On February 15th, 2012 Mohnish Pabrai of Pabrai Investment Funds spoke at The Ben Graham Centre for Value Investing in Canada. It is a long video and the formatting is not ideal, but the stories he tells are some of the stories that inspired me to start my own investment advisory firm. He covers many of these stories in his book The Dhandho Investor, which I read years ago so it was fun to see him reiterate them. One of the things that inspired me in the book was when he talked about the fact that many people don’t start their own business, or pursue their dreams because they are scared of risk. They don’t think of the risk that they are taking in doing a job they don’t love for the rest of their lives, for less pay than they believe they deserve. He talks about analyzing probabilities of success, failure, and the implications of various possible outcomes in making a decision in business or in investing. If you can keep your risks low by getting in at a really cheap price, or by keeping a lean cost structure, often endeavors aren’t as risky as it initially seems to be. After reading the book I emailed him personally telling him about the effect it had on me and I still think about those lessons today! Enjoy if you have the time:
http://www.bengrahaminvesting.ca/Resources/Video_Presentations/Guest_Speakers/2012/Pabrai_2012.htm