September 2010
Beginner
208 pages
2h 54m
English
Content preview from The Little Book: That Still Beats the MarketBecome an O’Reilly member and get unlimited access to this title plus top books and audiobooks from O’Reilly and nearly 200 top publishers, thousands of courses curated by job role, 150+ live events each month,
O’Reilly covers everything we've got, with content to help us build a world-class technology community, upgrade the capabilities and competencies of our teams, and improve overall team performance as well as their engagement.I wanted to learn C and C++, but it didn't click for me until I picked up an O'Reilly book. When I went on the O’Reilly platform, I was astonished to find all the books there, plus live events and sandboxes so you could play around with the technology.I’ve been on the O’Reilly platform for more than eight years. I use a couple of learning platforms, but I'm on O'Reilly more than anybody else. When you're there, you start learning. I'm never disappointed.I'm always learning. So when I got on to O'Reilly, I was like a kid in a candy store. There are playlists. There are answers. There's on-demand training. It's worth its weight in gold, in terms of what it allows me to do.
Chapter 4. Chapter Four
GREAT, FIGURING OUT WHAT A BUSINESS is worth isn't easy. After lots of guessing and estimating, maybe you get it right and maybe you get it wrong. But what if you could? What if you could figure out what a business was really worth? Is there something you could do with that information? Is there really a place like I promised in the first chapter, a place where you can buy a business for half its true value? A place where you can get $1,000 of value for only $500? You bet there is. But first, let's spend a few minutes in business school.
For the past fourteen years, I have taught an investing course to a group of graduate business students at an Ivy League university. Needless to say, this is a pretty smart group of students. Each year, on the first day of class, I walk in and open the newspaper to the financial section. Found there are pages and pages of tables with lots of numbers in tiny print. (Sounds great so far, right?) Anyway, posted in these tables is a list of company names, and next to each name is a bunch of prices.
"Call out the name of a big, well-known company," I say. The students come up with companies like General Electric, IBM, General Motors, and Abercrombie & Fitch. Actually, it doesn't really matter what companies the students shout out. My main point is so easy to make, any company name in almost any industry, large or small, well known or not, will do. The result is always the same.
I look in the paper next to General Electric and read ...
Become an O’Reilly member and get unlimited access to this title plus top books and audiobooks from O’Reilly and nearly 200 top publishers, thousands of courses curated by job role, 150+ live events each month,
and much more.
Read now
Unlock full access
More than 5,000 organizations count on O’Reilly
O’Reilly covers everything we've got, with content to help us build a world-class technology community, upgrade the capabilities and competencies of our teams, and improve overall team performance as well as their engagement.Julian F.
I wanted to learn C and C++, but it didn't click for me until I picked up an O'Reilly book. When I went on the O’Reilly platform, I was astonished to find all the books there, plus live events and sandboxes so you could play around with the technology.Addison B.
I’ve been on the O’Reilly platform for more than eight years. I use a couple of learning platforms, but I'm on O'Reilly more than anybody else. When you're there, you start learning. I'm never disappointed.Amir M.
I'm always learning. So when I got on to O'Reilly, I was like a kid in a candy store. There are playlists. There are answers. There's on-demand training. It's worth its weight in gold, in terms of what it allows me to do.