In his book Zero To One, the visionary entrepreneur and investor Peter Thiel asks the following question whenever he interviews someone for a job; ‘What important truth do very few people agree with you on?’
I find this question interesting. On the surface it may seem simple, but it’s a difficult question to answer. Here are some statements I hear a lot;
‘Protect yourself from the sun using sun cream’
‘Brexit will cause long lasting damage to the UK economy’
‘The art world is rigged and corrupt’
‘Bitcoin is a bubble’
‘Donald Trump voters are racist and uneducated’
‘Artificial Intelligence will destroy the whole human race’
‘Sugar is bad for you’
‘Eat at least five portions of fruit and vegetable a day’
‘Astrology is pseudoscience’
Whether or not these statements may be true or false, a lot of people already agree with them. With such common consensus views, it is important to challenge them. Regarding the fourth statement in response to Thiel’s question, one could argue, ‘Most people believe Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies to be a bubble and it is most certainly demonstrating all the classic attributes of one. Yet the truth is that it is a revolutionary and game-changing technology, which has the power to disrupt the entire global banking sector.’ Now I am not suggesting you got out and buy Bitcoin. Bitcoin could still become obsolete, but nevertheless this view is a contrarian one.
John Lennon once sung, ‘Just gimme some truth’. But sometimes truth alone is not enough. Especially if it is the same truth that almost everybody agrees on. John should have really sung, ‘Just gimme some secrets’. Give me some enlightening golden wisdom that isn’t common knowledge.
Consensus views can change. For a long time most people believed that tobacco was a medicine (and it was advertised as such) beneficial to one’s health. Now its seen as harmful to one’s health. Before the 2017 snap election in the UK, the consensus view on the Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn was that he was ‘unelectable’. But when the results of the election were announced, the party did nowhere near as badly as most people had originally forecasted and in fact prevented the Conservative Party from winning with a majority of votes. The consensus view on Corbyn subsequently shifted from someone who was ‘unelectable’ to someone who had a decent chance of becoming the next prime minister should he still be leading the Labour Party when the next elections take place.
Challenging consensus views enables one to stay ahead of the curve. When Google acquired YouTube in 2006 for $1bn many people thought Google overpaid. Likewise, when Facebook acquired Instagram for the same amount of money in 2012, many wondered what Zuckerberg and co had been smoking. With hindsight it is easy to say that they were incredibly shrewd and deft investments. Yet at the time, even though the leaders of both companies had the unique foresight to see the game changing potential in both those companies, most didn’t share their visions and ridiculed them for the amount of money they spent on acquiring them.
Many investors believe that Amazon stock is overvalued. If we were to value the company by its PE (Price to Earnings) ratio alone you could not unreasonably come to the conclusion that it is extremely overvalued. However, if one were to look at Amazon as a unique and powerful monopoly business in the e-commerce space, constantly disrupting traditional industries like no other company one could develop a different point of view and maybe deduce that its trading at a high premium for a reason.
The legendary US investor Warren Buffet’s often quoted mantra is to buy stocks when investors are fearful and panicky and sell when they are greedy and irrationally euphoric. Easier said than done of course. But if you can separate facts, reason and logic from emotion it could set you in good stead. One day in 1929 a wealthy US investor called Joe Kennedy was given some stock tips by a shoeshine boy. Kennedy immediately sold all his holdings and just a short time later the beginnings of the Great Depression unfolded. The stock tips from the shoeshine boy were God’s way of saying the financial markets were dangerously overheating.
Contrarian behaviour may not always work of course, especially in the case of making investment decisions. However, challenging deeply ingrained consensus beliefs is an important way of breaking out of unconscious stagnation, questioning your own conditioned beliefs and habits, developing vision and foresight, and thinking in a more balanced and broad-minded way.
By Nicholas Peart
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Image: jplenio
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