Were Buffet and Munger were the only people trying to make money from the stock market in the last hundred years and nobody else was trying? Or were they the smartest and they didn't luck into being born smart, but self-generated their smarts too?
Smart is neither necessary nor sufficient to do well in trading, as well as luck. It mostly requires being rigorous, disciplined, rational, and obsessively focused on the pursuit. “Smart” and “luck” are lazy thinking ways of explaining why they do well and others didn’t. In my 30 years or so in the industry working in quant and traditional trading spaces as well as high tech startups that did very well, I’ve not seen smart beat discipline, or luck replace rational obsession. The fact is they’ve all faced enormous bad luck at some point or another, but kept plugging away. I’ve seen that almost anyone if they have a strong self discipline and a clear rational mind can do very well in trading, but it also requires obsessive focus - to the extent that most people can’t match it. I’d note this isn’t unique to trading though. I’ve seen in tech the smartest people languish around ivory towers, but the most mediocre of intellects develop the most useful systems and software that’s widely used. Again, discipline, rigor, rationality, and obsessive focus are the key factors.
When people asked how Buffett made money in investing, his usual response is "start with the A's" (referring to the Value Line manual). I have found that an unsatisfactory answer, though, because unless you have some idea of what you're looking for, "starting with the A's doesn't mean much."
A better example of Buffett's obsessiveness is that he used to pick up discarded race track tickets. The overwhelming majority were no good, of course, but you might find one in a thousand where a winning ticket had been absent-mindedly discarded and you could cash in on the bet.
But, well, the fund management industry do work hard, yet have little to show for it. An old investment classic (can't remember which) put it this way: a guy new an analyst that could tell you everything you wanted to know about every railway company, except which ones to invest in.
I think many good investments rely on just a few simple arguments. For example, back in 2021 I learned that the price of Shell shares were at their lowest point for a decade or so, oil was at a low, and the US strategic oil reserves were at their lowest level since the 80's. I figured, Jeez, how much lower can then stuff go? So I bought shares. They've nearly doubled. There's no guarantees with this stuff, of course, I've made plenty of mistakes. It also requires the availability of opportunities, naturally. Sometimes my primitive monkey brain can spot them. No guarantees, there never are, but sometimes you can spot opportunities where the odds are stacked in your favour, and those are the ones you want to dabble in.
How did he not? His wealth is a direct consequence of something he possesses and was able to deterministic enact in the world? Or is it more likely that he's old, he started off well off with a wealthy-enough and connected father, and has done nothing but invest since he was a teenager in one of the east time periods in the history of mankind to make money from money?
I'm not saying luck wasn't a factor (e.g. he wasn't hit by a bus, so, lucky?) I'm saying luck can't have been the only factor, or even a primary factor. Plenty of people try and do what he did, and fail.
