3 Bill Gates Quotes Every Investor Needs To Remember Right Now

It has been a dramatic and emotional week in the United States, and now that we have reached the halfway point, some investors might be in need of some midweek motivation. Luckily, this week’s edition of Wednesday Wisdom will feature advice from everyone’s favorite software tycoon: Bill Gates.

Best known as the co-founder of Microsoft (NASDAQ:MSFT) , Gates is one of the world’s richest people—and one of its most remarkable philanthropists. After reaping in billions from his company’s technology empire, Gates and his wife Melinda devoted themselves to charity and pledged to donate more than half of their wealth to causes around the world.

Gates’ philanthropy is admirable, and his life as a successful businessman and innovator is a lesson to us all. But what can he teach the average investor? How can those of us who dream of billions study the success of the face of Microsoft?

In this week’s edition of Wednesday Wisdom, we’ll take a look a three quotes from Bill Gates in order to find answers to these questions.

Here we see Gates’ version of some age-old advice: Don’t get cocky. This is important for investors to remember because success can breed complacency and arrogance—two forces that can be incredibly dangerous on Wall Street.

The major indexes have been flirting with new highs nearly every day recently, and that means plenty of investors are making money in today’s market. That’s great, but Gates reminds us that even the smartest and most successful investors can lose too.

For those of us who are betting on the growth of companies like Nvidia (NASDAQ:NVDA) , Tesla (NASDAQ:TSLA) , and many others that are capitalizing on new technologies, Gates’ words about the rate of change are essential. We are constantly reminded that things like self-driving cars and artificial intelligence will revolutionize the world around us, but it’s easy to get lost in the rhetoric.

In today’s rapidly changing world, investors need to stay active. Attempting to predict when these new technologies will hit the market can be a useful task, but we want to make sure that attempting to predict these changes does not lull us into inaction.

Again, we have one of the world’s most financially successful people explaining how to learn from one’s own successes and failures. We already know that success can seduce us into thinking we can’t lose, but these words help us understand how we should actually learn from our experiences.

Many investors attempt to study their winning picks in order to help them spot the next winner. But maybe the more important technique is to study our losses so that we can avoid the next losing stock.

Want more advice from the investing greats? Check out the previous edition of Wednesday Wisdom, 3 Quotes For Investing During Uncertain Times, and remember to check back here next week!

Want more stock market analysis from this author? Make sure to follow @Ryan_McQueeney on Twitter!

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