This legendary investor worth $2,200,000,000 just broke the internet.

Howard Marks dropped 79 years of his best investing wisdom in 45 minutes, and it honestly blew me away.

Here are 10 invaluable insights from one of the greatest investors in history: 🧵 #10: Risk lives in human behavior, not spreadsheets

Markets don't crash because of fundamentals.

They crash because of people’s behavior.

"The riskiest thing is believing there's no risk."

When euphoria peaks → danger lurks.

When panic spreads → opportunity emerges.

I hit 10,000 newsletter subscribers
In just 6 months,
working 3 hours a week.

Here’s how I did it 🧵” Let’s get real.

It took 2 years and a whole slew of work.

Here are the 10 things that actually work 🧵

The most influential institution in modern investing isn't Harvard Business School

It's a think tank 3 hours from Roswell

Where Bill Miller (Managed $70B), Nick Sleep (20.8% CAGR) and Michael Mauboussin learned complex systems science.

7 lessons from the Santa Fe Institute: 🧵
The Santa Fe Institute isn't your typical academic institution.

Founded in 1984 by Nobel physicist Murray Gell-Mann, it studies "complex systems" - how markets, cities, and networks really work.

It's also exactly 3 hours from Roswell. Make of that what you will.

This man achieved 921% returns while the market made 117%.

He retired at 45 after making investors $2 billion.

Yet you've probably never heard of him because he refused every interview and turned away new money.

Here's Nick Sleep's secret to finding 100-baggers:🧵
This is Nick Sleep.

His Nomad Investment Partnership ran from 2001 to 2014, delivering 20.8% annual returns versus 6.5% for the world index.

What made this performance remarkable wasn't just the numbers, it was how he achieved them...

Every investing book says chase high ROIC companies.

But Medpace only had a 3.9% ROIC in 2016 and everyone avoided it.

8 years later? It became a 10-bagger ($35 → $340) while its ROIC quietly exploded upward.

Here's why the 'holy grail' of investing is actually a trap: 🧵
First, let's understand what ROIC actually measures.

Return on Invested Capital = NOPAT / Invested Capital

It tells you how efficiently a company uses its money to generate profits.

Sounds perfect, right? Here's the problem...

Grok has an unfair advantage for stock research.

It's the only AI trained on X data - where the best investors actually share insights.

I tested this on Wise PLC using 5 specific prompts.

The results changed how I analyze companies:🧵 I've been trying to speed up my research process.

Most AI models like ChatGPT or Claude work fine for general analysis.

But Grok is different - it's trained on every tweet from investors who actually move markets.

One trade made 1500% IRR in 4 months.

While everyone wanted the "good" Marriott company, Joel Greenblatt bought the debt-heavy "leftovers."

$6 became $14, +120% returns in 4 months.

The 5 questions he asks before every spinoff investment:🧵 I've been studying this trade for a long time.

Joel Greenblatt's Marriott spinoff play in 1993 is legendary.

But when I dug into the actual numbers, I realized most people completely miss WHY it worked...

GPT-5 just dropped 2 days ago.

OpenAI claims it has "PhD-level reasoning" and is like having "a team of experts in your pocket."

So I immediately tested it on $TTD, a $26B company that crashed 40% after earnings. The results shocked me...

Is $TTD a buy? Let's ask GPT-5:🧵
First, let me set the stage.

The Trade Desk operates the biggest independent advertising platform on the open internet.

They help brands buy ads across streaming TV, websites, and mobile apps.

Revenue: $2.4B. Down 38% after earnings. Perfect test case.

Polen Capital turned $100,000 into $37 million over 35 years.

Their secret? A "crayon simple" strategy that only looks at 160 companies.

While everyone chases hot stocks, they do the opposite.

Here's their exact 5-step framework that beats the market:🧵
The backstory is fascinating.

Polen Capital was founded in 1979 by a stock broker who lived through the 1987 crash (Black Monday).

He wanted to build a portfolio that could just "sit it out" during market chaos.

That philosophy became their edge...

I've spent years obsessing over 100-baggers.

I recently found Anna Yartseva's study that analyzed 464 ten-baggers over 24 years.

It challenged everything I thought I knew. FCF yield dominated every other factor.

Here's why I'm rebuilding my approach:🧵
Here's the thing most investors don't realize:

Academic research on multibaggers barely exists.

Everyone knows the books by Thomas Phelps and Christopher Mayer.

Great stories, but they focus on case studies and qualitative properties.

Anna Yartseva did something different...

This is Peter Lynch's favorite book.

He's been reading it for 50+ years, and it inspired his legendary 'buy what you know' philosophy...

Here are 7 lessons from 'Common Stocks and Uncommon Profits' that made him the greatest mutual fund manager in history: Lynch discovered Fisher's book early in his Fidelity career and it changed everything.

While Fisher created the famous 15-point checklist for professionals, Lynch turned it into something your neighbor could use.

He made complex investment research work for regular people.

I cut my stock research time in half using AI.

I use 5 specific prompts in Perplexity to analyze any company in minutes.

What used to take me weeks of research now happens twice as fast...

My exact AI research system & prompts: 🧵
Most investors are still researching like it's 1995.

They spend weeks reading 10-Ks, building models, and hunting for information.

I found a better way using Perplexity AI.

Here's my complete system...

This is Ray Dalio's favorite book.

He's been rereading it for 30+ years straight, and it inspired his most famous "debt cycle" framework.

Here are 7 lessons from "The Rise and Fall of the Great Powers" that made him the world's most successful hedge fund manager: 🧵 Ray Dalio found Paul Kennedy's book in 1987.

The book studies 500 years of empires...

How countries rise to power through strong economies, then fall through too much debt and military spending.

Dalio saw the investment opportunity immediately:

A 7th grade class picked stocks and beat 75% of professional fund managers.

Their secret? They bought companies they actually understood.

This is Peter Lynch's "explain it to a 10-year-old" rule that generated 2,475% returns.

Here's how the strategy works:🧵 From 1977 to 1990, Peter Lynch managed the Fidelity Magellan Fund.

He turned $18 million into $14 billion using a surprisingly simple approach.

But here's what made him different...

This is Howard Marks.

He's Co-founder of Oaktree Capital, who's managed $180+ billion for 29 years

In a Bloomberg interview he revealed why we're experiencing the 3rd major shift in investing in 50 years, and how to prepare...

Here are my top 7 takeaways:
(No. 4 is important) 1. The "easy money" era is officially over.

From 2009-2021, borrowing was practically free.

Fed rates went to zero. Companies could borrow at 2-3%.

He says a lot of private equity "geniuses" weren't geniuses, they were just riding the wave.

Now? That wave has crashed.

Nicolai Tangen just had Europe's most successful hedge fund manager on his podcast.

He revealed mind-blowing facts about investing that 99% of people wouldn't know.

Be prepared to have your mind blown...

Here are my top 8 takeaways: 🧵 1/ Growth is meaningless without MOATS

“The most important thing is high barriers to entry.”

Growth doesn’t matter unless a business is hard to compete with.

If anyone can copy you, pricing gets squeezed, margins collapse and eventually, so does the business.

You need moats:

This is Nicolai Tangen.

He’s the CEO managing Norway’s $1.7 TRILLION oil fund.

In a rare interview with David Rubenstein, he revealed shocking truths about global investing that 99% of people wouldn't know.

Here are my top 8 takeaways: 🧵
(No. 5 will blow your mind) 1/ Do the opposite of everyone else

In January 2025, while everyone was buying AI stocks, Tangen said: "Sell US tech, buy China, buy what's out of fashion."

People called him crazy.

Three months later, the U.S. market crashed.

Do exactly what scares everyone else.

The world's most secretive investor.

Mark Leonard hasn't made a public appearance since 2017.

His company returned 33% annually for 29 years, going from $25 million to $89 billion through software acquisitions...

Here are 8 of his best investing rules:
(No. 6 is fascinating) Leonard founded Constellation Software in 1995 after leaving venture capital with just $25M in funding.

He quietly created the most successful software conglomerate you’ve never heard of.

His strategy? Buy boring software companies nobody wants.

Here’s his rules to do that…

This man paid $650,000 to learn one idea from Warren Buffett.

That idea helped Monish Pabrai turn $1M into $600,000,000+

His “Dhandho” investing philosophy is so shockingly simple anyone can do it.

Here are 8 of his best investing rules: 🧵
(No. 6 is mind-blowing)
June 25, 2008.

Monish Pabrai sat across from Warren Buffett at a steakhouse in Omaha.

He had just paid $650,000 for this lunch.

No agenda. No notebook. Just one question on his mind:

“What mental model built Berkshire Hathaway?”…

The most dangerous investor in the world.

Carl Icahn made a 25.3% annual return over 40 years

He turned $8,000 into a $7.4 billion fortune by transforming dying companies into billion-dollar companies...

Here are 8 of his best investing rules:
(No. 6 is fascinating) Carl Icahn was born in 1936 in Queens.

His dad was a frustrated cantor who became a teacher.

His mom pushed him toward med school to survive in what she called a dangerous world.

But he had other plans...

Jim Simons was the greatest investor of all time.

He turned $1000 in 1988 into $4B in 30 years.

His hedge fund achieved 66% returns annually by hiring mathematicians and physicists instead of Wall Street experts.

Here's how a mathematician became the world's best investor: 🧵
As a kid in the 1940s, Jim loved numbers.

At just 4 years old, he discovered Zeno's Paradox in his dad's car:

"You could always use half of what gas remains, then half of that, so you'd never run out."

But his mind would soon take him somewhere far more complex...