The Hit Rate Is One Great Idea Every Five Years

Bob Greene: Monish Pabrai tweeted that Berkshire Hathaway has one great idea every five years. He says investors should almost lower their expectations as they're sifting through a bunch of these names and raise the hurdle if it really comes down to about a dozen ideas over my lifetime, which is a very long life. Greene: There's long stretches of time in which he doesn't have any good ideas. When they're using almost all their money to buy private businesses, it probably indicates that the public markets are too expensive for them or that they just can't find things there.