Long-term thinking needs near-term survival

Long-term thinking is admired because it resists the pressure of the moment.

It can become empty rhetoric if the business cannot survive the path. A company may have the correct ten-year view and still run out of cash next year. An investor may be right about value and wrong about leverage.

Survival is not timidity. It is what preserves the ability to benefit from being right later.

The first rule of a long horizon is to remain present for it.