Many of you will recall a post I wrote several months ago about Fortune Magazine’s issue on Greatness (who is great, why they’re great and how you can find greatness in your career/life.)

I touched on the differences in attitudes between great sports champions and their competitors who strive to be great but never are. And I compared the differences in attitude between Tiger Woods and Sergio Garcia (one considered great, the other still seeking greatness.)

I made a bold prediction then that Sergio would NEVER be great because he never owned up to his mistakes and never set out with single determination to fix what went wrong before. Whereas Tiger was continuously trying to improve his game. (Same with great investors. Warren Buffett is not one to hide his mistakes and his losses.)

Here we are at another British Open and Sergio found himself in the same position as last year- in the final pairing on the final day with a chance to win one of the greatest golf championships. Only this year, he wasn’t paired with Tiger Woods (one of the things that some thought “threw him” last year.) And remember, after he collapsed last year and finished in fifth place, he said he didn’t play all that bad and that he was “pleased” with the tournament.

This year he was paired with Steve Stricker in the final pairing. Steve is an aging, though adequate player who has won a PGA Championship. To top it off, Sergio had a three shot lead starting the day.

He lost. Again. In a playoff. But he still lost.

Whose fault was it? Not Sergio’s. Nope. Never his fault. From ESPN:

“It’s tough, mainly because I don’t feel like I did do anything wrong,” Garcia said. “I didn’t miss a shot in the playoff and hit unbelievable putts. But they just didn’t go in.

“I don’t know how I manage to do these things. It seems to me like every time I get in this kind of position, I have no room for error. … And I rarely get many good breaks. The birdie I made on No. 3, I made out of a divot in the fairway … and then I had putts … they all touched the hole.”

In one interview, Sergio conceded that, heck, maybe he’ll just have to play better to win. From the Scotsman.com:

“What am I feeling right now? Emotionally, I’m fine. Padraig played well today, well enough to win. I guess I’ll just have to get better.”

Imagine that? Digging deep in yourself and saying, “this will not happen again.” But here Sergio was- two years in a row with the same result (his name is not on the trophy.)

Apparently Sergio will have the #1 player in the world, Tiger Woods, joining him out on the practice range. Tiger finished tied for 12th at 2 under. He gave a short interview to ABC’s golf reporter right after he walked off the course where it was obvious he was not in the hunt for the title. This was the exchange:

Q: What do you take from this going forward?

Tiger: Obviously there are a few things I need to work on to be ready for the PGA. Obviously, you have one big tournament, the Bridgestone event, and I’m looking forward to that one.

Granted, he didn’t just lose the tournament. But it’s not like his play was stellar either. Did he blame the course? The bad bounces? The disrupting fans? The weather?

Of course not.

He’s Tiger Woods. He’s already great.

He’s going to go back to Florida and work on his game. That’s what greatness is all about. In sports. In investing. In life.

Maybe Sergio will break through next year. Maybe his greatness, like Phil Mickelson’s, is just waiting to come out.

After listening to the latest press conference- I make the same prediction as a few months ago: never going to happen.

The US census just came out with the list of fastest growing cities since 2000. It is not surprising that most of those in the top 25 were in the west and the south. It continues patterns seen over the last 30 years.

The biggest losers? The rust belt. Again, not surprising.

From the New York Times:

Phoenix, with a population of 1.5 million, officially edged out Philadelphia to become the nation€™s fifth most-populous city, after New York, Los Angeles, Chicago and Houston.

Detroit, Cleveland, Pittsburgh, Buffalo, Rochester and other cities in the Rust Belt and upstate New York recorded population losses of more than 5 percent since 2000. But, except for Cleveland, these older cities recorded smaller losses since 2005, suggesting that their population declines may have been stanched. Columbus, Ohio, and Indianapolis gained population in the latest one-year period.

As I discussed here before, what is keeping the engineers, lawyers, accountants, web designers and PR folks in cities like Detroit or Cleveland? There is nothing to do so. With many jobs revolving around brain power (instead of on the assembly line) the creative class will take their skills anywhere where it can best be used.

Because, frankly, what does San Jose have that Cleveland does not? (Yes, one has snow and the other does not.) I’ve been to both cities. Cleveland is a pretty city right on the Great Lakes. San Jose, is, well, not on any body of water and not altogether pretty. But yet, San Jose is winning in the game of attracting new residents- and it’s primarily because of its location near Silicon Valley.

Again from the New York Times:

Since 2000, only two cities outside the South and the West €” Joliet, Ill., and Olathe, Kan. €” were among the 25 fastest-growing in the nation.

The gains in the West and the South demonstrate how the nation€™s population has shifted over a century. Only 3 of the 10 most populous cities in 1910 €” New York, Chicago and Philadelphia €” remain on the latest list of the top 10. Three of the latest top 10 €” Phoenix; San Jose, Calif.; and San Diego €” were not even among the 100 most populous in 1910.

Perhaps one of the reasons Chicago and Philadelphia stay on the list of the top ten cities when others like Cleveland are dying is that they have adapted to the change in employment and are striving to attract creative class types. Chicago now has an outpost of Google and was the headquarters for Feedburner (the innovative company that lets you subscribe to blog feeds). These are small steps compared to Silicon Valley but they represent a vigor that is not there in, say, a Detroit.

The universities also play a big role. From the Philadelphia Inquirer:

Philadelphia, a city that graduates more prospective members of this creative class than any other city in the U.S., has been tapping this resource. One-third of our city’s workforce belongs to the creative class, and Philadelphia ranks sixth nationally in visual- and performing-arts graduates. According to Richard Florida, author of the groundbreaking The Rise of the Creative Class, Philadelphia and Chicago are the only two North American cities that have used the creative class’ ascent to reinvigorate their economies.

Yet American cities cannot think they have won the game. I was just reading the bios of some of my former classmates from graduate school. Interestingly, at least a dozen were currently working or had been working in a foreign country. They weren’t necessarily content to stay in the United States if other cities were at least as attractive (and they were.)

Globalization has fostered a population on the move. Those with ideas and new products are willing to move anywhere to further their goals.

This is not good news for Detroit.

Are you in a job where you do everything over the internet? For instance, are you a lawyer who writes briefs from home because everything is on the firm’s intranet (from the research on Westlaw or Lexis to the firm’s document database) or are you an accountant who works on the Excel spreadsheets at home in your pajamas?

If you are, your job is in danger from globalization. What was once simply a tool to allow people to work from home (or another state, for that matter) now allows the same jobs to be done all over the world.

Take journalism. I once worked for a newsletter where I never even met my editor. All of my stories were simply e-mailed to him. I interviewed subjects from my own home on my cellphone (or via e-mail.) It didn’t matter if I was in New York or Istanbul- the story could be easily done either way.

But what about a job where you used to have to physically be there? The San Francisco Chronicle is reporting that a Pasadena website, Pasadena Now, which covers local community events, has just hired two reporters to cover Monday night City Council meetings. The catch is- they live in India.

How is that possible? The meetings are now streamed to the world via the internet. The Indian reporters will simply be across the globe watching the same internet feed that someone in their house in Pasadena is watching.

The Pasadena Now editor apparently tried to hire an American who attend the meetings in the flesh. From the SF Chronicle:

“People say to me, ‘Didn’t you try to hire college interns?’ ” Macpherson said. “Of course, I tried. They didn’t come through. They didn’t call when they said they would, and they didn’t show up when they said they would.”

Macpherson says he did find one good prospect, a woman who was a student at Azusa Pacific College, east of Pasadena. He liked her so much he asked her what she’d need to take a full-time job.

That was the other problem.

“She said she wanted $30,000 a year, full health care, and only wanted to work Monday through Friday, nine to five,” Macpherson said.

As talented as she was, that wouldn’t work on any level. Macpherson’s tiny operation couldn’t afford that salary, nor could she cover Monday night City Council meetings, for example, on a 9-to-5 schedule.

When he had the brainstorm to use journalists in India, he was able to hire two for a total of $20,800. Not only is that within his budget, he says it is “apparently” a pretty good salary in Mumbai and Bangalore, where the two reporters live.

Yes- you read that right. Instead of one reporter for $30,000 (which, honestly, is pretty much basic middle class), he got two for $20,800. And no health insurance.

One of them even has a degree from Berkeley’s Graduate School of Journalism (so what is he/she doing working for $10,000 back in India?)

Maybe most jobs will ultimately come down to NO human interaction at all. You simply sit in front of a computer and watch the baseball game, or the rock concert, or the symphony and then you write a review/story for some internet news website without ever having been there.

What does that mean for the reporting though? What do you lose if you don’t feel the vibe of the fans or hear the talk, behind the scenes, of the coaches? And what does it mean for all the jobs that now can be shipped, literally, to any country around the globe?

Suddenly, home construction or plumbing careers are looking mighty attractive.

Several weeks ago Warren Buffett announced he was seeking several people to take over for him when, well, he can no longer run Berkshire Hathaway (he’s 75.)

It was billed by the financial press as the ultimate Apprentice position. But an interview with the Wall Street Journal in Saturday’s edition dispels that myth and pretty much lays out what he is looking for. He doesn’t want an Apprentice. He wants someone who can take over the job. He wants someone who will be off and running out of the gate.

The Wall Street Journal reported that he has gotten 600 resumes so far. Many of them do not seem serious- such as one sent in by a man for his four year old son. Dozens of others are by college students looking for jobs when they get out of school.

Mr. Buffett laid out what the job would require. You could come in and run a $10 billion portfolio for a few years and he would see how you do.

Yes- that’s $10 billion with a “B”.

In the world of investing, it is far easier to make larger percentage gains with less money than it is with more. Hence, for Mr. Buffett, the best years of his investing are behind him because he now has a $80 billion portfolio in which to run instead of a $100 million one.

Why is that?

Simply- there is far less to invest in. Sure, Berkshire can now buy many companies outright (and has.) For instance, they bought the Pampered Chef a few years ago. They paid in cash.

But if you’re buying stock in companies, what do you buy for your billions? Recently, Mr. Buffett has bought railroads and big oil. He’s not likely to buy, say, shares in a small internet company or a small growing retailer because it would be a small drop in the bucket for him to buy 10 million shares in a company with a market cap of 180 million. He couldn’t spend his money fast enough.

You can see the result with the big portfolios in the large mutual funds. Once they get to $10 or $20 billion, they no longer outperform the market (for the same reasons Mr. Buffett will have problems.) Fidelity’s Magellan is the perfect example. When Peter Lynch took it over in 1977 it had $18 million. With such little money, he could invest in virtually anything. By the time he retired in 1990, it held $14 billion. His return was over 20% a year during that period. Since he left, the Fund has struggled under several managers to even match the S&P 500 return. There is only so much you can buy with $20 billion. GE or Microsoft shares anyone?

Mr. Buffett’s successor, therefore, is almost destined to underperform- even if he/she is a good investor. There’s too much cash to invest.

On a side note - who else thinks that only 600 applicants is a really small number? Why aren’t more interested? (And really the number is probably half of that if you subtract out all of those who aren’t really serious contenders like the college students.)

The article hints at some of the problems:

1. Low pay (relative to running your own hedge fund, for instance).

2. Buffett wants to see your personal investments (figuring if you can invest your own money wisely, you’ll do the same for shareholders.) Apparently candidates are balking at this requirement.

I don’t see what the big deal is about revealing your personal wealth and investments. If you hire a financial adviser or investment professional who is going to be investing your money- you should also demand to see his/her own portfolio. If they refuse, you shouldn’t hire them. What’s there to hide?

Buffett’s search for a successor is going to be a difficult one. But then, look who you would be replacing? He’s not your average run of the mill investor/CEO either.

Stay tuned for more updates. Buffett seems eager to talk about the process so we’ll be hearing more.