This is a summary of the text:
The text is about the psychology of money and how it affects our behavior, happiness, and success. It covers topics such as:
- How our personal experiences and worldview shape our financial decisions and why we should respect other people's choices.
- How compounding, time, and patience are the keys to investing success and why we should not underestimate their power.
- How optimism is a rational and beneficial attitude towards money and why we should not be swayed by pessimism and fear.
- How luck and risk are unavoidable and influential factors in our financial outcomes and why we should accept them with humility and perspective.
- How wealth is not about what we own or show, but what we can control and enjoy, especially our time.
- How long tails, or rare events, can drive most of the results in business and investing and why we should embrace uncertainty and experimentation.
- How knowing when enough is enough is crucial for our happiness and fulfillment and why we should avoid the hedonic treadmill of always wanting more.
Here are the key facts extracted from the text:
1. Warren Buffett's net worth is $84.5 billion, with $81.5 billion earned after he turned 65.
2. Buffett started investing at the age of 10.
3. Compounding can help earn more money over time.
4. Jim Simons is a hedge fund manager who has compounded money at a rate of 66% annually since 1988.
5. Simons' net worth is $21 billion, which is 75% less than Buffett's.
6. According to Morgan Housel, people make financial decisions based on their personal life experiences and worldview.
7. Housel estimates that if Jim Simons had invested over the same time frame as Buffett, his net worth would be significantly higher.
8. Bill Gates attended Lakeside School in Seattle, which had a computer that even graduate students didn't have access to.
9. Gates had a one-in-a-million chance of being a high school student with access to a computer.
10. The odds of a high school student being killed in a mountaineering accident are around one in a million.
11. Kent Evans, a friend of Gates, died in a mountaineering accident before graduating high school.
12. Heinz Berggruen, an art dealer, collected a massive amount of art and sold part of his collection for over 100 million euros.
13. Berggruen's secret to acquiring masterpieces was buying vast quantities of art and holding onto them for a long time.
14. Good investors often have a diversified portfolio and wait for a few winners to emerge.
15. Long tails refer to events where a small number of occurrences can account for the majority of outcomes.
16. Amazon's growth was largely driven by two tail events: Amazon Prime and Amazon Web Services.
17. Warren Buffett has picked nearly 500 stocks, but only 10 have made the majority of his money.
18. Good stock pickers are only right about half the time.
19. True wealth is about financial assets that have yet to be spent, not just current income or possessions.
20. Controlling one's time is the highest dividend that money pays.
21. The Dow Jones Industrial Average has returned about 11% per year from 1950 to 2019.
22. Investing in the stock market comes with a price, including emotions like volatility, fear, and risk.
23. Hedonic adaptation refers to the concept of constantly moving the goalpost and never being satisfied with what one has.