Video · 2026-07-15 · 45m · 6 moments

I'm 80 and I wasted 25 years of my life. Don't make my mistake. - Howard Marks

✦ AI generated

timeline · colored by role

Claim

AI has two unprecedented qualities compared to every prior technology: autonomy (you can give it a job without specifying how to do it, and it figures it out) and a degree of unpredictability about the future that no earlier innovation, including the internet, ever had.

Howard Marks explains why he upgraded his view of AI: unlike past technologies that were mere productivity tools, AI can act autonomously and its future trajectory is genuinely unknowable.

transcript

Howard Marks: All the other technological innovations from the railroad to computers, to the internet, etc., were all tools or things to speed up and increase productivity. There's never been anything with the quality of autonomy. The idea that it you can give it a job and not tell it how to do it, and it'll figure it out. Is really unique.

rebuts · 2supports · 1

Claim

AI will expose and displace investment professionals whose skills aren't as great as they claim, the way indexation exposed underperforming active managers, but experienced human judgment—like sensing something is wrong with a person for undefinable reasons—may remain something AI cannot replicate.

Marks argues AI will unmask mediocre investors much like indexing did, but believes there's likely a lasting role for the intangible judgment and instinct of experienced human investors.

transcript

Howard Marks: I think we've helped our clients over the years by not investing with bad people. And sometimes you talk to people and for undefinable reasons you just say, you know what? It doesn't feel right. As somebody said to me, the hair on your back on your neck goes up. And if that's true and if AI doesn't have hair on its neck then maybe there's a role left for experienced investors with judgment.

extends · 1supports · 1

Claim

Second-level thinking—seeing something different from the consensus and being right about it—is the key to superior investing, but it cannot be taught; it's a form of insight some people simply have and others don't, like height in basketball.

Marks explains that while he can teach the concept of second-level thinking, he cannot teach someone how to actually generate correct contrarian insights—that talent is innate, not learnable.

transcript

Howard Marks: Can you teach me to be a second-level thinker? And the answer is no. I can teach you the importance of being a second-level thinker like I just have in this chapter, but I can't tell you how to have perceptions that are at odds with the consensus of investors and correct. You know, in basketball there's a saying you can't coach height.

rebuts · 1supports · 1

Anecdote◆

Courage in investing isn't the absence of fear—it's acting despite trepidation, and if you wait until you're no longer afraid to invest, the opportunity has already passed, which is why the best time to invest is during a crisis when everyone else is too scared.

Reflecting on deploying $7 billion during the 2008 Lehman collapse with no data or precedent to rely on, Marks argues real conviction means investing while still afraid, because the opportunity disappears once the fear does.

transcript

Howard Marks: A battle hero is not somebody who's unafraid. It's somebody who's afraid, but does it anyway. If you're running into a hell of bullets and you're not afraid, there's something wrong with you. But you do it anyway, because it's what you have to do... you have to do it despite your trepidation. And if you wait until you have nothing to be afraid about, probably the opportunity has passed.

extends · 1

Claim

A successful long-term partnership requires shared values and complementary skills: partners can't have fundamentally different risk tolerances or ethics, and each partner should be able to do things the other can't, making the relationship additive rather than redundant.

Marks credits his 39-year partnership with Bruce Karsh to shared values, complementary skills, and mutual appreciation, warning that mismatched values (a 'cowboy' paired with a 'chicken') doom partnerships.

transcript

Howard Marks: I said the key to a successful partnership is shared values and complementary skills. If you don't share values, I don't think you can have a successful partnership... The other thing is you have to have complementary skills. So the beauty of a partnership is when your partner can do things you can't. That means that you are both additive to each other, synergistic.

extends · 1

Anecdote◆

For roughly 25 years of his career, Howard Marks made major life and career decisions unconsciously and without intention—drifting based on luck and circumstance rather than deliberate reasoning—and he now regrets not living with intention until around age 50; his advice is to consciously find work that plays to your strengths, avoids your weaknesses, and makes you happy, rather than letting friends, parents, or society decide.

Marks admits he drifted unintentionally through the first 25 years of his career—ending up in bonds and moving to California largely by chance—and urges young people to deliberately choose paths that fit their own strengths and happiness instead of following others.

transcript

Howard Marks: Not that I recall. I think part of it, you know, and I said, I said for the next 25 years I didn't do it. That took me up to roughly 95, which is when I left with Bruce to start Oaktree.

extends · 1supports · 2

Highlight slides

Courage Isn't Fearlessness✦ from: Courage in investing isn't the absence of fear—it's acting despite trepidation, and if you wait until you're no longer afraid to invest, the opportunity has already passed, which is why the best time to invest is during a crisis when everyone else is too scared.Marks's $7B Bet in 2008✦ from: Courage in investing isn't the absence of fear—it's acting despite trepidation, and if you wait until you're no longer afraid to invest, the opportunity has already passed, which is why the best time to invest is during a crisis when everyone else is too scared.25 Years on Autopilot✦ from: For roughly 25 years of his career, Howard Marks made major life and career decisions unconsciously and without intention—drifting based on luck and circumstance rather than deliberate reasoning—and he now regrets not living with intention until around age 50; his advice is to consciously find work that plays to your strengths, avoids your weaknesses, and makes you happy, rather than letting friends, parents, or society decide.His Advice to the Young✦ from: For roughly 25 years of his career, Howard Marks made major life and career decisions unconsciously and without intention—drifting based on luck and circumstance rather than deliberate reasoning—and he now regrets not living with intention until around age 50; his advice is to consciously find work that plays to your strengths, avoids your weaknesses, and makes you happy, rather than letting friends, parents, or society decide.

Related episodes

Video · a16z Podcast

Ben Horowitz on the Global Race for Tech, Power, and Influence

→

Video · Lenny's Podcast

The rise of taste, human authenticity and judgment in an AI world | Adam Mosseri (Head of IG)

→

Video · a16z Podcast

Is Defense the Next Trillion-Dollar Category? | a16z American Dynamism Summit

→