process
Specific Knowledge
The rule
Build an edge from real curiosity, one no school can teach and no machine can copy. Then act only where you truly have it, like a Surat man reading a mill's order book.
Where it flips
Thinking you have specific knowledge when you only have a hobby-level opinion is how people crowd into one lucky-feeling sector and get wrecked. So test the 'edge' honestly. If you cannot explain why you know more than the seller across the table, you do not. Size the bet as if you are average.
Specific knowledge is the stuff you learn because you cannot help learning it. It feels like play to you and like work to everyone else. Nobody can hand it to you in a classroom, and a computer cannot copy it. So it becomes your unfair advantage. As an investor, your real edge is the one narrow area you understand better than the crowd, not a tip you overheard. Money follows the person who owns the knowledge, not the person who merely memorised it.
A worked example
Rohan has spent years around small textile units in Surat. He can read a mill's order book at a glance. So he buys textile stocks he understands and skips the hot pharma IPO everyone is chasing, because there he has no edge at all. [illustrative]
How to spot it
- ·the topic feels like play to you and work to others
- ·you can explain the business without checking notes
- ·your reasons don't lean on someone else's tip
Naval Ravikant · The Almanack of Naval Ravikant