Investment Philosophy
This is my approach: entrepreneurial thinking, valuing businesses like an owner, compounding, capital preservation, and resilient portfolio allocation.
Most investors start with a question like: What’s the next hot stock?
I prefer to start with a different one: How do I build a portfolio that will survive and compound for decades?
It’s the foundation of how I run The Tiny Family Office.
Preservation First, Compounding Second
I’m not trying to be the best-performing investor every year. My goals are much simpler:
Preserve wealth across decades.
Compound steadily at 7–8% annualized.
Limit drawdowns to a level I can comfortably live with
Own businesses and assets I can sleep with at night, through good times and bad.
Asset Allocation
Any family office or endowment fund starts here, because this is where most of the risk and return are determined. My own strategic allocation looks roughly like this:
Equities (~70 %)
A global ETF (MSCI ACWI / FTSE All World) forms the base.
Around this, I add a handful of high-quality individual companies.
Alternatives (~30 %)
Hedge funds & absolute return strategies: long/short equity, event-driven, macro, multi-strategy, credit.
Gold: resilience against inflation, currency debasement, and shocks.
Commodities: selectively, when the cycle demands it.
Fixed Income & Cash
No long-duration bonds. I prefer to avoid duration risk. This may change over time depending on yields, government debt, inflationary outlook.
Minimal cash, but flexibility to rebalance when markets fall.
Private Equity
Manager dispersion is too extreme. Results depend heavily on whether you pick a top-quartile manager or not. The gap between the best and the rest is huge.
Too dependent on individual fund managers and deals. Outcomes are driven more by fund-level execution than by broad asset class dynamics.
Lack of transparency. Compared to public markets, it’s harder to evaluate performance and incentives.
This structure is designed not for one market environment, but for many. The equity bull market of the past decade may not repeat. Inflation may come and go. By diversifying across asset classes, I prepare for a range of futures.
Entrepreneurial Investing: Owning Companies Like a Founder
Most people buy stocks. I buy businesses.
That’s the essence of entrepreneurial investing: looking at every potential equity investment as if I were buying the entire company.
When I study a business, I ask:
Can it earn high returns on capital for a long time?
Does it have a durable moat, brand, duopoly, or recurring revenues?
Is management aligned with shareholders, ideally with skin in the game? Is even a founding family involved?
Does the capital allocation policy make sense? Are dividends, buybacks, or reinvestments done intelligently?
Is the risk of disruption low enough that the business can endure for decades?
I’d rather own fewer companies I truly understand than dozens I can’t explain.
Some examples of the kinds of businesses I like:
Nestlé: food brands consumed daily by billions. Predictable business.
OTIS: majority of revenues from maintaining elevators already installed.
LVMH: luxury goods with centuries of natural demand behind them.
These companies aren’t about hype. They’re about resilience, predictability, and the ability to compound quietly over decades.
Risk, Volatility, and Drawdowns
Every investor faces drawdowns. The question is not if they happen, but how you prepare for them.
I accept that an equity portfolio can fall by 50% during a severe crisis. I expect my total drawdown to much be smaller in extreme scenarios due to diversification.
A portfolio I can live with through downturns is a portfolio I won’t abandon. And staying invested is the only way compounding works.
The Investors Who Shaped My Thinking
My investment approach was shaped by some of the best:
Warren Buffett & Charlie Munger — think of stocks as businesses, not tickers.
Tom Russo — the “capacity to suffer” for long-term success.
Terry Smith — buy good companies, don’t overpay, then do nothing.
David Swensen — endowment-style diversification across asset classes.
Their common thread is long-term ownership, patience, and respect for quality. I adapt their lessons into my own approach.
The Discipline of Writing
The act of writing down this philosophy, and documenting decisions as I go, forces discipline. It makes me think like an owner, not a trader. It prevents me from drifting with market noise.
Over time, I expect this framework to evolve. But the principles remain constant: preserve, diversify, compound.
Closing Thoughts
My philosophy is not about guessing the next macro move or trading in and out of the market. It’s about building a portfolio that:
Survives downturns.
Holds quality businesses like an owner.
Compounds steadily across cycles.
It may be the smallest family office in the world, but it is a fine one built on principles that last.