One spring day in 1995, a fellow named McArthur Wheeler walked into two banks near his home in Pittsburgh and robbed them at gunpoint. He almost got away with it—except for one critical flaw in his plan: The disguise he chose didn't disguise his face at all. Instead of the usual stocking cap or [...]
An empty room
On December 7, 2005, a curious thing happened in a Harvard classroom. Professor Michael D. Smith stood in front of a group of computer science students to introduce a guest speaker: entrepreneur and former Harvard student Mark Zuckerberg. What was curious was that the room was nearly empty. The [...]
The Oracle of Boston
Yesterday, I had the opportunity to attend a panel discussion that included a prominent investment manager named Seth Klarman. I'd like to share some of what he had to say. First, some background if you're not familiar with Klarman. The simplistic version of his biography would be to say that he [...]
Poker wisdom
Have you ever struggled with a financial decision? If you're like most people, I suspect that the math wasn't the hard part. What makes financial decisions a challenge, more often than not, is the subjective element. Financial decisions involve lots of variables—your future income, interest rates, [...]
How to make financial decisions
Suppose you wanted to guess the winner of this Sunday's Super Bowl. Which of these methods do you think would work best? (a) Flip a coin (b) Make an educated guess (c) Gather data and conduct an informed analysis In a classic study, researchers Paul Slovic and Bernard Corrigan attempted [...]
