The Rational Cloner

“Zak and I are skipping happy about the new arrangements. We hope you will be too. Yours faithfully Nicholas Sleep DECEMBER 31st, 2013 This is the twenty-fifth letter to investors over fourteen calendar years. In these letters we have tried to cover the philosophy and methodology Zak and I use to approach the problem of investing. We keep our discussions to as high a level as we can manage in the belief that, in the long run, the high level is all that matters. In these letters we have therefore discussed business models, incentive compensation, capital allocation, mistakes, more mistakes, even more mistakes, lots on psychology and how to think, lots on attitude and so on. Whilst we may only write twice a year, we own shares for such long periods (if the current rate of portfolio activity should persist) that we write around twenty letters during the life of the average investment – that’s a huge amount! In previous letters we have also discussed the psychological traps inherent in a more loquacious approach (been there, done that, don’t want to do it again!). At its heart, investing is simple, and to make it seem anything but, with the frequent repartition of short-lived facts and data points, may be a conceit. Indeed, it could be argued that a running commentary obfuscates a discussion of the things that really matter.”
― The Rational Cloner, Nick and Zak's Adventures in Capitalism: Words of Wisdom from the Nomad Partnership Letters