On owning fewer things, more deeply

Diversification has a cost

Spreading capital across fifty positions feels prudent, but it quietly guarantees mediocrity: your best ideas are diluted by your fortieth-best. We would rather know ten businesses intimately than fifty businesses vaguely.

Knowing what you own changes how you behave in a drawdown. Conviction built on understanding does not evaporate when the screen turns red; conviction borrowed from consensus always does.

The discipline of no

Concentration is mostly a long series of declines. For every position we hold, dozens were studied and passed over. The portfolio is the residue of a thousand quiet refusals.