Exactly. His argument is fallacious. I never would have guessed GOOG in particular would get to where it is today.

Investments are not as likely to be subject to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hindsight_bias

Unlike human memory, investments keep track of false positives which is why I suggested that as one possibility. But, there might be other ways to avoid forgetting.

I thought GOOG might be overvalued at the time. You'd laugh if I told you what I was buying around then.

I did much better after 2004, but that year was my first attempt at any serious trading, and it didn't go so well.

Buying into the google IPO is one event that would signal a money-where-my-mouth-is kind of commitment to this 'type of thing'. There might be other activities (buying yahoo+google) that signal some strong sense of special. I too can recall being moved by the successes since they survive - I don't have to note this down somewhere. It's harder to remember the companies that fail into obscurity that you had a good feeling about.

Well, I don't care about companies, I care about paradigms. Google represented a new paradigm in search. Movable Type's blogging software (the first I saw) represented a new paradigm in media. Napster in music.

It's more about the wave and less about the surfer. Google and Napster were riding huge waves. Facebook, I think, is boogie boarding on a tiny one.