hi qveau,
Gilder was not a tout. He was a believer. And to his credit he correctly foresaw many of the technological advances which shaped, and will shape for years to come, the telecom industry.
yes, but he also incorrectly “called” numerous other howlers. viz., the demise of Microsoft, the demise of television (too bad he was wrong about that one -g-), etc. i agree that he was a “believer”; as to whether he was a tout, i guess that depends on the definition. i don’t think he was cynical in the sense that some scamsters surely were. but i think he was naïve, in his ignoring the importance of valuation and in his sole focus on “following the technology”.
i kind of think Gilder was like the tech market in a microcosm. all of us who got tech-drunk forgot about valuation and “followed the technology”. however, not all of us got paid $20 million a year for telling others which technologies to follow.
imho, Gilder, like a lot of us, was “fooled by randomness”. he had a spectacular year in 1999 (as did many of us) and assumed it was because he had true skill or was a genius (as did many of us). but since then he has given it all back and then some (as have many of us), because in reality, he (and we) were just lucky, and mistook luck for genius.
He has realized as painfully as any of his subscribers, though, that science and investing are not completely overlapping fields.
i don’t think they overlap much at all. one of the bigger drawbacks to Gilder’s approach (and the Gorilla Game approach) is ignoring the importance of value.
i think at a time like this it is good to step back and take a look at history. doing such, we see that what has happened is just a huge asset bubble, concentrated in US large-cap growth stocks. this bubble has now burst, and we are dealing with the consequences.
i look at Gilder and some others, and it seems to me they are not getting the big picture, but are focusing on minutiae. it is as if a meteor has just blown up the entire tech market, and these people are trying to put humpty dumpty back together. they need to think about the meteor shower instead, imho.
When he expresses an opinion about an investment, his track record says that you follow him at your peril. When he expresses an opinion about a technological matter, his track record says you ignore him at your peril
basically, he was right on some things and wrong on others. if you were lucky and followed his “right” decisions, you think he’s a genius and maybe you named your first-born George. if you were unlucky and followed his “bad” decisions (like shorting Microsoft), maybe you have a different opinion. how do you know in advance which decisions are going to turn out right? kind of hard to say… |
