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Business & enterprise

Investors & capital allocators

Thesis, risk, refusal, management judgment, patience, changed facts, and fiduciary responsibility.

12 questions, 131 answers on the record, from 121 members. Every question is asked in FLAPSS wording — nobody answers as anybody else.

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Worth reading

How much should instinct count in big decisions?

Aung San Suu Kyi

Leader of the National League for Democracy; Nobel Peace Prize laureate; State Counsellor of Myanmar, 2016–2021

It takes courage to feel the truth, to feel one's conscience because once you do, you must engage your fundamental purpose for being alive.

Recorded · BBC Radio 4 · 2013

Steve Jobs

Co-founder and chief executive of Apple; co-founder of NeXT; chief executive of Pixar

I've participated in the hiring of maybe 5,000-plus people in my life. So I take it very seriously. You can't know enough in a one-hour interview.

Recorded · Fortune · 2008

Edmund Hillary

Mountaineer and explorer; first ascent of Everest, 1953

I think it was a combination of feeling and judgment. I happened to be that sort of person that enjoyed making out plans, but I also enjoy changing plans.

Recorded · Academy of Achievement

Read all 4 →

Every question in this questionnaire

  1. What must be true for an investment thesis to be right, and which assumption is easiest to overlook? —
  2. What is your theory of how success actually works in the field you work in — the dynamics underneath the surface? —
  3. How do you distinguish a risk worth taking from one that merely has an attractive upside? —
  4. How much should instinct count in big decisions? 4
  5. What makes you say no to an opportunity that could still become very successful? —
  6. Which founder or management quality matters greatly but is hardest to evaluate before investing? —
  7. When did you last change your mind about something important? 28
  8. How has a setback or failure set you up for later success? 69
  9. When is patience an advantage, and when does it become refusal to admit that the facts changed? —
  10. When you put your name on something, how thoroughly should you have checked it first — and when have you signed off without checking enough? —
  11. What are you unwilling to optimise? 30
  12. What responsibility follows from deciding where other people's money will go? —

Who has answered

Members with enough answers in this questionnaire to be worth arriving at — listed A–Z, not ranked by count.

  • Charlie Munger

    Vice chairman of Berkshire Hathaway, 1978–2023

    2 answers United States b. 1924

  • DS
    Derek Sivers

    Founder of CD Baby; author of Anything You Want

    2 answers United States

  • Desmond Tutu

    Anglican Archbishop of Cape Town; chair of South Africa’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission; Nobel Peace Prize, 1984

    2 answers South Africa 1931–2021

  • Edmund Hillary

    Mountaineer and explorer; first ascent of Everest, 1953

    2 answers New Zealand 1919–2008

  • Mario Molina

    Atmospheric chemist; Nobel laureate in Chemistry, 1995

    2 answers Mexico 1943–2020

  • Steve Jobs

    Co-founder and chief executive of Apple; co-founder of NeXT; chief executive of Pixar

    4 answers United States 1955–2011

  • Warren Buffett

    Chairman and chief executive of Berkshire Hathaway, 1970–2025

    2 answers United States b. 1930

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