain to be materially higher five, ten and twenty years from now.

As one of my older friends says, "Nostalgia just isn't what it used to be." Let's take a stab at it, anyway.

None of this means, however, that a business or stock is an intelligent purchase simply because it is unpopular; a contrarian approach is just as foolish as a follow-the-crowd strategy. What's required is thinking rather than polling. Unfortunately, Bertrand Russell's observation about life in general applies with unusual force in the financial world: "Most men would rather die than think. Many do."