08/24/2026
I had a conversation with a friend a while back that still makes me chuckle (and slightly wince).
He walked in looking proud of himself. “Steve, I’ve really diversified this year.”
I leaned in, expecting the usual mix of bonds, international, maybe some real estate or private credit.
Instead he said, “I already owned Apple, Nvidia, Microsoft, and Amazon… so I added Meta, Google, Broadcom, and a couple more semiconductor names. Now I’m spread out across tech.”
I just stared at him for a second.
“Brother… that’s not diversification. That’s the same neighborhood with different house numbers.”
He laughed, then got quiet when I pulled up the correlation numbers. When tech has a bad week, those names don’t politely take turns going down. They tend to move together. Owning eight different tech stocks is still one big bet on the same set of risks being valuation, interest rates, regulation, competition, and whatever the next AI-hype cycle decides to do.
That’s the trap a lot of successful investors fall into. Public markets make it easy to feel diversified while quietly concentrating risk. More stocks ≠ more diversification if they all live in the same economic weather system.
Real diversification means adding return drivers that don’t move in lockstep with the public equity markets you already own, especially the high-beta, high-multiple tech portion that has dominated so many portfolios the last decade.
That’s where private investments come in. Private markets (done right) can offer:
- Lower day-to-day correlation to the S&P and Nasdaq
- Exposure to real operating businesses that compound through cash flow and operational improvement rather than multiple expansion
- Access to the “real economy” side of the economy that public markets often overlook or overvalue
But here’s the next layer most people miss: even inside alternatives, you can still end up over-concentrated in tech, venture, or growth-at-any-price stories. That’s why the *type* of private investment matters.
This is where the Berkshire Hathaway “lite” model stands out.
Worth Investments (led by Eric Boorom) runs a permanent-capital holding company approach. They buy 100% of profitable, lower-middle-market manufacturing and distribution businesses, companies with real customers, real cash flow, and management teams that already know how to run the business. They hold them for the long term. No forced exits on a 5–7 year PE clock. No chasing the next hot tech theme. Just patient ownership of solid industrial and specialty distribution businesses, leaving good operators alone to compound while providing capital and support when it makes sense.
It’s the opposite of “I need more tech exposure.” It’s a deliberate allocation to non-tech, cash-flowing private businesses that behave differently from the public growth names most people already own.
I’ve watched Eric and the Worth team operate with that downside-first, long-term mindset for a while now, and it lines up with how many of us think about building durable portfolios: own high-quality assets, don’t overpay, and give compounding time to work.
If you’ve ever caught yourself (or a friend) saying “I’m diversified… I own a bunch of different tech stocks,” this conversation is for you.
Watch the video talk on Worth Investments and the permanent-capital approach here:
https://youtu.be/wmLexfK93-U
Curious how a non-tech private allocation might fit alongside your public holdings? Happy to talk through it.
Need diversification? Take a look at "Berkshire Hathaway Lite"ht...
