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?
Li Lu
To us, anyone who opposes dictatorship is our friend. Those who support it, our enemy.
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.
Without a free man, there is no free market. That's called exploitation.
Everyone has blind spots, and even the brightest people are no exceptions.
Investing is about intellectual honesty. You want to know what you know. You want to know, mostly, what you don't know.
The financial crisis of 2008-09 was in large part the result of the so-called 'success' of people who did not understand their fiduciary duty. This kind of 'success' is extremely harmful to all of society.
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.
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.
Only by a process of peaceful evolution can China accomplish its own goals of being a free, prosperous, and strong country.
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.
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.
Management is always part of the equation of making the company successful, so the quality of management always matters.
The whole thing is, really, money makes money. That's the whole thing about capitalism. Without the capital, there is no -ism.
A 'competence' that has no defined borders cannot be called a true competence.
Management always has a big influence on your success, no matter how good or how bad the business is itself.
Whatever you are is because of what your ancestors have done.
Politically, China suppresses its people, but because the government allows some freedom in economic matters, business has become the ultimate expression of individuality.
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.
All companies incur expenses, some of which are fixed and bear no relation to sales volumes. In this way, profits can grow at a faster rate than sales.
At various stages in my life, I could have stopped, or took the long rest. For some reason, my heart told me otherwise. I just kept going. Half of the time, I wasn't sure where I was heading. The other half, I was probably taking the wrong turns. No matter.
You can't imagine a free market coupled with a dictatorship.
Free market never succeeded without free men and free society.
I was a college student in 1989 when I participated in the demonstration at Tiananmen Square. I was one of the organizers.
Part of the game of investing is to come into your own. You must find some way that perfectly fits your personality because there is some element of a zero sum game in investing. If you buy, somebody else has to sell. And when you sell, somebody has to buy. You can't both be right.
I graduated from Columbia University in 1996 and founded my investment company in 1997, thus starting my professional investment career.
Rock and roll was a revelation for me.
I was born and grew up in China during the 1960s.
I think we Chinese are just as capable, as diligent, as hardworking, as peace-loving, and as creative as people everywhere.
For the vast majority of mankind's history, economic activity consisted of finding energy and using energy.
No dictatorship can be sustained within the context of an information revolution.
Mao Zedong's way was to make people crazy. It was like a religious cult.
In my 40s, the two cultures finally came to peace with one other inside me, and I have come to identify myself as both 100% Chinese and 100% American simultaneously.
Tiananmen did not fail.
With free market and free man, if you remove one of them, it is not called capitalism in my dictionary.
