Jim Rogers on youth, experience and bubbles

… that is what happens in bubbles.  The price goes up because the price is going up. In one sense, what you want in a bull market is a kid who is too young to know that what he is doing is foolish.  You want a kid who will race into a bubble and leverage it higher and higher.  Guys like me will not make nearly so much money because we see what is going on.  The kid does not know why he is making money, which is why he is making so much money.  The rest of us are experienced enough or smart enough to know that this is going to end badly.  What you want is a kid with very little experience and just enough brains to be very dangerous.  But you need to be smart enough to know when to pull out, to save yourself from his lack of knowledge and experience, and that, of course, can be hard to do.  When things go bad, you certainly do not want that kid around— and the kid is probably not going to be around by then anyway.

~ Jim Rogers, Street Smarts: Adventures on the Road and in the Markets

Jim Rogers on apprenticeship

I often explain to young people, I benefited from being an assistant.  I learned by watching others closely.  There is nothing like on-the-job training.  Many people coming into the job market think that they have done well for themselves if they manage to leapfrog an apprenticeship.  The wise course is to start by working for someone else, and to keep one’s eyes and ears open.

~ Jim Rogers, Street Smarts: Adventures on the Road and in the Markets