| My ability to understand facebook's stack doesn't help me understand whether tiktok will eat their lunch, or whether the government will break up facebook and instagram. At the stage where tech companies aren't behemoths like that, they're waiting longer and longer to go public. Uber, the poster child for this generation of startup investing, waited until it was a $60B company before it went public. Maybe it's easy as a company to get private investment in the cases where my insider's expertise would help me. My ability to see that full self driving wouldn't be here by 2020 and that Musk's timelines were hype-fueling B.S. doesn't help me with tesla stock, which went way up regardless. I think netflix, as it currently exists, is on the way out. But that's a long term bet. Not only can the market stay irrational longer than I can stay solvent, netflix can make changes and turn shit around on that time scale. My informed opinions about the macbook don't help me predict the invention and success of the iphone. Maybe I could use my expertise for investing if I made investing my full time job, but I have one already, and it probably pays better than whatever I'd earn gambling. What's a reasonably reliable amount to beat the market by in your mind? A few percent? Is a few percent worth giving up a $50k-200k/yr promotion by devoting those same efforts to getting better at my day job? Is a few percent worth investing in my industry so that my portfolio losing value becomes even more correlated to my home losing value and more correlated with losing my job? Hell, when I vest stock at work, where I'm literally an insider, I immediately sell during open trading windows. It has exactly zero to do with how I feel about my company and everything to do with wanting to hedge my wealth and my employment against each other. A.k.a. diversification. |