Berkshire's oldest fund: $1 → $30 in 27 years
Pabrai's oldest fund, now over 27 years old, has turned every $1 into approximately $30, versus the S&P 500's roughly $6-7 over the same period.
Snapshot · My First Million
Mohnish Pabrai: This will save you 10 years of bad investments
Explore episode
May 22, 2026
Where this was said
The hardest question
At 1:03:54 · chapter starts 1:02:39
Shaan frames the question with characteristic honesty, citing Cathie Wood as the cautionary example: brilliant, popular, conviction-rich, but unable to beat the S&P over any meaningful time period while charging significant fees [1] — Mohnish Pabrai "Only 4% of US companies have driven the entire stock market's 90-year return. Buffett made 400+ investments but just 12 created Berkshire. …" 1:06:22 . Pabrai responds with his own track record: the oldest fund has turned every dollar into roughly $30 over 27+ years versus the S&P's $6-7, a meaningful outperformance. But the newer ETF lagged for its first 2.5 years before pulling ahead significantly. The S&P advantage is structural and paradoxical: it's too dumb to sell its winners. It owned NVIDIA and TSMC and held them without intervention. Individual portfolio managers — even great ones — see elevated valuations and trim. They see the mistress and swap. The index doesn't. The solution for investors who want to beat it is not to avoid the 4% winners but to never sell them — the same advice Pabrai gives about Coke, about Apple, about Berkshire's insurance operations. Don't fire Ajit Jain. The few bets that work are everything.
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