I find it useful to know as much as possible about any potential investment, especially if it may become a large position down the road. Why is Company X where it’s at today? Knowing their history, philosophy, and information about current/past management teams can help you solve that question. In turn, it will help when you estimate where they’ll be 10 years from now.

Sometimes I like to take the activist investor approach: For large long-term holdings, you’re ultimate goal should be to know the company better than the management team running it. Nine months ago, there was a story on activist investor Nelson Peltz in Fortune magazine. Commenting on his research methods, the author wrote: “Peltz prides himself on knowing businesses so intimately, from factory floor to supermarket shelf, that he can systematically break down any management’s rationale for mediocre results.”

Below are 6 useful sources for researching individual companies.

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The TED Conference (Technology, Entertainment, Design) is held annually in Monteray, California. TED brings together some of the most intelligent thinkers and leaders from across the globe to talk about innovation, technology and other interesting topics. Below I list some of my favorite talks relating to business and technology. Be sure to check out all the other interesting speeches across many categories.

Each clip is about 20 minutes long. Below the links is one of my favorite talks, Malcolm Gladwell on Spaghetti Sauce.

Sergey Brin and Larry Page: Inside the Google machine
Jeff Bezos: After the gold rush, there’s innovation ahead
Seth Godin: Sliced bread and other marketing delights
Barry Schwartz: The paradox of choice
Steven Levitt: Why do crack dealers still live with their moms?
Jimmy Wales: How a ragtag band created Wikipedia
Jeff Skoll: Making movies that make change
Richard Branson: Life at 30,000 feet
Chris Anderson: Technology’s long tail
Malcolm Gladwell: What we can learn from spaghetti sauce

After looking over the recently released Forbes 400 list (the richest 400 people in America), I noticed the list has included more and more individuals in the “Finance/Investments” category. The growth in assets managed by Hedge Funds and Private Equity companies has been a major cause of this increase. In the Forbes 400 magazine, it shows a graphic representation of each category since the first list in 1982 (25 years ago). In 2007, Finance and Investments had the largest number of members in the list. Below I list which categories have grown or shrunk over the years:

Higher: Service, Finance/Investments, Technology, Retail

Lower: Food, Oil, Media/Communications, Real Estate, Manufacturing, Other

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I examine Warren Buffett’s investment in See’s Candy in this two-part series, originally posted on the Gannon On Investing blog.

Quality Without Compromise, Part I
Quality Without Compromise, Part II