Occasionally, the people we admire most peel back layers for the masses.
One of my favorite pieces to recommend to new folks in the industry, or those trying to break in — which lays the groundwork for a great career in finance, actually has nothing to do with numbers (in reality it lays a great foundation for a career in anything).
After Gene Fama and Ken French (both heavyweight financial academics, the former with a Nobel Prize) had published dozens of papers together over multiple decades, Ken penned a paper on his own. He delivered it as a speech, and there were no analytics.
It was simply an homage to his close friend and collaborator.
When I first read Things I've Learned From Gene, I peeked behind the curtain at the friendship and working relationship of two professors who have dramatically impacted my career and how I think about investing, but whose actual personalities I knew less about. And it deepened my interest and admiration.
A few of my favorite sections:
Randomness Happens
Many years ago, while trying to convince Gene that a marginal candidate deserved tenure, I compared the candidate to one of our less productive tenured colleagues. His response destroyed my argument, “You make enough mistakes by mistake, don’t make one on purpose.”
This is one of my favorite Fama quotes. Gene was making a specific point—don’t let a bad draw reduce your standard for future decisions—but I interpret his statement more broadly: Even with unbiased forecasts, the effect of uncertainty can be asymmetric.
Clarity, Brevity, and Precision
Gene tries to be clear, succinct, and precise. He can usually have all three, but when there is a conflict he sacrifices clarity and brevity for precision. His emphasis on communication affects even his research design. When choosing between two sensible empirical tests, the easier to explain has the inside track.
Finally, Gene rarely uses footnotes. Most are distractions that sidetrack the reader and expose a lazy writer. If the content is important, Gene includes it in the text. If the content is not worth space in the text, how can it justify a footnote that interrupts the reader’s focus and train of thought?
No Ad Hominem Attacks
Gene once said a former colleague had won lots of arguments he should have lost. Non-academics might be puzzled to discover that Gene meant this as strong criticism. His point was simple. Using sarcasm or a sharp wit to undermine those who disagree with you poisons the intellectual environment. Gene rejects all ad hominem attacks. He consistently focuses on the idea he is arguing about, not the person he is arguing with. For example, he says a reporter’s question doesn’t make sense, not that the reporter is a pompous, arrogant fool.
The first time I saw Gene insulted in an academic discussion—by a visiting accounting professor!—I was surprised by his response: He simply ignored the attack. Because of his prominence and outspoken views about market efficiency and monetary policy, Gene has been the victim of many personal attacks since then and, as far as I know, he has ignored them all. He argues that his behavior is optimal, but doing is harder than knowing.
So while the most famous Fama-French paper, The Cross-Section of Expected Returns (1992), is a foundational pillar to my investment approach (it helped cohesively explain investment returns, suggesting that while the outcomes from picking individual stocks are typically too random to delineate luck from skill [or even unluckiness from unskillfulness], there IS explanatory power about investments returns if you instead look at groups of stocks, e.g. small companies vs. large companies)...it is Ken's homage to Gene to which I refer more frequently.
Why? Because I don't like Ken French or Gene Fama "as a person" because they have aptitude for financial research and statistical analyses. It's in Things I've Learned From Gene where I feel the humanness, personality, and gratitude...and not just of Gene, but also of Ken as the author.
You can meet your heroes (as people), if not in-person, then if they share some of their authenticity and self, outside the immediate discipline.
I had an even stronger (hard to believe) reaction over the weekend, when Jason Zweig published a tremendous piece in the Wall Street Journal.
It will be remembered, and shared, as one of the sharpest, thought-provoking, heart-crushing, existential-anxiety-awakening, sad, gracious, relatable, taxing homages to a friend that you will ever read in finance.
It reads like it was hard to write. It is a monument.
And much like Ken's, it has no numbers.
And again, you get to meet Jason almost as much as the piece's subject, Daniel (Danny) Kahneman. Jason is already a much-admired, powerhouse financial journalist, but you will enjoy his work even more, going forward, after reading him open up to you, here.
I am fortunate to already call him a friend, but I feel closer to him now. It's a feeling that speaks to his ability (and willingness) to share about his and Danny's friendship dynamics, his own moral quandaries unpacking what has happened, and some of his own personal life, to boot.
Why does this matter?
Somehow every company and brand knows that being radically authentic has tremendous value over producing canned, mass-produced content. But some professions aren't exactly cut out for that. And some personalities aren't interested in that, either. That's all good.
But you probably have heroes, and whether it's music, literature, finance, or anything else — you will enjoy whatever brilliance you love even more when you get more layers from the personality creating it. If you're lucky enough, it will go beyond basic Wikipedia information, and you can find interviews, videos, or written work.
For me, it changes everything to feel like I know the who behind the what.
When I congratulated Jason on the piece, he told me that writing it was a saga.
You will actually glean that from reading it — and you'll feel it, too:
End.