Guy Spier: Take more risk when You are young

In a recent interview, Guy Spier discusses the importance of taking risks, especially for individuals in their twenties. He suggests that this period is ideal for career and financial risks due to the ample time available to recover from failures.

Guy encourages embracing opportunities such as startups and speculative investments, emphasizing that even failures can offer valuable lessons. He references Mohnish Pabrai’s strategy of taking calculated risks on asymmetric opportunities, where the potential gains significantly outweigh the losses. Spier concludes that avoiding risks when young can lead to significant regrets later in life.

I actually think that I’ve been extremely suboptimal in terms of taking risks. So first of all, when you’re in your twenties, you should take a lot of risks—not with your life, but career risks, financial risks—because you have lots of time to recover from them.

So it is suboptimal when you are young, not to go to work for that startup, not to invest in that speculative stock, because when you take a risk and it works out, you win, and when it doesn’t work out, there’s an enormous learning opportunity.

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