And we come to our centennial or almost, because yesterday I heard a quote from Charlie Munger, who is Warren Buffett's main business partner. You probably know Warren Buffett. He's one of the most famous investors in the world, one of the richest men in the world. And so, he's associated with Charlie Munger. Charlie Munger, Warren Buffett, they're from, I think, Alabama, both of them, and they're at the head of Berkshire Hathaway, which is a kind of investment fund, both of them.
I can't remember the exact quote, I heard it on audio, but he said... I'm talking about Charlie Munger... he said, "I can't remember a single instance in my entire life where keeping things simple has backfired." I'll repeat, he said, "I can't remember a single instance in my entire life where keeping things simple has backfired."
And so this interview, so a lot of experience. When he says "I don't remember my whole life", we're talking about almost a century, almost 100 years. And he's someone who has done very complex things, who has invested billions of dollars and who advocates simplicity and who even says that he doesn't remember a single example in lebanon whatsapp number data which doing simple things backfired, so that means created problems. So he advocates simplicity. And that's true in the field of investment. What leads to the ruin of savers, very often, is complexity, it's the fact of doing complex things, complicated things that we don't understand.
We won't spend too much time on this, but the subprime crisis, which was one of the big crises, was propagated by a debt crisis at the level of the banks and the customers. So it was around 2008-2009. It lasted several years. These were investments in risky and complex securities. Many people didn't know what they were buying, because the banks were creating very complicated products and we simply didn't know what was inside them. So it was something complex and in addition to... here, which is rather immoral, because we are trying to speculate on people's debt.
But still it is the complexity that creates problems here in the investment and the recipes of Charlie Munger and his partner Warren Buffett, they are always simple, do their research, they do their research, they read a lot, they seek to understand and invest in successful and solid companies.
Be careful, simple does not mean easy. We often tend to confuse the two. It is not because something is simple that it is easy. And I see a lot... especially when it comes to investing... a lot of people who explain that what Warren Buffett and Charlie Munger did, well it is so simple that everyone can do it and that someone who has no training can invest like them tomorrow and have the same results.
But no, the fact that it is simple does not mean that it is easy. Behind it, there are hundreds or thousands of hours of reading, studies, experiments, tests, but the principles and the actions they perform are simple. We really must not confuse simple with easy. Again, it is easy to say "you have to read several hours a day", but it is difficult to do it, because we lack time etc.
I refer you to last week's topic or last week's episode in which I talked about this topic, the title is " my new reading challenge ", in which I explain to you why I intend to read 2 hours a day, this is what I'm doing right now, and how I do it. But you understand that there is a difference between simple and easy.