What Would Make You Wrong? Building an Anti-Thesis Into Every Investment Call

By Tejas Sarvaiya, Founder, Lantern Labs — 20 years across India's capital markets: equity research, portfolio management, investment banking, and management consulting.
Updated 2026-07-10
Summary

A token 'risks' paragraph is not an Anti-Thesis. What separates a defensible bear case from a decorative one — and how a falsifier with a measurable threshold changes an IC meeting.

Why is 'risks' at the end of a memo not enough?

Because it isn't argued. A defensible Anti-Thesis is written by someone who has actually sat across the deal — in banking, in management, in a competitor's seat — and who is compelled by the workflow to argue it as hard as the bull case. Everything else is decoration.

What does a real falsifier look like?

It looks like a number, a date, and a data source: 'if free cash flow conversion is below X% for two consecutive quarters by Q, the thesis is materially wrong.' Not 'macro headwinds may weigh on the sector.'

Questions

Does Lantern write buy/sell/hold ratings?

No — never. Lantern is decision intelligence, not decision making. You will never see buy/sell/hold language.

About the author

Tejas Sarvaiya is the Founder and CEO of Lantern Labs.

Lantern Labs is the decision-intelligence system that helps PM-led family offices, emerging hedge funds, and concentrated funds turn one live investment decision into a rigorous, falsifiable, and compounding judgment.