George Soros is not the most liked human perhaps. But a colleague once remarked to me once when I felt sad about the way I was being attacked by my detractors: Sabari, if you are good at what you do, you are bound to be hated by a few, unless you are in Mother Teres's business. My business of early stage investing had little in common with the divine work of those nuns in the Missionaries of Charity.
I have considered myself to be a reasonably good long term investor. Over the years I have accumulated enough evidence to be able to say that on average I can more often call investments correctly than otherwise.
I attribute this to a disciplined approach to investment. When I look at a deal I am an unfeeling automaton. I have also heard people say that I am like a possessed creature, impervious to human sensibilities and focussed exclusively on the minutiae of the business on hand.
I have followed this disciplined approach to social relationships, except when it comes to my parents, parents in law and siblings on my wife's side and mine.
I have also believed in what investment parlance would be called concentrated bets. The central principle in this style of investing is as follows: Take your time picking your investments. Once you are convinced of your thesis, throw large chunks of your wealth on to that asset.
It is this conviction based investment that made me like venture capital investing. Like in venture capital investing this approach to life has left me with a small portfolio of relationships.
I take a long time to like anyone well enough. Once I am convinced of my liking I allocate a large part of my emotional capital to that relationship. Like a patient long term investor I give it all I have. I invest my time capital to make it work because healthy and happy relationships need a lot of nurturing.
In the early days of the deal you are hovering around the investee all the time, making sure you made the right investment. Making sure that this deal would work indeed.
You did not care at that time how the other party felt about your constant presence. You had this great sense of responsibility to yourself and the investee that made you believe that this was no time for social niceties. That there was much too much riding on the deal for both parties. And that you knew how to make it work.
Consistent with the risky nature of venture capital investing, there are times when a few such investments look like a losing proposition, when the party of the other part to the relationship seems to drift away from the central premise of the relationship. Like a cousin who goes off to a far away land and does not look back for a while. Or a friend with whom you dont share a world view any more.
I fret and grieve over those lemons a lot. But then like elsewhere in the world of concentrated bets, here too winning some and losing others is business as usual. And like a bruised child you cringe in a corner, whimpering, before you pick yourself up to ask the more mature question of where you went wrong.
So what is it about Soros and myself in this piece, you well might wonder.
Soros was the scourge of many a government. He was the enfant terrible of currency markets. He thought it his birthright to be unreasonable, it would appear. Without realising what I was doing over time as an investor I seemed to have embraced some of his qualities.
It is another matter that I did not achieve the scale of his wealth, success or his global stature. But then it is not every child who sports a Sachin hair style that ends up becoming a master blaster. Equally, mythology has only one Ekalavya who could have potentially excelled his Guru.
I remembered Soros a great deal in the past few days as I recalled that even he had to admit eventually in the late nineties that he had "lost it" as an investor. The mighty had fallen.
And so had I. Or so it would appear, at least.
My investments in Life have been coming unstuck lately. I seem to have hit a Soros moment in my life. And as is common with concentrated bets, these dud deals are burning serious holes in my emotional networth.
Which makes me wonder if like all retired investors I should settle down to merely harvest those few wise investments I seem to have made in the past. And not attempt any more new investments.
Good night....I hope you can see that I have still not recovered enough to sign off with my customary Nanni and Namaskaarams.
I have considered myself to be a reasonably good long term investor. Over the years I have accumulated enough evidence to be able to say that on average I can more often call investments correctly than otherwise.
I attribute this to a disciplined approach to investment. When I look at a deal I am an unfeeling automaton. I have also heard people say that I am like a possessed creature, impervious to human sensibilities and focussed exclusively on the minutiae of the business on hand.
I have followed this disciplined approach to social relationships, except when it comes to my parents, parents in law and siblings on my wife's side and mine.
I have also believed in what investment parlance would be called concentrated bets. The central principle in this style of investing is as follows: Take your time picking your investments. Once you are convinced of your thesis, throw large chunks of your wealth on to that asset.
It is this conviction based investment that made me like venture capital investing. Like in venture capital investing this approach to life has left me with a small portfolio of relationships.
I take a long time to like anyone well enough. Once I am convinced of my liking I allocate a large part of my emotional capital to that relationship. Like a patient long term investor I give it all I have. I invest my time capital to make it work because healthy and happy relationships need a lot of nurturing.
In the early days of the deal you are hovering around the investee all the time, making sure you made the right investment. Making sure that this deal would work indeed.
You did not care at that time how the other party felt about your constant presence. You had this great sense of responsibility to yourself and the investee that made you believe that this was no time for social niceties. That there was much too much riding on the deal for both parties. And that you knew how to make it work.
Consistent with the risky nature of venture capital investing, there are times when a few such investments look like a losing proposition, when the party of the other part to the relationship seems to drift away from the central premise of the relationship. Like a cousin who goes off to a far away land and does not look back for a while. Or a friend with whom you dont share a world view any more.
I fret and grieve over those lemons a lot. But then like elsewhere in the world of concentrated bets, here too winning some and losing others is business as usual. And like a bruised child you cringe in a corner, whimpering, before you pick yourself up to ask the more mature question of where you went wrong.
So what is it about Soros and myself in this piece, you well might wonder.
Soros was the scourge of many a government. He was the enfant terrible of currency markets. He thought it his birthright to be unreasonable, it would appear. Without realising what I was doing over time as an investor I seemed to have embraced some of his qualities.
It is another matter that I did not achieve the scale of his wealth, success or his global stature. But then it is not every child who sports a Sachin hair style that ends up becoming a master blaster. Equally, mythology has only one Ekalavya who could have potentially excelled his Guru.
I remembered Soros a great deal in the past few days as I recalled that even he had to admit eventually in the late nineties that he had "lost it" as an investor. The mighty had fallen.
And so had I. Or so it would appear, at least.
My investments in Life have been coming unstuck lately. I seem to have hit a Soros moment in my life. And as is common with concentrated bets, these dud deals are burning serious holes in my emotional networth.
Which makes me wonder if like all retired investors I should settle down to merely harvest those few wise investments I seem to have made in the past. And not attempt any more new investments.
Good night....I hope you can see that I have still not recovered enough to sign off with my customary Nanni and Namaskaarams.
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