Nilesh Jasani's Reviews > What I Learned About Investing from Darwin

In the chatty, lively, and engaging book "What I Learned About Investing from Darwin," author Pulak Prasad takes readers on an illuminating journey through the world of investing. With wit and charm, Prasad weaves his own experiences and insights with the lessons he has learned following his two gurus, Charles Darwin and Warren Buffett.

Prasad, a relatively unknown for those unfamiliar with the Indian equities industry, is an investment legend with a track record comparable to the best worldwide over the last fifteen years. His audacious investment style is deserving of study. This is not just because of the performance but also because of how logical, almost irrefutable, its tenets sound as he explains them, deploying the similes and examples from evolutionary sciences. While his approach may not be the only path to financial success, it is undoubtedly effective and provides readers with plenty of food for thought.

To this reviewer, investors should first and foremost adopt a disciplined, logically sound style that suits their personality and access. Pulak has done this perfectly with a discipline rarely observed among the best professionals. One may have heard Darwin and Buffett's theories countless times before, but he is able to breathe life into well-trodden concepts in every section through the novel connections he makes between the fields. When dotted with real-life examples of his investments, they do not remain pure theories in the book!

Throughout the book, readers are treated to an array of thought-provoking ideas, such as the importance of avoiding forecasts, the benefits of being an investor who focuses more on rejections, the wisdom of minimum versus optimum debt in corporate books, and summary rejection of things that obsess regular investors like quarterly results, daily stock prices, models like DCF, etc. The book reads like a guide on everything unconventional, and yet the logic is presented with such clarity and conviction that one begins to doubt one's sanity for ever believing in anything different!

Overall, a must-read for anyone interested in the world of investing. Its refreshing take on investment strategies and unparalleled depth of wisdom makes it a far superior choice to many of the more popular books on the subject.