Edward Quince's Wisdom Bites: The One With The Bird Poop

(Expanded from February 7, 2025)

Welcome back to the digital saloon, where we trade fleeting forecasts for the only currency that matters: reality.

In February, we stumbled into one of my favorite investing parables—one involving cosmology, Bell Labs, and a rather unglamorous pile of pigeon droppings.

The Noise That Wasn’t

In the mid-1960s, astronomers Arno Penzias and Robert Wilson were attempting to eliminate a persistent hiss in their radio antenna. They tried everything—checking wiring, changing orientation, even scraping away what they delicately described as “white dielectric material.” (Translation: bird poop.)

They assumed the noise was an error. A nuisance. Something to be cleaned.

It wasn’t.

The hiss turned out to be the cosmic microwave background radiation—the afterglow of the Big Bang itself. In trying to remove “noise,” they discovered the origin story of the universe.

There is a lesson here for investors, and it’s not subtle.

The Illusion of Control

Markets are not moved by neat models; they are shaped by outliers, accidents, and events that never made it into your spreadsheet.

The human brain despises uncertainty. Robert Greene calls the “need for certainty” the greatest disease of the mind. It pushes us to mistake confidence for competence and precision for truth.

This is why strategists still publish year-end S&P targets with decimal points, as if the market were a Swiss watch instead of a drunk octopus.

If you relied solely on forecasts to understand markets, you’d have been confused for roughly a century.

Embracing the “I Don’t Know”

The most honest answer to “what will the market do next?” remains: I don’t know.

Rather than predicting rain, build the ark.

Intellectual humility is not weakness—it is structural strength. What you dismiss as noise today may be the signal that defines tomorrow. As Eisenhower reminded us: plans are useless, but planning is indispensable—because the crisis is always the thing you didn’t plan for.

Sometimes the universe speaks softly. Sometimes it sounds like static. Sometimes it looks like bird poop.

Ignore it at your peril.

Edward Quince's Wisdom Bites: The Atlas We Carry

 Cloud Atlas is a time-looping ledger of human cause and consequence: every exploitation returns as its own invoice.

Capitalism’s glory is compounding—but compounding applies to moral choices too:

• exploitation compounds fragility
  
  

• integrity compounds trust
  
  

• patience compounds possibility
  
  

• purpose compounds permanence
  
  

Speculation—Mitchell’s “bonanza instinct”—is the infantile belief that wealth should arrive without wisdom.

A humanistic capitalist rejects that.
Purpose is a long-duration asset.
Trust is a dividend stream.
Dignity is intrinsic value.

Mitchell’s warning isn’t anti-market—it is pro-human market:
capitalism not as a predatory adulthood, but as a mature guardianship.

The Financial Takeaway:
Never interrupt compounding—of capital or character.
The future is not built by quarterly maximizers but by stewards of endurance.

Profit without purpose is noise.
Profit with purpose is music.

Edward Quince's Wisdom Bites: The Inverse Degen Trader pt. 4

He Who Refreshes His Feed Most Knows Least

The Degen Cliché:
"I need real-time data and 50 Twitter takes before making a move. YOLO the consensus!"

Translation:
“My mind is a leaf blower.”

This trader’s greatest asset is their attention span, which they lend out at 0% interest to anyone posting a chart on X. They confuse data with wisdom, headlines with signals, and activity with insight.

They are the patron saint of the Noise Bottleneck, where the ratio of nonsense to knowledge approaches infinity.

The Inverse Degen Trader’s Wisdom: Clarity Comes from Subtraction
Wise traders subtract, not add.

They understand that wisdom sits at the top of the DIKW pyramid:
Data → Information → Knowledge → Wisdom.
Most people get stuck somewhere around “Information” and never see daylight again.

Clarity comes when you turn off alerts, mute half the world, and return your brain to factory settings.

Lesson:
Filter aggressively. If it won’t matter in five years, don’t give it more than five minutes.

 

Edward Quince's Wisdom Bites: The Oracle - Independent Thought and Tuning Out the Macro Noise

Edward Quince (EQ): Warren, you have famously advised investors to ignore pundits and macroeconomic forecasts. In a world saturated with non-stop financial news, what gives you the conviction to disregard the market chatter and daily data points as "noise"?

Warren Buffett (WB): "We think any company that has an economist, you know, certainly, has one employee too many". The cemetery for seers has a huge section set aside for macro forecasters. The truth is, "nobody knows what the market is going to do tomorrow, next week, next month," and I have never found anybody I wanted to listen to on the subject.

EQ: Yet investors seem compelled to follow the consensus, often deriving comfort from agreement. How does an individual investor cultivate the intellectual detachment required to avoid the herd?

WB: "You have to think for yourself. An ability to detach yourself from the crowd is a quality you need". Whether someone else agrees or disagrees with you does not make you right or wrong. Your reasoning is right because your facts are right and your analysis is right. We derive no comfort because great numbers of people agree with us, nor if they don't.

EQ: Many successful investors use macro trends or Fed policy as a starting point. You and Mr. Munger seem to completely reject that approach.

WB: Charlie Munger and I have been buying stocks and businesses for 50 years. In that entire time, we’ve never had a discussion of macroeconomic factors in making a decision as to whether to buy, or sell a business. We pondered what the business was likely to do, not what the Dow, the Fed, or the economy might do. If I were buying a farm or an apartment house, I wouldn't think about what the Fed was going to do. Our action is strictly determined by the availability of attractive investment opportunities that meet our standards.

The Edward Quince Takeaway

Recognize that noise is an expensive distraction. Superior returns are achieved not by guessing macro trends, but by deep, independent analysis of a business's intrinsic fundamentals. Cultivate the ability to detach yourself from the crowd, knowing that market popularity is no substitute for sound thought.

Edward Quince's Wisdom Bites: Nomads and Motorcycles: The Noise Bottleneck and the Ascent to Wisdom

We live in an age of overwhelming information. Every day brings another data point, another Fed speech, another forecast of what comes next — a daily deluge of financial “news.”

We are drowning in Data, Information, and Knowledge (DIK), yet genuine Wisdom (W) feels scarcer than ever.

The Nomad Investment Partnership recognized this long before the age of infinite scrolls. They viewed frequent reporting — daily, weekly, even monthly — as “counterproductive.” Why? Because constant communication breeds what they called the say-something syndrome: the pressure to sound smart when there’s not much to say.

Robert Pirsig understood this too. In Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, he warns that for every fact, there are “an infinity of hypotheses.” The more you look, the more you see — and soon, you see everything and understand nothing.

Nassim Taleb called this the Noise Bottleneck: “The more data you get, the less you know what’s going on,” because noise scales faster than signal.

The solution isn’t to consume more data — it’s to subtract. As Pirsig reminds us, truth emerges when we “look within ourselves.”

The Financial Takeaway

Wisdom sits at the apex of the DIKW pyramid. It’s not the accumulation of data but the discernment to act rightly with the data you have.
Clarity comes from subtraction, not addition. Remove noise, distractions, and unnecessary motion — what truly matters will reveal itself.

If it won’t matter in five years, don’t give it more than five minutes of attention.
Read less, re-read more. Don’t just process ideas — possess them.
Better one great book you fully understand than a thousand headlines you instantly forget.

Edward Quince's Wisdom Bites: Nomads and Motorcycles: The Equilibrium of the Long Haul

 If you spend any time on this blog, you know my mantra: Patience never trends on X. The market screams, "Don't just sit there, do something!". But the real wisdom, as we’ll see, is that sitting still is often the highest form of action.

The Nomad Investment Partnership attributed their success, in part, to the "aggregate patience of its Partners", achieving phenomenal results simply by making money "sitting on their assets". Their strategy centers on owning shares for "very long periods," consciously minimizing "more frequent or detailed reporting" which they viewed as unnecessary and even counterproductive. They recognized the profound power of compounding, noting that the only factor in the compound interest equation that is exponential is 'n' (time). In other words, patience isn’t just a virtue—it’s the variable.

Now, consider Pirsig's instruction for climbing a mountain:

"You climb the mountain in an equilibrium between restlessness and exhaustion. Then, when you're no longer thinking ahead, each footstep isn't just a means to an end but a unique event in itself."

This equilibrium mirrors the disciplined patience required for long-term investing. The restless desire to constantly buy and sell is often just noise. The true path requires finding a balance—not hyperactivity, nor total inertia—but a steady, measured pace. When you detach from the destination (the future price target) and focus on the process (the quality of the current decision, the soundness of the company), the journey transforms.

The great investor Charlie Munger summarized this perfectly, saying, "The big money is not in the buying and selling, but in the waiting". This aligns perfectly with the Nomad approach, where longevity and avoiding unnecessary interruptions to compounding are cardinal rules.

The Financial Takeaway:

Your primary competitive advantage isn't being brilliant—it's outlasting the rest. The Nomad founders, recognizing that they operated in a probabilistic field, focused intensely on process over outcome and understood the crucial role of time. Trying to maximize every move or react to every headline breaks that equilibrium. As Mr. Miyagi warned, 'Walk left side, safe. Walk right side, safe. Walk middle, sooner or later—get squish just like grape.' The same applies to investors.. Adopt the philosophy: "No hurry, no pause".

Edward Quince's Wisdom Bites: Friedman Conversations Pt. 5

Conversation 5: Prudence, Certainty, and Long-Term Value

Topic: The role of wisdom and intellectual humility in achieving enduring success.

Calculus of Value (CV):
Prudence is the rarest form of intelligence—the art of deciding well amid uncertainty. Long-term success begins by accepting the limits of our knowledge. Forecasting is elusive, models are fallible, and confidence is not the same as truth. The investor’s task is to estimate value from future cash flows and acquire it at a reasonable price. Because the future is unknowable, the discipline of a margin of safety becomes both mathematical and moral—a recognition of our own fallibility.

Friedman Doctrine (Milton Friedman):
Exactly. Intellectual humility in markets means acknowledging complexity while staying disciplined in purpose. The clear, achievable goal remains profit maximization. To wander into social or moral engineering risks substituting sentiment for rigor. Prudence, therefore, lies in adhering to economic clarity—allocating resources efficiently, minimizing irreversible mistakes, and avoiding the seductive noise of doing “good” at the expense of doing well.

Rerum Novarum (Pope Leo XIII):
You both mistake cleverness for wisdom. The cunning investor may preserve capital, but the wise man preserves conscience. The worth of a human being lies not in accumulation but in moral quality. Virtue—honesty, temperance, justice—is the only foundation on which durable prosperity can rest. “To focus on fundamental topics” means to build character as deliberately as one builds capital. Dignity and meaning are constructed in the soul long before they appear in the balance sheet.

Centesimus Annus (Pope John Paul II):
True prudence integrates reason with conscience. Wisdom is not the avoidance of error alone—it is the active pursuit of the good. The "game of everlasting learning" demands that we draw from timeless truths to interpret an ever-changing world. Courage is the testing point of all other virtues because it allows prudence to act. In the long run, what sustains markets, nations, and civilizations is not cleverness or calculation, but the moral order upon which trust depends.

Conclusion: From Profit to Purpose

Across these five conversations—Enterprise and Value, Labor and Justice, Virtue and Responsibility, State and Policy, and now Prudence and Wisdom—a single thread emerges: freedom without virtue decays, and virtue without reason stagnates.

The Friedman Doctrine insists on clarity and accountability—the discipline of efficiency and market order.
The Catholic social tradition insists on meaning—the moral architecture that gives those markets a soul.
And between them lies the Calculus of Value—the intellectual bridge that seeks to measure what cannot be fully measured: the worth of human judgment under uncertainty.

The paradox endures: markets run on confidence, but civilization runs on conscience. The challenge is not to choose between them, but to reconcile them—so that profit remains productive, power remains principled, and progress remains human.

Edward Quince's Wisdom Bites: Friedman Conversations Pt. 4

Conversation 4: The Role of the State and Fiscal Policy

Topic: The proper limits of government intervention and the moral implications of public finance.

Friedman Doctrine (Milton Friedman):
The State’s proper function is to preserve the rules of the game—enforcing property rights, contracts, and competition—nothing more. Beyond that, intervention corrupts incentives and dilutes accountability. Fiscal discipline is the foundation of liberty. When governments spend recklessly, the central bank becomes captive to fiscal dominance, keeping rates artificially low to accommodate political excess. The cycle is predictable: spend now, tax later, inflate always. In the end, high deficits force high rates, distorting capital markets and punishing those who played by the rules.

Calculus of Value (CV):
Public finance operates like gravity—it shapes every private decision. A rising tide of government debt lifts no boats if it distorts the cost of capital or misallocates savings. Today’s higher interest rates may be a necessary correction from the “distortionary” era of near-zero rates, which bred complacency and speculative excess. Fiscal policy, often treated as background noise, is in truth a dominant force influencing the equilibrium between saving and investment—the elusive neutral rate, r⁎. The real debate is not whether fiscal policy drives inflation, but whether it can ever again be neutral in an economy this large and leveraged.

Centesimus Annus (Pope John Paul II):
The State has a rightful and essential duty: to serve the common good, protect the weak, and ensure that markets remain ordered toward human flourishing. Yet prudence is the measure of justice. Persistent deficits represent not generosity, but negligence. Alexander Hamilton’s counsel still stands—“the creation of public debt should always be accompanied by the means of extinguishment.” To mortgage the future for present comfort is to betray both intergenerational solidarity and the moral law. Fiscal irresponsibility, like moral irresponsibility, erodes the trust upon which civilization depends.

Rerum Novarum (Pope Leo XIII):
Politics without virtue becomes manipulation, and economics without justice becomes exploitation. The State must not merely referee; it must safeguard the human person. This includes ensuring that policy—fiscal or otherwise—serves human dignity and social harmony, not the ambitions of factions. The pursuit of the common good requires international cooperation and moral clarity: where one nation’s debt becomes another’s burden, solidarity becomes both an ethical and economic necessity.

Reflection:
Friedman fears a State too large to fail; Leo and John Paul fear a State too small to care. Between them lies the enduring tension of liberty and responsibility. Debt, like sin, accumulates quietly until it reshapes what is possible. The moral question, then, is not how much government we can afford—but how much virtue our economy requires to govern itself.

Edward Quince’s Wisdom Bites: The Strategic Pause – Rest, Reflection, and True Productivity

Some of the most profound financial wisdom originates from unexpected places—far beyond the spreadsheets and economic models. In a world saturated with market noise, these timeless insights from philosophy, literature, science, and even daily life offer a refreshing lens through which to view our financial journeys. Prepare to think differently, act more deliberately, and perhaps, find a deeper sense of clarity in the chaos.

Let's explore a wisdom bite often overlooked in our fast-paced world: the strategic importance of rest and reflection. In an economy that often celebrates constant activity, the Daily Economic Updates subtly champion the power of the pause, drawing lessons from artists, athletes, and thinkers.

An excerpt from The Passion Paradox emphasizes that "rest isn’t separate from the work—rest is an integral part of the work." It's an active process where "your brain... is growing and getting better," and where "stress + rest = growth". This counters the "work for work's sake" mentality, reminding us that constant busyness can be a distraction, not a sign of productivity. The observation that an "idle mind is often where you get your best connections of ideas" suggests that stepping back can foster deeper insights than endless grinding.

Writing itself, a form of deliberate reflection, "forces you to slow down, focus your attention, and think deeply". This principle extends to financial decision-making, where "Reflection is wiser" than immediate "Reaction". In an era of non-stop data, taking a "strategic pause" can prevent costly mistakes driven by emotion or superficial analysis. As Thich Nhat Hahn advised, "Don't just do something, sit there!".

Financial Takeaway: Prioritize deliberate rest and time for reflection in your financial life. Recognize that constant activity and reacting to every market impulse can be detrimental. By stepping back, allowing your mind to process, and cultivating a disciplined "strategic pause," you foster clearer thinking, reduce emotional biases, and ultimately make more sound, long-term financial decisions.

Edward Quince's Wisdom Bites: The Art of Subtraction – Why Your To-Do List Needs a Diet

 In today's hyper-connected world, we're drowning in information and ceaseless demands. The financial news cycle, with its "daily deluge of financial 'news'", often creates a "Noise Bottleneck" where "the more data you get, the less you know what’s going on". But what if the path to greater productivity and financial clarity lies not in adding more, but in the radical art of subtraction?

As an "XTOD" insight powerfully states, "Clarity comes from subtraction, not addition. Remove the noise, the distractions, and the unnecessary. What truly matters will emerge". This mirrors Steve Jobs' philosophy that "focus means saying no to the hundred other good ideas that there are". We're often trapped by an "additive bias," piling on "features of dubious value" in life and work.

To break free, you must cultivate a ruthless filter. Ask yourself: "If it won’t matter in 5 YEARS don’t give it more than 5 MINUTES attention". This practice extends to your daily routine. "Don’t ever arrive at the office or in front of your computer without a clear list of priorities". If you're stuck, "look at each in turn and ask yourself, If this is the only thing I accomplish today, will I be satisfied with my day?". The goal is to avoid the "work for work's sake" trap and make space for genuine insight. Sometimes, your "best connections of ideas" emerge from an "idle mind".

Financial Takeaway: Master the art of ignoring the unimportant. Recognize that information abundance can be "toxic". By consciously subtracting distractions and cultivating focus, you enhance your "pattern recognition" and ability to "connect dots", leading to clearer thinking and better financial decisions. Don't be consumed by the medium; choose to be the master of your attention, prioritizing what truly builds lasting value over fleeting headlines.

Edward Quince's Wisdom Bites: The Illusion of Control – What Bird Poop Teaches Us About Prediction

Welcome back to Edward Quince's Wisdom Bites. Today, let's explore a profound lesson in humility, not from a financial textbook, but from the unexpected tale of bird poop and cosmic discovery. At Bell Labs, Arno Penzias and Robert Wilson famously struggled with an unexplained noise in their radio antenna, initially attributing it to pigeon droppings. After meticulously eliminating all known causes, they eventually realized they had stumbled upon cosmic microwave background radiation—the afterglow of the Big Bang. This serendipitous discovery highlights a crucial truth for finance: most predictions fail, and detailed plans often prove illusory, as history shows that outliers and the unexpected frequently shape our world.

The human mind craves certainty; in fact, "The need for certainty is the greatest disease the mind faces". We often overestimate certainty and the risk of unlikely events, and assume correlations that don't exist, leading us astray. The Daily Economic Updates consistently note that "Nobody knows anything, and that's okay". Yet, this simple admission runs counter to our deep-seated need to believe we can predict the future, or that experts can, even when their forecasts are "100% dead wrong".

Financial Takeaway: Embrace the unpredictable. Just as the universe revealed its secrets through unexpected "noise," financial markets are complex systems resistant to precise forecasts. Instead of seeking to control the uncontrollable, cultivate a mindset of intellectual humility. Recognize that our intelligence can be "overridden by ego, insecurity, immorality, bad incentives, or impatience". Focus on adaptability and resilience, understanding that "sophisticated minds adopt simplified lifestyles; simplistic minds are drawn to overly sophisticated lifestyles". Your ability to navigate the unknown will far outweigh any illusion of foresight.

Edward Quince's Wisdom Bites: The Unseen Force of Persistent Effort and Purpose

In a world clamoring for instant success, the most profound achievements, whether financial or personal, are quietly forged through persistent effort, continuous learning, and an unwavering sense of purpose.

The temptation to chase immediate gratification is strong, but true success, is "about being average for an above-average period of time". It is the cumulative effect of consistent daily actions that truly compounds, rather than sporadic, spectacular gestures. As Kobe Bryant famously urged, "Show up every single day and do the work". This enduring commitment transforms slow progress into significant breakthroughs, because "A person who puts in continuous effort for ten years may achieve more in one week than someone who, having started six months ago, will achieve in an entire year".

This dedication extends beyond mere financial endeavor; it is a philosophy for a life well-lived. "The game of life is the game of everlasting learning", and this continuous quest for knowledge is what truly safeguards our prosperity: "only when your knowledge compounds at a faster pace, your money is safe". It means investing in oneself, for as Ralph Waldo Emerson advised, "Insist on yourself; never imitate". Take pride not just in natural "talents" but in the "effort" applied to them.

Ultimately, the goal is not merely to accumulate wealth, but to find meaning and true richness. "What you want is money, but what you really want is meaning". This involves a continuous self-assessment: "What am I working on and why? Who am I spending time with and why? How well am I treating my body and why? Everything else is noise". By cultivating a "clear vision of who you want to be" and the "patience to follow through their long-term goals," you unlock the "true wealth" of "freedom, peace of mind, love beyond yourself".