Hi, I’m Tharit from Thailand. I went to the U.S. when I was 18 to study Petroleum Geophysics. There, I met two teachers named Warren Buffett and Charlie Munger. You know, there’s a saying that: God was kind enough to give us life but not so much that he did not give us the owner’s manual. I think I discovered mine from these two guys.

Here’s the short version:

I lived in the U.S. on a company scholarship (I was a pretty good high school student). And of course, you can’t help but do currency conversion in your head with every purchase. I figured out that the numbers in Thai currency were big. So I saved like crazy – and educated myself on investing.

Thankfully, the first book I picked was value-investing-oriented. It was inevitable that sooner or later I would find these two guys. Long story short, I discovered that what I truly enjoy about reading is figuring out, bit by bit, the way people and society work. So yes, I started with capitalistic ambition but ended up with something different.

That was my first love.

I didn’t really understand how the modern world came to be until I read The Innovators by Walter Isaacson. I was blown away when I realized there is a technological change underpinning our society in each era: semiconductors, personal computers, the internet, smartphones, … And along the way, there were companies of consequence being built (wearing my investor’s hat).

But what really really got me was reading the biography of Claude Shannon. I think he said something like:

I don’t know how history is taught here in Japan, but in the United States in my college days, most of the time was spent on the study of political leaders and wars—Caesars, Napoleons, and Hitlers. I think this is totally wrong. The important people and events of history are the thinkers and innovators, the Darwins, Newtons, Beethovens whose work continues to grow in influence in a positive fashion.


Somehow, that speaks to me. I flirted with computer science quite a bit in my undergrad. I decided to study computer science for my master’s. It turned out to be a heaven on earth. While I was doing geophysics, you know, the knowledge was quite niche and hard to come by. In CS, anything was on YouTube - any topic you wanted to learn. It was like I moved from a small-town local library to the New York Public Library. I found myself able to read the CS textbook like other books I casually read. I knew I was onto something.

That was my second love.

I guess, shortly before turning 30, it’s not too bad to figure out two things I really like in life :)