A Message From the Past

3. A barbelled personality—optimistic about the future, but paranoid about what will prevent you from getting to the future—is vital.

A trap many investors fall into is what I call “historians as prophets” fallacy: An overreliance on past data as a signal to future conditions in a field where innovation and change are the lifeblood of progress.

The further back in history you look, the more general your takeaways should be. General things like people’s relationship to greed and fear, how they behave under stress, and how they respond to incentives tend to be stable in time. The history of money is useful for that kind of stuff. But specific trends, specific trades, specific sectors, speci

barbelled personality—optimistic about the future, but paranoid about what will prevent you from getting to the future—is vital.