The Education of a Value Investor: My Transformative Quest for Wealth, Wisdom, and Enlightenment Hardcover – September 9, 2014

This book is about Guy's personal journey -- the good and the bad. As others have written about the book, he's extremely honest about the path he took to get to where he is today. And while his complete story is still one that is being written, his openness describing his path is what makes this book one that can make just about anyone a better investor. Even if the things that personally work for him don't fit your personality in the same way, he'll make make you think enough about certain things -- especially your environment and the people you surround yourself with -- that I imagine would cause almost anyone, and not just investors, to seriously consider making at least a couple of changes in their lives.And while far from strictly being an "investment book" (which makes it more interesting to readers of all types) there is still plenty of investment wisdom, and several things that I'll be adding to my own investing checklist. For example, one of the investing mistakes he discusses was his investment in Tupperware. The "Checklist Item" that may have prevented this investment mistake was "Is this company providing a win-win for its entire ecosystem?" While I already have this on my list as far as being careful of investing in tobacco companies, casinos, or public lottery companies (which he also discusses), I hadn't thought of it as much in regards to a company like Tupperware. It was selling a product that its customers wanted, that they couldn't really get elsewhere, and Tupperware was the market leader. Sounds good, right? But the problem was that they weren't giving their customers a good deal. They were overpricing their merchandise. So while there may be money to be made for a while, especially if you get in early and buy a company like this cheap enough, there is a big competitive risk in the future that isn't easy to see just by looking at the past. How loyal do you think customers are likely to be when someone comes along with essentially the same product at a much better price (especially when it then becomes clear how much customers were being overcharged in the past)?I also liked the CarMax example Guy wrote about. It stressed to me the importance of looking at how customers pay for their purchases. There's a big difference between a business whose customers have the money to pay for their products at the time of the transaction and ones that rely on outside creditors to provide their customers access to credit. While CarMax has other advantages of scale that still make it a decent business and allowed it to recover after credit had dried up, there are many other businesses that make a living relying on the credit of others that don't have any competitive advantages and can quickly and unexpectedly have their business models become at risk in the wrong environment. While things may work well if the wrong environment doesn't occur in one's investment horizon, I think the big key from Guy's examples and checklist items is to stick to areas where your odds of success of winning are higher, and areas where you are less likely to encounter unexpected and unfavorable surprises. As Charlie Munger likes to say, "All I want to know is where I'm going to die so that I'll never go there."So all in all, I think Guy has written a book very worthy of 5 stars, for investors of all levels of experience, and a book that I think would also be interesting to those outside of the investing world.

"The Education of a Value investor", Guy Spier's new book, is as long on humility and introspection as it is short on hubris and self-promotion. In fact, it is one of the most refreshingly written book on Value investing that I have read till date. The author has bared out his soul and his life which he knows will help to guide many other people to the right path. His life, like all of ours, is idiosyncratic, but the lessons which can be drawn from it are emphatically not.People looking for some easy strategies to make money in the market need not bother to read this book. In contrast, people who want to align their whole being in the right direction and improve their investing discipline as well as overall life quality will embrace it with open arms.As Buffett and Munger have mentioned many times, the best way to learn from mistakes is to learn from the mistakes of others. Guy has selflessly laid out his mistakes for all of us to learn from. His hellish experience on Wall street will hopefully convince many bright young people to pursue their own deep interests rather than chasing after money. Then again, Liar's poker should have done the same but did not. But my hope is that at least some bright kid somewhere thinking of joining investment banking will have a eureka moment and have a different life trajectory as a result.Also laid out in great detail is the colorful personality of another of my favorite investors, Mohnish Pabrai. The constantly self-deprecating Mr Pabrai is one hell of a character and I would definitely love to meet him one day to pick his brains. Mohnish and Guy's success is a testament that nice guys can be very successful and in fact will have much more satisfying overall lives than the so-called masters-of-the-universe. Also, it drives home the fact that your environment and your role models will have a greater effect on your investing success and well-being than your brains. Temperament would be the biggest gift that an investor could have, not smarts.There are also some interesting case studies to learn from in the book. If you think about it, not much has changed since Ben Graham laid out the rules of investing 80 years ago. So I am totally at peace with the fact that Guy spends more time discussing his mistakes and the life changes he made to increase the probability of success. People should not expect any detailed analysis of companies or industries in this book. There are enough books out there already teaching those.Rather, the goal of this book is to focus you inwards rather than outwards. This is a journey of self-discovery which teaches us the most important lesson of all. The same lesson that sages and wise men have been repeating for ages but which is the most difficult task of all: Know Thyself.