Mohnish Pabrai: The All-In Investing Mindset: Lessons from Entrepreneurs

During this Q&A session with Columbia Business School, Mohnish Pabrai highlights the all-in mentality of entrepreneurs, such as a first-generation Chinese couple opening a restaurant, who invest nearly all their money and time into their ventures.

This scenario mirrors millions of U.S. entrepreneurs, who rarely consider diversification yet sleep soundly despite high risks due to their intense daily work.

Pabrai contrasts this with his own investment philosophy, emphasizing a concentrated but measured approach.

While he avoids being 100% invested in any one opportunity, preferring to distribute risk across 10% bets, he finds concentration manageable and effective, illustrating how entrepreneurial focus differs from traditional portfolio strategies.

Here’s an excerpt from the session:

Pabrai: When a first generation Chinese couple decides to open a Chinese restaurant at some corner in Queens or Manhattan. They have gone all in, and they have 90%, 95%, maybe 98% of everything they have. Not only are they all in with all the money they have, but they are also all in with all the time they have.

This isn’t just about the Chinese couple opening the restaurant. This is the situation for about 10 million entrepreneurs running businesses in the U.S. They are all all-in.

Most of them wouldn’t understand what a diversified portfolio is; they’ve never thought about life that way. Yet, they don’t seem to have trouble sleeping at night being all-in on the Chinese restaurant. In fact, they’re so tired after a day’s work that they probably sleep of all of us.

Basically when we look at entrepreneurs they are not balanced; they’re unbalanced. When we have a portfolio that’s concentrated—even if it’s concentrated—we still have four or five bets.

I’m not asking anyone to go 100%; I’ve never gone 100%. In fact, I usually make 10% bets. So, I don’t even go to five bets; I’m usually going for 10 bets. I don’t see much issue with the concentration issue at all.

You can watch the entire session here: