Clipped from a recent and almost always good The Diff/Bryne Hobart blog:

First, there are some traits good investors need that are fairly stable over a lifetime, like the willingness to take risks and the habit of questioning one’s own conclusions. But there are some unstable ones, too; fluid intelligence peaks fairly early in life, and declines for a long time thereafter. That decline can be managed, but as far as we know it can’t be reversed. But crystallized intelligence—the accumulation of facts and mental models—rises over a much longer period. George Soros’ ability to read a headline and instantly flip from long to short probably peaked fairly early in his career, but his mental database of economic and behavioral patterns kept accumulating. Social connections can also compound over time. There is some inevitable old-age attrition for depressing actuarial reasons, but the structure of the investment management business is one that encourages older people to keep adding young people to their social network. The other big force that keeps investors performing past retirement age is more prosaic: money is the scorecard, and the best way to improve your odds of earning another billion dollars is to compound off a higher base. 85% of Warren Buffett’s net worth was accumulated after he turned 65.

Read the original article at The Diff.