There is no one that wants to have a lousy business, but as Warren Buffett points out, you certainly learn a lot of lessons from it. Among the things you learn are “how awful it is, and how little you can do about it, and how IQ does not solve the problem. . . ”
As Buffett noted: “I really think if you want to be a good evaluator of businesses, an investor, you really ought to figure out a way, without too much personal damage, to run a lousy business for a while,” Buffett explained at the 2017 Berkshire Hathaway Annual Meeting. “I think you learn a whole lot more about business by actually struggling with a terrible business for a couple of years than you learn by getting into a very good one where the business itself is so good that you can’t mess it up.”
Buffett’s full explanation about learning from running a lousy business
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© 2020 David Mazor
Disclosure: David Mazor is a freelance writer focusing on Berkshire Hathaway. The author is long in Berkshire Hathaway, and this article is not a recommendation on whether to buy or sell the stock. The information contained in this article should not be construed as personalized or individualized investment advice. Past performance is no guarantee of future results.