Why We Think We’re Better Investors Than We Are

"This despite overwhelming evidence that even professional investors are no more likely to beat the market than monkeys throwing darts at securities listings. Money managers, at least, are paid to make investment bets. But why do amateurs believe they can outperform the professionals?"

To answer this rhetorical question with a rhetorical answer, because amateur investors consider themselves to be smarter than monkeys throwing darts at securities listings. And as an amateur, I have been better than a monkey (or an index fund). But truth be told, if I had been pro, I would've held onto to everything I bought instead of ever selling it for princely profits.

It takes a shrewd contrarian to beat the market anyway, so if you fall for this fodder you might as well heed its advice.

This seems to be assuming that we think we're good investors. I think, on average, people are bad investors. And I'm quite average in this regard.

This also holds for the (time+effort+financial) investments in our own startups.

TLDR: just a list of human psychology traits. Hubris, optimism, hindsight, attribution bias, and confirmation bias. Nothing new.