The Dutch Investors #84 | What Darwin taught us about Investing
Mar 11, 2026
They reframe investing through Darwinian ideas, using extinction stories to question hype. They introduce the Nalanda Way: learn to say no and avoid fatal mistakes. They compare traits like tameness and ROCE as simple filters. They champion boring, debt-free businesses and the power of patience and compounding.
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Nalanda Way Is About Saying No First
- Pulak Prasad's Nalanda approach reframes evolutionary theory as the art of rejection rather than survival of the loudest.
- Their first goal when screening is to find reasons to say no, leaving only a few tightly filtered companies.
Prioritize Avoiding Fatal Investment Errors
- Investors will be wrong often, but mistakes split into type 1 (buying a company that goes to zero) and type 2 (missing a 10x winner).
- Evolution prefers avoiding fatal errors, so investors should prioritize preventing catastrophic losses.
Avoid Zeros To Make Winning Easier
- Reduce type 1 errors by building a portfolio that never holds zeros; survival-first investing simplifies eventual winning math.
- Nalanda accepts missing potential big winners because avoiding bankruptcies raises long-term success probability.
