Statement Shock: 10 Questions With Tech Skeptic Robert Sanborn

The tech bubble may have cost you a lot of money, but it cost Robert Sanborn his job.

At least that's the story according to Sanborn, who ran the (OAKMX Quote)Oakmark fund at Chicago-based Harris Associates from its 1991 inception through March 2000. That's when the Nasdaq peaked; he was dismissed after a 10% fall in 1999, which motivated shareholders to vote with their feet. The bubble's bursting triggered the steep losses many fund investors are seeing in their bleak third-quarter statements these days. As part of today's special report, Statement Shock, we turn to Sanborn for some perspective on the past year's pain.

A strict value investor, Sanborn topped his average peer six out of seven years between 1992 and 1998, but he says his reluctance to hop on the tech bandwagon in 1999 was his downfall. Now that tech's wheels have come off, he isn't shy about touting his profits from betting against Net stocks like Yahoo! (YHOO Quote).

It should be noted, however, that the Oakmark fund's new manager, Bill Nygren, managed to steer the (OAKLX Quote)Oakmark Select fund to a 14.5% gain in 1999 while choosing names from the same list of stocks as Sanborn. ...