Warren Buffett was asked this question about the sub-prime mortgage fiasco; "Should wise people have known better?"
Of course, they should have, Buffett replied, but there's a "natural progression" to how good ideas go wrong.
He called this progression the "three I's." First come the innovators, who see opportunities that others don't. Then come the imitators, who copy what the innovators have done. And then come the idiots, whose avarice undoes the very innovations they are trying to use to get rich.
Can you distinguish between genuine creativity and mindless imitation? Are you prepared to walk away from ideas that promise to make money, even if they make no sense? Do you have the discipline to keep your head when so many around you are losing theirs? Those questions are something to think about. The answers may be the difference between being an innovator and an idiot.
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