📖David Swensen
Wisdom for Investing and Life
Investment principles apply to life too.
The principles that make you a great investor — patience, discipline, humility, and continuous learning — are the same principles that lead to a great life.
🏠 Everyday Analogy
📖 Core Interpretation
David Swensen advocates a repeatable process: define criteria, execute consistently, and review decisions against evidence. Process quality drives outcome consistency.
💎 Key Insight：Character virtues drive success in investing and life.
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❓ Why It Matters
Without process, there is no reliable feedback loop. Structured execution and review improve decision quality over time.
🎯 How to Practice
Run a decision loop of research, thesis, execution, and post-mortem; document assumptions and update playbooks with evidence, not hindsight bias.
⚠️ Common Pitfalls
Having opinions without execution criteria
Reviewing outcomes but not decisions
Abandoning rules during volatility spikes
📚 Case Studies
1
Yale Endowment in Global Financial Crisis (2008)
Swensen’s diversified portfolio with alternatives, real assets, and bonds limited losses versus equity-heavy funds during the 2008 crash.
✨ Outcome：Endowment declined less than many peers and recovered strongly, reinforcing the value of true diversification.
2
Dot-Com Bust and Yale’s Limited Tech Exposure (2000)
During the tech bubble, Swensen avoided concentrated tech bets, emphasizing diversification across asset classes and valuation discipline.
✨ Outcome：Yale’s endowment sidestepped severe losses when the bubble burst, outperforming many tech-heavy investors over the period.
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