It's not enough for a public market investor to predict correctly how a company will do.
If a lot of other people make the same prediction, the stock price will already reflect it, and there's no room to make money.
The only valuable insights are the ones most other investors don't share.
You don't want to start a startup to do something that everyone agrees is a good idea, or there will already be other companies doing it.
There's a fairly sharp distinction between the kinds of work where it's essential to be independent-minded, and the kinds where it's not.
It's one of the most important things to think about when you're deciding what kind of work you want to do.
In my experience, independent-mindedness and curiosity predict one another perfectly.
Everyone I know who's independent-minded is deeply curious, and everyone I know who's conventional-minded isn't.