Quiz

Stats and Data

I use stats and data in my presentations to challenge audience beliefs and preconceptions. Here are examples of the kinds of questions I like to ask.

How many will you get right?

Question 1:

Warren Buffett retired at the end of 2025 at the age of 96 and after 60 years at the helm of Berkshire Hathaway, the investment firm he ran with Charlie Munger. What return did they deliver to investors over those six decades?

A: 550%
B: 5,500%
C: 550,345%
D: 5,502,284%

Click for Correct Answer

Answer: D 5.502.284%

It’s hard to compute. But $100 invested in Berkshire Hathaway at inception is worth $ 55 million today. Buffett’s buy and hold investment philosophy remains one of the most admired and hardest for large fund managers to replicate.

If you compare the performance of Berkshire Hathaway to the S&P 500 – the index of the 500 biggest US companies – the index saw impressive growth over the same period – a princely 39 000% provided you reinvested all the dividends – that translates to a $100 investment growing to about $400 000 – a decent enough return.

Berkshire compounded at an average of 19.9% a year while the S&P grew at an average of 10.3%. Berkshire’s consistent outperformance means its gains compounded more aggressively over the same time span – the lesson is that every percentage point counts, particularly over long periods.

Buffett’s key philosophy: “Never bet against America.” So much so that he has explicitly advised that most of his heirs should invest 90% in a low-cost S&P 500 index fund and 10% in short-term government bonds. His reasoning: most people, even family, are better off with a simple, diversified approach rather than trying to beat the market.

Question 2:

In terms of word count, which is the longest?

A: The Complete Works of Shakespeare
B: The Bible
C: The Harry Potter series
D: The UK Tax Code

Click for Correct Answer

Answer D: The UK Tax Code

The UK Tax Code runs to 22,000 pages or an eye-popping 10 million words.

By comparison, the complete works of Shakespeare come to 884,000 words – this includes all 37 plays, 154 sonnets, and his other poems.

The King James Version of the bible has roughly 783,000 words, the majority in the Old Testament (607,000) and the rest in the new (176,000), while the number of words in the seven Harry Potter books come to 1,084,170.

The books made author JK Rowling the worlds’ first billionaire author with sales of more than 500 million copies.

The Bible remains the most widely distributed book in history and it is impossible to define total sales since it was first published nearly 2000 years ago. It carries the unofficial title of being the world’s most stolen book although there is no data to back up that claim – it’s widely accepted as true.

Question 3:

US president Donald Trump’s key campaign message “Make America Great Again” secured him a second four year term in office. One of his key campaign messages was that violent crime in the US was out of control.

According to FBI data, was there more violent crime in the US in 2000 or 2024?

Click for Correct Answer

Answer: 2000

FBI data shows 506.5 incidents of violent crime including rape, robbery and aggravated assault reported to law enforcement officials in 2000.

A quarter of a century later there has been a 29% decline in those sorts of crimes to 359.1 per 100,000. Violent crime overall is significantly lower than in 2000, when rates were much higher. The long term decline stretches back through the 1990s and early 2000s, peaking in the early 1990s and then gradually falling before stabilising at lower levels by the 2010s and 2020s. This answer is wonderfully counter-intuitive considering the presidential political rhetoric on the issue – it goes to show that people really do tend to see what they believe, rather than believe what they see.