And since there’s no substantial difference between a businessman and an investor (i.e., both constitute an entrepreneur), a businessman’s emphasis on prioritizing customer (e.g., see Jeff Bezos) and an investor’s emphasis on market price quotations (e.g., see Warren Buffett) both make all the more sense.
Speculation, which constitutes “investment” in the broader sense of the word, is also about others since it’s concerned with positioning and sentiment. Investment, in the proper sense of the word (e.g., see Li Lu on the distinction) is about others since it’s concerned with the producers (i.e., the Plan Structure) and the consumers’ demand. Value investors (e.g., Warren Buffett and Michael Burry) arbitrage reality and fear.
An implication: investment is proper side hustle (投資も副業)
An exception: if the consumer cannot find what he wants, and if he doesn’t give up, then he becomes the producer for himself. How bad do you want it?
Related:
- 3-1a4b2b What is smart at one price is dumb at another
- 4-1a3b Go to specific places to get specific feedbacks
- 5-2c Be impatient about the things you most want to do
- 7-1 Create what people want or will want
- 7-1a Create something you would want for yourself, and never for some imaginary audience
- 7-1b4e What you can ＞ What you want (できること ＞ やりたいこと)
- 9-4d A good essay = importance (do I want it) + novelty (did you think about it a lot) + correctness + strength
- 10-2g1d Humans are the apex predators because we plan, share knowledge, and leave knowledge for future generations, by talking to each other. We are knowledge-oriented.
- RUL3 - Live in the future and build what seems interesting
- When you want it bad, you become fanatic
- See Carlo Cipolla (and also Todd Graves)
- On producer-consumer distinction
- 3-1a The reality doesn’t have categories, there are only problems to be solved. Be problem-project-oriented. ‘Academic subjects’ are mere social constructs.
- 7-1b0 The creator-user (or producer-consumer) distinction is arbitrary. There are no ‘producers’ and ‘consumers’ in the non-human world.
- 7-1b0a The producer-consumer distinction is blurred in non-profit organizations and open source projects. Likely why their diffusions are slow. ← Challenge this noteTODO
- Investment is about others, but the degrees (or ways) with which you have to pay attention to them varies, since sometimes the market itself acts as the intermediary wherein something like value investing works, but in other times market isn’t a good price discovery mechanism and you have to check others’ positioning. In short, investment proper doesn’t work out all the time. But luckily, there are many potential investments out there (viz., there are markets instead of just one market)—you just have to find them.