Morgan Housel on the contradiction of the Berkshire Hathaway annual lovefest

Another version of [pluralistic ignorance] is when everyone thinks they’re a contrarian. The heart of pluralistic ignorance is having misperceptions about how others in your peer group think. And that’s usually what happens when you have a view about an investment that you assume isn’t held by a large percentage of other investors. Take the Berkshire Hathaway annual meeting, which is coming up next week. It’s 40,000 people, all of whom consider themselves contrarians. People show up at 4 am to wait in line with thousands of other people to tell each other about their lifelong commitment to not following the crowd. Pluralistic ignorance at its finest.

~ Morgan Housel, "You Played Yourself," Collaborative Fund blog, April 29, 2019