Respond to questions from randoms like me!! Of course I am being facetious but I have gotten many more non responses from people of lesser stature. I sent a couple questions to Mark Leonard along with my presentation and he replied!!! Apparently this is much more common than you’d expect. The other questions should be answered in the next shareholder Q&A but with his permission, see the response to my presentation below:
Me: Sycophantism aside, I think there is reason to believe you are halfway through an “Outsider” type run and I did a brief presentation about it here . Any comments and thoughts are greatly appreciated.
Mark Leonard: Re your Outsider question… I think the presentation is fine, but I think you should have pointed out the enormous survivor bias in Will’s book. He didn’t include all the managers who had outsider characteristics, but got tired or old or too distracted over time, and lost their magic.
So, there you have it, Leonard’s response. In summary, beware of survivorship bias. Duly noted. I do not see Leonard as too tired, too old, or too distracted. Only time will tell!!!
*Note: It goes without saying that all my posts are not investment advice. One must do their own work.
Security (in) Securities 
Awesome to see Mr. Leonard respond. My goodness the man is humble, deflecting praise calling him an Outsider to say that a lot of Outsiders actually weren’t successful. I thought you pointing out the example of Mike Pearson (Thorndike was far from the only one calling him an Outsider) did acknowledge a bit of the survivorship bias, and there are a bunch of other examples in The Making of an American Capitalist, though names escape me right now.
I know he thinks differently, but I’d love to see Leonard get more press, if only to provide us more opportunities to learn from him. That’s why I was ecstatic to see the new policy of publishing answers to shareholders’ questions on the website. From someone like Mark Leonard though, I don’t think I could ever learn enough from him.
Great presentation, from the bit you posted. Would have loved to see the rest.
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Hi Tyler,
Thanks for checking out the blog. Yes, Leonard is very humble. Then again, if he is doing the under promise/over deliver thing that you notice if you’ve been reading the letters I might be missing it. Had an interesting pullback after earnings this week so we’ll see
Checked out your blog, read the post “Portfolio Update, Watchlist, and Miscellaneous Musings”. Good stuff, I need to spend more time studying the Brookfield complex, and Transforce.
Regards
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