We want to own the best businesses in the world, run by the best management teams, and we want to own them at prices that make sense given where those businesses will be in five years.
The short side is never as simple as it looks. You can be right about the business and still lose money for a very long time.
Research is what separates a great investment from an expensive guess. There is no substitute for actually understanding how a business makes money.
Management quality is the hardest thing to assess and the most important thing to get right. The numbers can look great and still fall apart if the wrong person is running the show.
Patience isn't passive. Holding a great business through short-term noise while the market panics is one of the hardest things to do and one of the most rewarding when you get it right.
If you haven't spent serious time understanding why a company has a durable advantage, you don't own an investment — you own a lottery ticket.