Peter Lynch on Beating the Street 1

“There’s a Tolstoy story that involves an ambitious farmer. A genie of some sort offers him all the land that he can encircle on foot in a day. After running at full speed for several hours, he acquires several square miles of valuable property, more soil than he could till in a lifetime, more enough to make him and his family rich for generations. The poor fellow is drenched with sweat and gasping for breath. He thinks about stopping—for what’s the point of going any further?—but he can’t help himself. He races ahead to maximize his opportunity, until finally he drops dead of exhaustion. This was the ending I hoped to avoid.”