Paul GrahamVerified account

People in the grip of an ideology become so determined to defend it that they can see almost any statement as contradicting it, just as an aggressive teenage boy can see almost any act as a challenge. "What are you looking at?"

As an avid reader of your posts/essays, it would be really interesting to know how you may have also fallen victim to this.

If you mean victim in the sense of being in the grip of an ideology, I'm pretty strict with myself about that. You can't be a good investor and also be the sort of person who stays wedded to ideas despite evidence to the contrary.

Fair enough. Taking a step back, I think that maybe what I’m desiring is a first person account of some of the internal human conflicts you so often eloquently speak to.

Can you give me an example of the sort of conflict you mean?

Sure! I’m imagining you reflecting on earlier times, when you might have found yourself wrestling with your own set of ideological blind spots...perhaps as you were transitioning from being a capable engineer to a noob investor.

Or how you might go about resisting the urge to turn being a good investor into an ideology in its own right. Unless the two are mutually exclusive.