[ctkrohn]

Here's perhaps a better way to say what I'm getting at: identifying and investing with a manager that predictably outperforms a benchmark is just as difficult an intellectual challenge as constructing a portfolio that outperforms that same benchmark. Both of these tasks are so difficult as to be essentially impossible for an unsophisticated retail investor.

[VLM]

I'll throw you a better analogy, identifying and hiring an outperforming programmer should be much simpler than identifying and hiring outperforming investment managers because there is relatively little effect of chance on programming output and measurement of success is mostly objective.

Yet we know that hiring for programmers is utterly hopelessly broken beyond all belief, industry wide.

Therefore its very unlikely that people of a similar cognitive and training level that utterly failed at hiring programmers could possibly select outperforming investment managers given that being an even more difficult job. No one in HR or management is going to be selecting outperforming investment managers.

Its possible that someone outside HR and management is better at selecting the best programmers. Certainly plenty of advice from outsiders is given to hire more of coincidentally highly politically correct demographic group A or group B. Or perhaps ivy college admissions officers magically know how to pick future great programmers (LOL). Professors and college advisors might put forth a weak argument in their own favor. Still, money seems to talk and greed means management and HR, however awful they are at selecting programmers, none the less are the best skilled at it, regardless how low that skill level is.