Exploring the ideas, methods, and stories of people that will help you better invest your time and money. Learn more and stay-up-to-date at InvestorFieldGuide.com
Exploring the ideas, methods, and stories of people that will help you better invest your time and money. Learn more and stay-up-to-date at InvestorFieldGuide.com
Exploring the ideas, methods, and stories of people that will help you better invest your time and money. Learn more and stay-up-to-date at InvestorFieldGuide.com
My guest this week is my father, Jim O’Shaughnessy. He was a pioneer in quantitative equity research, part of an early group of explorers who combed through data to find factors which predicted future stock returns. While we’ve both written extensively on factor investing, we chose to mostly avoid that topic for this conversation. Instead, we discuss what has been a fascinating and colorful career on Wall Street. We talk about the power of premeditation, formative books, and his crazy experience during the dot-com boom when he ran a robo-advisor 15-years ahead of its time.
For comprehensive show notes on this episode go to http://investorfieldguide.com/jim
For more episodes go to InvestorFieldGuide.com/podcast.
Sign up for the book club, where you’ll get a full investor curriculum and then 3-4 suggestions every month at InvestorFieldGuide.com/bookclub
Follow Patrick on twitter at @patrick_oshag
Mar 21 2017
1hr 5mins
From the host: "This was one of my favorite conversations on the podcast, I hope you enjoy it."
My guest this week is Daniel Ek, the founder and CEO of Spotify.
In my conversations with Daniel, I’ve found him to be one of the most interesting and thoughtful business leaders in the world. You’ll see what I mean as you listen to our conversation.
We talk about Spotify plenty, but what I so enjoy about Daniel is his way of thinking in systems and frameworks. He is committed to evolution, innovation, and growth for both himself and for Spotify and is on my shortlist of CEOs to emulate.
This was one of my favorite conversations on the podcast, I hope you enjoy it.
For more episodes go to InvestorFieldGuide.com/podcast.
Sign up for the book club, where you’ll get a full investor curriculum and then 3-4 suggestions every month at InvestorFieldGuide.com/bookclub.
Follow Patrick on Twitter at @patrick_oshag
Show Notes
1:21 – (first question) – Management lessons from a Dubai chocolate maker
4:54 – Trends shaping the business landscape today: globalization, automation, and digitation
7:51 – How he thinks about the vertical integration of his business and scale
10:37 – Are companies doing a good job adjusting to the changes in the global business landscape
14:44 – How does Spotify view scale moving forward
17:59 – What trends has he seen among creators as a result of the Spotify platform
20:32 – The community benefit that has been created by the platform
23:47 – Intimacy of audio
25:31 – Creating an environment that continues to spur innovation
29:12 – Star vs constellation business strategy
32:21 – Measuring network health
35:12 – Spotify Originals and what his competition in the video market is doing
39:36 – How podcasts play into the growth strategy
43:04 – How did he solve the problem of competing with free
47:21 – Is their strategy repeatable, going after fractured suppliers
49:02 – Role of the CEO in a startup
51:22 – Others who have taught him great business lessons
53:18 – Kindest thing anyone has done for Daniel
Learn More
For more episodes go to InvestorFieldGuide.com/podcast.
Sign up for the book club, where you’ll get a full investor curriculum and then 3-4 suggestions every month at InvestorFieldGuide.com/bookclub
Follow Patrick on twitter at @patrick_oshag
Nov 12 2019
56mins
One of the most downloaded episodes of 2018. From the host: "After finishing with Josh, I couldn’t stop thinking “god, do I want to be involved with whatever he’s doing, if only just to learn.”
Long-time listeners will have heard me joke before that this podcast should really be called “this is who are you up against.” I’ve been waiting for the right episode to deploy the joke as a title, and this week we have it.
The joke is meant to convey how incredibly impressive these people are who we get to hear from every week. My guest this week is Josh Wolfe, a founding and managing partner at Lux Capital in New York City. Lux is a venture capital firm, but a highly unique one. They’ve spent more time in hard sciences and interesting nooks and crannies of the market than the typical VC firm.
Some of investing is zero sum: my outperformance is someone else’s underperformance. Sometimes, though, investing is positive sum. The combination of capital, ideas, people, drive, and raw energy leads to amazing new things.
I think the best investing and best investors of the future will be more collaborative than competitive. After finishing with Josh, I couldn’t stop thinking “god, do I want to be involved with whatever he’s doing, if only just to learn.”
This conversation made me rethink my joke “this is who are you up against.” Now I won’t think of it as a zero-sum joke, but instead as a reminder: this is the kind of person who is out there. You better find your niche, and still be the absolute best you can within that niche.
Please enjoy this killer conversation with Josh Wolfe. We cover just about everything.
For more episodes go to InvestorFieldGuide.com/podcast.
Sign up for the book club, where you’ll get a full investor curriculum and then 3-4 suggestions every month at InvestorFieldGuide.com/bookclub.
Follow Patrick on Twitter at @patrick_oshag
Links Referenced
Investing in Biofuels or Biofools?
Books Referenced
Modern Monopolies: What It Takes to Dominate the 21st Century Economy
Show Notes
2:35 – (First Question) – Lux Capital and the kind of investments they have made over the years
5:42 – The formation of the investment philosophy for Lux
8:17 – Why randomness and optionality are important cornerstones to the philosophy
9:52 – Investment philosophy 100-0-100 (ambition, arrogance, intellectual humility)
10:40 – How Josh manages his time and attention
12:53 – Investing in Biofuels or Biofools?
13:29 – Obsession with nuclear
15:15 – Investment in metamaterials
18:28 – Focus on autonomous vehicles
21:02 – How all of these gambles are viewed by Josh’s investors
22:56 – Tattoo technology
24:20 – Ali Hamed podcast
24:36 – How Josh evaluates people when considering early stage investments
24:45 – Alex Moazed podcast
24:49 – Modern Monopolies: What It Takes to Dominate the 21st Century Economy
28:10 – Why the minority opinion tends to lead to the best outcomes
29:50 – Memorable experience investing in a founder
30:44 – The idea of thesis driven approach to private investment
30:56 – Andy Rachleff podcast
32:38 – Crazy thesis – understanding the emotional needs of our pets
34:59 – Crazy thesis – Turning genetic abnormalities into treatments and cures for common conditions
38:03 – Josh’s learning process through these theses
38:34 – Popplet
39:56 – Understanding rebel scientists when it’s impossible to predict what is going to happen
44:35 – Can the charge forward mindset be cultivated, or does it have to come naturally
45:49 – Investors that Josh has learned the most from
47:37 – Josh’s comfort investing outside of his usual asset class
49:03 – @wolfejosh
50:56 – What is the thinking with the short strategy at Lux
52:31 – SpaceX vs Tesla, good business vs bad business
53:42 – How Josh approaches the quality of a business
54:15 – World After Capital
55:16 – How does Josh evaluate competitive advantage
56:45 – Where are we in the venture capital landscape
1:01:42 – How does his outlook on venture capital affect the way Lux is run
1:02:48 – thoughts on cryptocurrency
1:05:28 – An overview of Santa Fe Institute
1:07:22 – What is the most memorable conversation Josh has ever had
1:09:34 – What is Josh’s objective function in life
1:12:43 – Are there people that Josh disagrees with but deeply respects
1:13:32 – Kindest thing anyone has ever done for Josh
Learn More
For more episodes go to InvestorFieldGuide.com/podcast.
Sign up for the book club, where you’ll get a full investor curriculum and then 3-4 suggestions every month at InvestorFieldGuide.com/bookclub
Follow Patrick on twitter at @patrick_oshag
Feb 13 2018
1hr 15mins
Welcome to the first episode of Hash Power, an audio documentary that explores the world of blockchain and cryptocurrencies with leaders in the field like Naval Ravikant, Olaf Carlson-Wee, Fred Ehrsam, & Ari Paul. Hash Power is meant to be an introduction, but really, it is an invitation to explore this emerging world on your own.
In the coming weeks, we will cover the technology, the power of decentralization, bitcoin, Ethereum, ICOs, cryptography and hashing. We will spend time with the leading active hedge fund managers in the field, and with outside investors who are both optimistic and skeptical. Episode one covers the big picture, and answers the question: what is blockchain and why might it significantly affect our world?
If you enjoy what follows, you’ll still be very early in understanding this field. Most don’t. So help me spread it like wildfire, because the more people that understand blockchain, the better its impact might become. Please enjoy episode one, and stay tuned next week for episode 2, which explores investing in cryptocurrencies.
Hash Power is presented by Fidelity Investments
For comprehensive show notes on this episode go to http://investorfieldguide.com/hashpower
For more episodes go to InvestorFieldGuide.com/podcast.
To get involved with Project Frontier, head to InvestorFieldGuide.com/frontier.
Sign up for the book club, where you’ll get a full investor curriculum and then 3-4 suggestions every month at InvestorFieldGuide.com/bookclub.
Follow Patrick on Twitter at @patrick_oshag
Books Referenced
The Sovereign Individual: Mastering the Transition to the Information Age
Links Referenced
Bitcoin: A Peer-to-Peer Electronic Cash System
The BitCoin Model for Crowdfunding
Show Notes
0:05 – Introduction
CHAPTER 1 – Understanding the Concept of Blockchain (3:25)
4:30 – Jeremiah Lowin explains how blockchain is like a database
5:14 – Bitcoin: A Peer-to-Peer Electronic Cash System
5:46 – Owning a digital asset
7:14 – Naval Ravikant, CEO of Angelist on how blockchains can help to create personal networks and organize humans
11:01 – How blockchains represent a way to coordinate global activity through tokens
13:33 – New coins popping up around data storage and utility needs like solar panels
14:57 – Permission vs permissionless networks
16:37 – Protocols and the introduction of scarcity
18:13 – Keeping track of scarcity and the introduction of tokens
18:49 – Societal structures and how blockchains will change them again
18:51 – The Sovereign Individual: Mastering the Transition to the Information Age
21:55 – The role of blockchains in the informational age and the rise of more individual sovereignty
23:29 - Fred Ehrsam, co-founder of Coinbase, on the increasing shift to digital worlds led by incentive structures
CHAPTER 2 – Blockchain Technology (27:48)
29:09 - Reddit User jav_rddt
30:43 - SHA-256 Calculator
31:53 - Charlie Noyes, Pantera Capital, explains how SHA-256 was developed and what make its so special
35:48 – How miners create new blocks and the incentives to do so
40:22 – The nonce field
43:48 – The incentives that exist for miners and the arms race to build more powerful systems to mine
45:20 – The development of mining pools
46:54 – Ethereum, the “spiritual successor” to bitcoin
48:36 – How the Ether network is an ecosystem in which other tokens can sit
50:51 - Naval Ravikant on alternative coins or tokens
50:50 - The BitCoin Model for Crowdfunding
51:37 – How the protocol creators are the ones getting wealthy
52:35 – Fat Protocols
53:22 – Blockchain as an experiment in distributed government
54:47 – How cryptocurrency is more than just technology, it’s a movement
54:50 – Nostalgia for the Absolute
57:27 - #cryptotwitter
1:00:58 - Peter Jubber, of Fidelity, on how huge institutions, like theirs, are getting into the cryptocurrency game
1:4:01 –The notion of cooperation in an open source project or protocol
1:05:21- Olaf Carlson-Wee, first employee at Coinbase and the founder of Polychain, on the early excitement for cryptocurrency
1:06:56– Closing thoughts from Patrick
Looking to work in this space - hashpowerdeveloper@gmail.com
Learn More
For more episodes go to InvestorFieldGuide.com/podcast.
Sign up for the book club, where you’ll get a full investor curriculum and then 3-4 suggestions every month at InvestorFieldGuide.com/bookclub
Follow Patrick on twitter at @patrick_oshag
Sep 26 2017
1hr 9mins
My guest this week is Bill Gurley, a general partner at Benchmark Capital and one my favorite investment thinkers. As you’ll hear, despite enormous success through his career, Bill is clearly still in love with business and investing. Where many might discuss past glories, I’ve been incredibly impressed with how both Bill and his partners emphasize the current portfolio and market landscape. I’m thankful to have had the chance to speak with him in this format. I hope you enjoy our conversation.
For more episodes go to InvestorFieldGuide.com/podcast.
Sign up for the book club, where you’ll get a full investor curriculum and then 3-4 suggestions every month at InvestorFieldGuide.com/bookclub.
Follow Patrick on Twitter at @patrick_oshag
Show Notes
1:13 - (First Question) – The idea of increasing returns
1:21 – Competiting Technologies, Increasing Returns, and Lock-in By Historical Events
2:07 – Complex Systems Theory – Santa Fe Institute
4:35 – Markers that could be a sign of network effect in a company
6:27 – The opportunities for companies to capture network effect
8:46 – Are there certain teams/leaders that are more conducive to leading a network effect company
11:55 – Liquidity quality
13:35 – How important is the revenue model at the beginning
15:59 – Fascination with Nextdoor
17:56 – Paradox of Choice
18:39 – Finding opportunities
20:17 – Potential marketplaces and assets that could be commoditized
20:20 – All Markets Are Not Created Equal: 10 Factors To Consider When Evaluating Digital Marketplaces
21:39 – Usage yield on the world’s assets
23:50 – Has technology changed the world of value investing
26:28 – Hyper niche marketplaces
27:52 – Challenges of labor marketplaces
30:12 – User generated content businesses
32:44 – People who are capable of building UGC businesses
33:16 – His interest in Discord
34:31 – Factors of a healthy marketplace
37:57 – Fools’ gold in marketplace businesses
39:04 – How influx of cash is impacting the marketplace business landscape
40:43 – All Revenue is Not Created Equal: The Keys to the 10X Revenue Club
43:20 – How does the influx of money into the space impact him
46:44 – Spending money to attack top brands
50:32 – Regulatory capture
53:36 – His thoughts on the IPO market
57:49 – How did he realize this was his passion
1:00:42 – Qualifying his passion
1:01:52 – Favorite thing about working with entrepreneurs
102:48 – Honing your craft
1:04:33 – Making yourself a good mentor
1:05:56 – Kindest thing anyone has done for him
Learn More
For more episodes go to InvestorFieldGuide.com/podcast.
Sign up for the book club, where you’ll get a full investor curriculum and then 3-4 suggestions every month at InvestorFieldGuide.com/bookclub
Follow Patrick on twitter at @patrick_oshag
Jul 02 2019
1hr 8mins
My guest this week is Peter Attia, M.D., whose mission is to understand and improve human lifespan and healthspan (or quality of life). Reading Peter’s research, you find that there are many similarities between health and investing—ideas like compounding—which we explore in detail.
We spend a lot of time on mind, body, spirit and performance as it relates to living a better life. Of particular interest is the strategic problem that we face when studying longevity. As Peter puts it in our conversation: we are the species of interest, but we can’t conduct the kinds of experiments on humans—randomized trials, with control groups—that we apply to solve other big problems. So we have to back our way into a better understanding of longevity and quality of life.
To that end, we discuss what we can learn from studying centenarians, the problem of progress in science, a drug called Rapamycin (which Peter believes could be revolutionary), eating, the importance of muscle mass, and the idea of distressed tolerance. We emerge with a framework for thinking about health and well-being which can hopefully help us all live longer, better lives. Please enjoy!
For comprehensive show notes on this episode go to http://investorfieldguide.com/attia
For more episodes go to InvestorFieldGuide.com/podcast.
Sign up for the book club, where you’ll get a full investor curriculum and then 3-4 suggestions every month at InvestorFieldGuide.com/bookclub
Follow Patrick on twitter at @patrick_oshag
Mar 07 2017
1hr 27mins
In episode 1 of Hash Power, we explored blockchains as a technology—how they work, why tokens (also known as cryptocurrencies) are an integral part of any blockchain, and how these new networks might change the world. In episode two, we spend time with the leading investors in the field. Like any frenzied asset class, there are countless cryptocurrency hedge funds popping up everywhere. But founders from three of the original firms—Polychain, Metastable, and Blocktower Capital—are our primary guides this week.
As I speak, the total market cap of cryptocurrencies is $136B. There are hundreds of tokens currently available, but bitcoin and Ethereum represent 75% of the total market cap. $136B sounds like a big number, but its tiny relative to any other asset class—and I use that term with hesitation. To put it in perspective, that’s exactly the same size as the market cap of IBM. But IBM had more than $10B of earnings in 2016. Tokens have none. As you will hear, valuing tokens is a very hard exercise.
In such a nascent world, we are seeing investing strategies take hold. Olaf Carlson-Wee, Josh Seims, and Ari Paul walk us through different takes on cryptocurrency investing, be it early stage, long term buy and hold, or more hedge fund style strategies.
Hash Power is presented by Fidelity Investments
For comprehensive show notes on this episode go to http://investorfieldguide.com/hashpower
For more episodes go to InvestorFieldGuide.com/podcast.
To get involved with Project Frontier, head to InvestorFieldGuide.com/frontier.
Sign up for the book club, where you’ll get a full investor curriculum and then 3-4 suggestions every month at InvestorFieldGuide.com/bookclub.
Follow Patrick on Twitter at @patrick_oshag
Links Referenced
Show Notes
0:05 – Recap of part 1 and introduction to part 2 of Hash Power
2:58 – Ari Paul, CIO of Blocktower explains how he got involved in cryptocurrencies
5:23 – Why do we need bitcoin
7:23 – Polychain Capital founder Olaf Carlson-Wee on why the value of tokens accrue
9:23 – How main stream money is getting into this space
12:26- Useful comparisons when talking about ICOs when compared to IPOs
15:01 - Naval Ravikant, CEO of Angellist, is asked to explain the protocols of cryptocurrencies to platform businesses like Uber or Airbnb
17:43 – Naval’s interest in investing in cryptocurrencies
18:42 – Why average folks should avoid it before they dive thoroughly into the topic
20:25 – what are the most compelling counter arguments to using cryptocurrencies
23:07 - Olaf Carlson Wee on the lifecycle of a token
24:02 – SAFT note, Simple Agreement for Future Tokens
25:31 – What is the earliest stage that edge is most present for investors in cryptocurrency protocols
28:12 – How do you mitigate the volatility that is present in blockchain
31:18 - Jeremiah Lowin, a risk and statistics expert, who runs risk management for a large private family office, talks about why he no longer owns cryptocurrencies
34:19 - Jordan Cooper, a venture capital investor, is optimistic about blockchains in general, but thinks there may be some overvaluations in current currencies
37:02 – How Jordan would value a single cryptocurrency
42:10 – Fat Protocols (Joel Monegro)
43:52 - Josh Seims, of Metastable, the value investor in blockchain?
51:15 - Ari Paul on the equivalent of listed stocks in the crypto currency world
52:33 – Understanding the concept of a coin in blockchain and how people are getting access to them
55:07 – The fairground analogy to understand cryptocurrencies
57:57 – What lessons from traditional markets can you apply to investing in cryptocurrencies
1:02:48 – Where do family offices stand when it comes to jumping into this space
1:06:51 – Ari is asked to discuss some of the alternative cryptocurrencies outside of Bitcoin and Ethereum. He starts with Ripple
1:10:27 – What would help firms or traders create edge in investing in cryptocurrencies
Learn More
For more episodes go to InvestorFieldGuide.com/podcast.
Sign up for the book club, where you’ll get a full investor curriculum and then 3-4 suggestions every month at InvestorFieldGuide.com/bookclub
Follow Patrick on twitter at @patrick_oshag
Oct 03 2017
1hr 15mins
Peter is a geopolitical strategist who combines expertise in demography, economics, energy, politics, technology, and security to assess an uncertain future. Before founding his own strategy firm, Peter helped develop the analytical models for Stratfor, one of the world’s premier private intelligence companies.
I came across Peter via his books the Accidental Superpower and the Absent Superpower. We discuss America’s changing place in the world and four additional countries poised to do well in the future. Spoiler alert: he believes the U.S. is particularly well positioned.
While we don’t discuss equity markets per se, all of what we talk about will obviously impact companies across the world for the remainder of our careers. Please enjoy our conversation.
For more episodes go to InvestorFieldGuide.com/podcast.
Sign up for the book club, where you’ll get a full investor curriculum and then 3-4 suggestions every month at InvestorFieldGuide.com/bookclub.
Follow Patrick on Twitter at @patrick_oshag
Show Notes
1:32 - (First Question) – His model of the world
4:05 – What makes for a strategically advantaged country
5:35 – History of the Bretton Woods agreement and the order that it created
8:47 – The security apparatus that has made globalization of manufacturing possible
12:04 – The US’s pullback from being the naval police of global trade
12:08 – The Absent Superpower: The Shale Revolution and a World Without America
14:57 – How energy has played into America’s disinterest abroad
21:52 – Moving towards global disorder
24:55 – Characterizing factors that will impact countries in any collapse
27:38 – How this manifest in physical conflict
32:44 – How the new world order will end the ease of innovation we are accustomed to today
34:13 – What gets the US to reengage before this new world order
38:08 – Demographics that make a country prepared for this, Japan as an example
40:57 – A look at China
43:59 – What the story is about Argentina
45:52 – How North America fares based on their geography and relationships
49:50 – The trader wars that are currently ongoing
52:17 – US political system
56:15 – Most important policy issues moving forward
58:27 – His view on American infrastructure
1:00:33 – Technologies that interest him the most
1:02:55 – What he is watching most closely in his research, starting with media
1:05:59 – What are and should be the countries of the future
1:06:55 – Kindest thing anyone has done for Peter
1:07:32 – Favorite places he’s been
Learn More
For more episodes go to InvestorFieldGuide.com/podcast.
Sign up for the book club, where you’ll get a full investor curriculum and then 3-4 suggestions every month at InvestorFieldGuide.com/bookclub
Follow Patrick on twitter at @patrick_oshag
Mar 05 2019
1hr 9mins
This week’s guest is Brent Beshore, Founder and CEO of adventur.es, a family of companies that invests in family-owned companies. Brent has a very specific mission with this company, to cultivate a disaster resistant, compound interest machine. At just 33 years of age he has already built a portfolio of private companies that has produced impressive results. He’s done all this out of the limelight and with no outside investors. Brent discusses his rewarding but difficult journey and what he has learned, including sourcing and evaluating businesses, how he and his team have improved profitability at his portfolio companies after acquisition and so much more.
For comprehensive show notes on this episode go to investorfieldguide.com/beshore/
For more episodes go to InvestorFieldGuide.com/podcast.
Sign up for the book club, where you’ll get a full investor curriculum and then 3-4 suggestions every month at InvestorFieldGuide.com/bookclub
Follow Patrick on twitter at @patrick_oshag
Nov 08 2016
1hr 36mins
Long-time listeners will have heard me joke before that this podcast should really be called “this is who are you up against.” I’ve been waiting for the right episode to deploy the joke as a title, and this week we have it.
The joke is meant to convey how incredibly impressive these people are who we get to hear from every week. My guest this week is Josh Wolfe, a founding and managing partner at Lux Capital in New York City. Lux is a venture capital firm, but a highly unique one. They’ve spent more time in hard sciences and interesting nooks and crannies of the market than the typical VC firm.
Some of investing is zero sum: my outperformance is someone else’s underperformance. Sometimes, though, investing is positive sum. The combination of capital, ideas, people, drive, and raw energy leads to amazing new things.
I think the best investing and best investors of the future will be more collaborative than competitive. After finishing with Josh, I couldn’t stop thinking “god, do I want to be involved with whatever he’s doing, if only just to learn.”
This conversation made me rethink my joke “this is who are you up against.” Now I won’t think of it as a zero-sum joke, but instead as a reminder: this is the kind of person who is out there. You better find your niche, and still be the absolute best you can within that niche.
Please enjoy this killer conversation with Josh Wolfe. We cover just about everything.
For more episodes go to InvestorFieldGuide.com/podcast.
Sign up for the book club, where you’ll get a full investor curriculum and then 3-4 suggestions every month at InvestorFieldGuide.com/bookclub.
Follow Patrick on Twitter at @patrick_oshag
Links Referenced
Investing in Biofuels or Biofools?
Books Referenced
Modern Monopolies: What It Takes to Dominate the 21st Century Economy
Show Notes
2:35 – (First Question) – Lux Capital and the kind of investments they have made over the years
5:42 – The formation of the investment philosophy for Lux
8:17 – Why randomness and optionality are important cornerstones to the philosophy
9:52 – Investment philosophy 100-0-100 (ambition, arrogance, intellectual humility)
10:40 – How Josh manages his time and attention
12:53 – Investing in Biofuels or Biofools?
13:29 – Obsession with nuclear
15:15 – Investment in metamaterials
18:28 – Focus on autonomous vehicles
21:02 – How all of these gambles are viewed by Josh’s investors
22:56 – Tattoo technology
24:20 – Ali Hamed podcast
24:36 – How Josh evaluates people when considering early stage investments
24:45 – Alex Moazed podcast
24:49 – Modern Monopolies: What It Takes to Dominate the 21st Century Economy
28:10 – Why the minority opinion tends to lead to the best outcomes
29:50 – Memorable experience investing in a founder
30:44 – The idea of thesis driven approach to private investment
30:56 – Andy Rachleff podcast
32:38 – Crazy thesis – understanding the emotional needs of our pets
34:59 – Crazy thesis – Turning genetic abnormalities into treatments and cures for common conditions
38:03 – Josh’s learning process through these theses
38:34 – Popplet
39:56 – Understanding rebel scientists when it’s impossible to predict what is going to happen
44:35 – Can the charge forward mindset be cultivated, or does it have to come naturally
45:49 – Investors that Josh has learned the most from
47:37 – Josh’s comfort investing outside of his usual asset class
49:03 – @wolfejosh
50:56 – What is the thinking with the short strategy at Lux
52:31 – SpaceX vs Tesla, good business vs bad business
53:42 – How Josh approaches the quality of a business
54:15 – World After Capital
55:16 – How does Josh evaluate competitive advantage
56:45 – Where are we in the venture capital landscape
1:01:42 – How does his outlook on venture capital affect the way Lux is run
1:02:48 – thoughts on cryptocurrency
1:05:28 – An overview of Santa Fe Institute
1:07:22 – What is the most memorable conversation Josh has ever had
1:09:34 – What is Josh’s objective function in life
1:12:43 – Are there people that Josh disagrees with but deeply respects
1:13:32 – Kindest thing anyone has ever done for Josh
Learn More
For more episodes go to InvestorFieldGuide.com/podcast.
Sign up for the book club, where you’ll get a full investor curriculum and then 3-4 suggestions every month at InvestorFieldGuide.com/bookclub
Follow Patrick on twitter at @patrick_oshag
Feb 13 2018
1hr 15mins
In this episode, Patrick and Jason Zweig reflect on investing, financial advice, books, and life in general. The method for living discussed in the last 30 minutes will be useful for everyone.
Jason is the Intelligent Investor columnist for the Wall Street Journal and author of several books including his latest “The Devil’s Financial Dictionary.” His insights and advice are the results a life of critical thinking, reading, writing, humility, and curiosity. I think you are going to get a lot from this in-depth conversation.
Enjoy!
For comprehensive show notes on this episode go to investorfieldguide.com/zweig/
For more episodes go to InvestorFieldGuide.com/podcast.
Sign up for the book club, where you’ll get a full investor curriculum and then 3-4 suggestions every month at InvestorFieldGuide.com/bookclub
Follow Patrick on twitter at @patrick_oshag
Sep 27 2016
1hr 19mins
Brent Beshore and I spoke for 10 hours about all things investing and business, and decided to record a 2-hour chunk of our conversation. We start by discussing private equity, venture capital, and the importance of brand. We then explore the difference between public and private company valuation, and the potent idea of peer mentorship. The conversation wraps up with Brent’s recent experience with one of the greatest investors and thinkers of all time. Above all, this is a conversation about what is right and wrong in the world of money management and investing, and where the business is heading. Please enjoy!
For comprehensive show notes on this episode go to investorfieldguide.com/adventures/
For more episodes go to InvestorFieldGuide.com/podcast.
Sign up for the book club, where you’ll get a full investor curriculum and then 3-4 suggestions every month at InvestorFieldGuide.com/bookclub
Follow Patrick on twitter at @patrick_oshag
Jan 31 2017
1hr 58mins
My guest today is Chad Cascarilla, the CEO and co-founder of Paxos, which describes itself as a financial technology company “mobilizing assets at the speed of the internet.“ Thanks to more than 20 years of investing and financial services experience, Chad has a unique perspective on integrating blockchain technology with traditional systems. He also has one of my favorite bitcoin origin stories, which we explore. Before Paxos, Charles co-founded institutional asset management complex Cedar Hill Capital Partners in 2005 and its blockchain-focused venture capital subsidiary, Liberty City Ventures (LCV). Our conversation is less about cryptocurrencies and more about the history, current state, and potential future states of our financial system. Please enjoy.
For more episodes go to InvestorFieldGuide.com/podcast.
Sign up for the book club, where you’ll get a full investor curriculum and then 3-4 suggestions every month at InvestorFieldGuide.com/bookclub.
Follow Patrick on Twitter at @patrick_oshag
Show Notes
1:32 - (First Question) – His work in the finance world before crypto’s
5:12 – Experience navigating the subprime mortgage trend and what it taught him about blockchain
9:59 – The levers that matter in the financial services industry today vs when he first started
14:07 – Open vs closed money in financial services
19:16 – How slowdowns are different in the modern era
23:06 – What would lead to a major winding down of global debt
27:09 – What would be his focus as a traditional investor
29:21 – How he first got involved with bitcoin
29:47 – Elliott Wave Newsletter
31:53 – His measured view of Bitcoin and living through the volatility of it
32:03 – Bitcoin: A Peer-to-Peer Electronic Cash System
35:57 – Allocation of a portfolio which includes crypto
36:54 – His involvement and feelings on gold
37:56 – The formation of Paxos and the problem it exists to solve
41:34 – How Paxos is impacting the space
44:12 – Advantages of a private blockchain
43:59 – What is Pax Gold and how does it work
48:53 – Bad ways and situations to own gold
52:12 – Using a stable coin
56:00 – Biggest problem they are working on now
57:23 – What should people be paying attention to in the crypto currency space
59:23 – Coindesk Research Archive
59:39 – Has the influx of interest in crypto helped in other spaces
1:02:11 – Other lessons people should learn from his career
1:04:53 – Kindest thing anyone has done for Chad
Learn More
For more episodes go to InvestorFieldGuide.com/podcast.
Sign up for the book club, where you’ll get a full investor curriculum and then 3-4 suggestions every month at InvestorFieldGuide.com/bookclub
Follow Patrick on twitter at @patrick_oshag
Oct 29 2019
1hr 6mins
For the 100th episode, I’ve brought back my good friend Brent Beshore. Brent was the 10th guest on the podcast, after we met because of a mutual interest in capital allocation. I quickly learned that Brent was one of the most unique and thoughtful investors around. He was an entrepreneur from the moment he left school, trying many different things before finding a fit buying smaller business with the intention of owning them forever. What amazes me about Brent is his encyclopedic understanding of business and the nuances of different business models and deal structures. This comes from reps. He and his team have looked at about 12,000 deals over the years, at every kind of business that you could imagine. I’ve been with him when he goes through this process and it’s fun to hear what makes certain businesses stand out from others, which is largely the topic of this conversation. You all know transparency is key for me, so it’s important to know that my family and I are investors in a fund called permanent equity, run by Brent and his firm Adventure.es. To commemorate this milestone episode, I can think of no one better than Brent, because he exemplifies what has made this podcast so fun for me: learning from other people who are willing to share what they themselves have learned through fun, blood, sweat, and tears. Please enjoy our conversation, and thank you so much for coming along on this journey. I can’t tell you how much it means to me.
For more episodes go to InvestorFieldGuide.com/podcast.
Sign up for the book club, where you’ll get a full investor curriculum and then 3-4 suggestions every month at InvestorFieldGuide.com/bookclub.
Follow Patrick on Twitter at @patrick_oshag
Show Notes
2:02 - (First Question) – How does he think about optimizing risk in terms of the capital stack when looking at deals
5:27 – What conditions would they add debt down the road after investing in a company
6:52 – What business sectors are most intriguing for Morgan to invest in right now
6:57 – Trent Griffin Podcast
9:34 – Why no HVAC businesses if it’s such an attractive sector
13:56 – thoughts on rolling up similar businesses and horizontal scale
16:04 – Another industry Brent would focus on
18:02 – Difference between property management in larger cities vs smaller metro areas
18:51 – What role does profit margin play when Brent is evaluating a business
22:46 – The appeal of a hyper cyclical business
22:52 – Brent Beshore Podcast Episode
27:27 – Favorite counter cyclical business
28:14 – How they judge assets, tangible vs intangible assets
33:58 – How does he think about wage inflation when considering the cost of a business
37:21 – His fascination with pet crematoriums
38:57 – History of the permanent equity fund and the changes by having a larger pool of capital
43:48 – Pitching investors on a new structure for the business
46:14 – How will this business model scale
Learn More
For more episodes go to InvestorFieldGuide.com/podcast.
Sign up for the book club, where you’ll get a full investor curriculum and then 3-4 suggestions every month at InvestorFieldGuide.com/bookclub
Follow Patrick on twitter at @patrick_oshag
Aug 21 2018
50mins
I came across this week’s guest thanks to the overlap of three passions of mine: data informed investing, value creation, and basketball.
Sam Hinkie worked for more than a decade in the NBA with the Houston Rockets, and then most recently as the President and GM of the Philadelphia 76ers. He helped launch basketball's analytics movement when he joined the Houston Rockets in 2005, and is known for unique trade structuring and a keen focus on acquiring undervalued players. Today, he is also an investor and advisor to a limited number of young companies in which he feels his experience can improve outcomes.
At one point in our conversation, Sam mentions that he tracked success via future financial outcomes, so I did some research and found many interesting stats about the 76ers surrounding Sam’s tenure. When he took over the franchise, it was 24th in ESPN’s franchise rankings, and today it is 4th. This is the result of an impressive crop of young talent—players like All-Star Joel Embiid and Ben Simmons—which resulted in large part from unconventional decisions Sam and his team made.
While I’m sure these estimates are imperfect, Forbes estimated the 76ers value at around $418M when Sam took over and $1.2B a few months ago. NBA teams in general have grown in value, so a lot of that appreciation is obviously “beta,” but given that the 76ers had the top percentage growth number more recently of any team, some of it is “alpha,” too. While we can’t parse the exact amount, it seems his unique approach to building a team clearly created some large amount of current franchise equity value. And it looks like the dividends from those decisions will compound for many years to come.
While basketball was where Sam plied his talents in the past, his approach is more elemental. It is about finding great people, using data, and structuring decisions that create the possibility of huge returns, be they financial or otherwise. I don’t know what Sam will do next, be it investing in companies, running one, or taking over another team, but I know it will be fun to watch.
Please enjoy this unique episode with Sam Hinkie.
For more episodes go to InvestorFieldGuide.com/podcast.
Sign up for the book club, where you’ll get a full investor curriculum and then 3-4 suggestions every month at InvestorFieldGuide.com/bookclub.
Follow Patrick on Twitter at @patrick_oshag
Books Referenced
Selfish Reasons to Have More Kids: Why Being a Great Parent is Less Work and More Fun Than You Think
Links Referenced
Show Notes
3:24 – (First Question) Advantages of having a long view and how to structurally harness one
6:08 – Using technology to foster an innovative culture
10:16 – Favorite example of applied innovation from Sam’s career
11:34 - Most fun aspect of doing data analytics early on the Houston Rockets
13:38 - Is there anything more important than courage in asymmetric outcomes
14:29 – How does Sam know when to let the art of decision making finish where the data started
16:29 - Pros and cons of a contrarian mindset
17:26 – Where he wanted to apply his knowledge in sports when first getting out of school and how his thinking is best applied in the current sports landscape
21:39 – How does he think about trying to find the equivalent of mispriced assets in the NBA
23:12 – Where tradition can be an impediment to innovation
25:07 – What did the team and workflow of the team look like in the front office
27:03 - The measure of truth in a sports complex
29:10 – What were the early factors coming out of the data that helped to shape NBA teams
30:42 – Best tactics for hiring
33:59 – Process of recruiting spectacular people
35:39 – Thoughts on fostering a good marriage
37:57 – Picking your kids traits in your spouse
38:02 – Selfish Reasons to Have More Kids: Why Being a Great Parent is Less Work and More Fun Than You Think
40:45 – What kind of markers does he look for when evaluating long term investment ideas
42:44 – His interest in machine learning
45:55 – What’s more exciting, the actual advances in machine learning or the applications that can be imagined as a result
47:15– International Justice Mission
48:11 – How he got started teaching negotiations and some of the points he makes in that class
49:16 – Effective techniques for negotiating
50:03 – Is negotiating contentious, do you need empathy
50:41 – A Rorschach test of Sam based on his reading of Lessons of History (book)
53:01 – Biggest risk Sam took in his career
54:37 – Biggest risks Sam took while with the 76ers
58:09 – Do people undervalue asymmetric outcomes in the NBA 1:00:11 – The players Sam has enjoyed watching over the years
1:02:45 – Why Robert Caro is a favorite author of his
1:04:30 – Kindest thing anyone has done for Sam
Learn More
For more episodes go to InvestorFieldGuide.com/podcast.
Sign up for the book club, where you’ll get a full investor curriculum and then 3-4 suggestions every month at InvestorFieldGuide.com/bookclub
Follow Patrick on twitter at @patrick_oshag
May 22 2018
1hr 6mins
My guest this week is Adam Ludwin, the founder and CEO of Chain, a blockchain technology company targeted at large enterprises. Before shifting his career to focus solely on crypto, Adam was a venture capitalist focused on FinTech, which is how he came across the Bitcoin whitepaper earlier than most. I called this episode “a Sober View on Crypto” because Adam’s take is so balanced. He is certainly long crypto, both in his portfolio and career, but he is very skeptical of much of what is happening in the ecosystem today. For example, he offers the best reason I’ve heard for not launching an ICO or investing in them.
If you haven’t read Adam’s widely shared open letter to Jamie Dimon, it has become a must-read piece for crypto-enthusiasts. Read it as soon as you can.
I edited out an earlier chunk of our conversation as it was largely introductory. If you need a broader introduction to cryptocurrencies, I suggest starting with episode one of Hash Power and working your way forward. One key insight from Adam in our offline discussion what how cryptocurrencies function very much like equities or bonds. Just as equity financing enables the activity of joint stock corporations, cryptocurrencies enable activity in decentralized applications. We pick up our discussion with Adam discussing whether anyone really uses these decentralized apps today.
Hash Power is presented by Fidelity Investments
For more episodes go to InvestorFieldGuide.com/podcast.
Sign up for the book club, where you’ll get a full investor curriculum and then 3-4 suggestions every month at InvestorFieldGuide.com/bookclub.
Follow Patrick on Twitter at @patrick_oshag
Show Notes
2:35 - (First Question) – Will anyone use cryptocurrency in the real world at a large scale
3:43 – The idea of censorship resistance
12:29 – Will society be accepting of this technology
14:39 – Why decentralized apps can’t be acquired
18:24 – The idea of exponential vs linear improvements on a trend and if there are limits to the growth of decentralized technologies
23:26 – The struggle with early adaption of blockchain
25:41 – Best application for bitcoin, storing value
29:52 – Adam’s introduction to cryptoassets and how his thinking has evolved in the space
36:44 – In this hyper frothy market, is there a situation that makes an ICO exciting to Adam
43:51 – Even though it appears to be easy money, Adam explains why you shouldn’t just create an ICO
50:59 – A look at what Chain is doing and what Adam is excited about
53:23 – How does what Adam is working on help to improve the ledger of his clients
1:02:00 – Why you can easily be an early investor in crypto currency
1:04:27 – Kindest thing anyone has done for Adam
Learn More
For more episodes go to InvestorFieldGuide.com/podcast.
Sign up for the book club, where you’ll get a full investor curriculum and then 3-4 suggestions every month at InvestorFieldGuide.com/bookclub
Follow Patrick on twitter at @patrick_oshag
Dec 05 2017
1hr 6mins
My guest this week is David Epstein. David is a writer and researcher extraordinaire and the author of two great books. His second, Range, is out today and I highly recommend it. We discuss the pros and cons of both the generalist and specialist mindsets in detail and go down many interesting trails along the way. Please enjoy our conversation.
For more episodes go to InvestorFieldGuide.com/podcast.
Sign up for the book club, where you’ll get a full investor curriculum and then 3-4 suggestions every month at InvestorFieldGuide.com/bookclub.
Follow Patrick on Twitter at @patrick_oshag
Show Notes
1:12 - (First Question) – What he uncovered in “The Sports Gene: Inside the Science of Extraordinary Athletic Performance” that led him to his latest book
2:38 – Debate with Malcolm Gladwell (YouTube)
4:12 – What did the public pay most attention to and what did they gloss over
7:56 – How his views on nature vs nurture shifted during the process of writing The Sports Gene
10:05 – Blending practice with your nature
13:04 – His process of reading 10 journal articles a day as part of his research
19:06 – Exploring his new book “Range: Why Generalists Triumph in a Specialized World”, and his idea of Martian tennis
23:03 – Idea of the cult of the head start and how we set up our own feedback loops
28:58 – What does his research say about the nations education system
30:42 – The Flynn Effect chapter
33:54 – Hacks for learning
37:52 – The concept of struggle and harnessing the power of it
46:31 – Personality changes and how to drive those changes in a positive way
52:00 – Using the outside perspective in businesses for more productive outcomes and how it applied to Nintendo
52:59 – Josh Wolfe Podcast Episode
1:04:45 – Other examples of using withered technologies, 3M
1:09:00 – The arc of his work and how it has evolved
1:13:54 – Taking a different view on problems
1:17:52 – Ending Medical Reversal: Improving Outcomes, Saving Lives
1:18:04– Anyway to change these bad trends with new strategies
Learn More
For more episodes go to InvestorFieldGuide.com/podcast.
Sign up for the book club, where you’ll get a full investor curriculum and then 3-4 suggestions every month at InvestorFieldGuide.com/bookclub
Follow Patrick on twitter at @patrick_oshag
May 28 2019
1hr 23mins
[REPLAY]
My guest this week is Peter Attia, M.D., whose mission is to understand and improve human lifespan and healthspan (or quality of life). Reading Peter’s research, you find that there are many similarities between health and investing—ideas like compounding—which we explore in detail.
We spend a lot of time on mind, body, spirit and performance as it relates to living a better life. Of particular interest is the strategic problem that we face when studying longevity. As Peter puts it in our conversation: we are the species of interest, but we can’t conduct the kinds of experiments on humans—randomized trials, with control groups—that we apply to solve other big problems. So we have to back our way into a better understanding of longevity and quality of life.
To that end, we discuss what we can learn from studying centenarians, the problem of progress in science, a drug called Rapamycin (which Peter believes could be revolutionary), eating, the importance of muscle mass, and the idea of distressed tolerance. We emerge with a framework for thinking about health and well-being which can hopefully help us all live longer, better lives. Please enjoy!
For comprehensive show notes on this episode go to http://investorfieldguide.com/attia
For more episodes go to InvestorFieldGuide.com/podcast.
Sign up for the book club, where you’ll get a full investor curriculum and then 3-4 suggestions every month at InvestorFieldGuide.com/bookclub
Follow Patrick on twitter at @patrick_oshag
Posts From Peter Attia That You Should Read
How You Move Defines How You Live
Long List of Questions Answered: Part 1 and Part 2
Links Referenced
The Scientific Method-Richard Feynman
Knowing Versus Understanding-Feynman again
Books Referenced
Barbarians at the Gate: The Fall of RJR Nabisco
Show Notes
2:31 – (first question) – Getting Peter to define the concept of wealth and how it might have changed in his life
5:01 – How do you increase the number of really good people in your life.
6:50 – Looking at the relationship between healthspan and lifespan and a chart that Peter created on this specific topic.
11:11 – Drilling down into the different dimensions and aspects of this chart that could be most important for people, especially how compounding plays into our health.
16:57 – The difference between strategies and tactics that will help you extend lifespan
17:54 – The Scientific Method-Richard Feynman
21:41 – Different types of intermittent fasting
28:59 – What role does repair play in health
34:17 – Barbarians at the Gate: The Fall of RJR Nabisco
36:01 – Looking back, what health trends today will look absurd
36:19 – Diffusion of Innovations
39:24 – What are the primary benefits of weight lifting
40:21 – The importance of glucose disposal
45:07 – Good Calories, Bad Calories
46:31 – What is the state of progress in the scientific community
52:14 – Peter is asked about how he guards against getting too attached to old beliefs
1:01:51 – A look at how performance relates to healthspan
1:03:34 –Peter’s first great auto-racing experience
1:09:17 – Looking into Peter’s medical practice and understanding his thinking that goes into helping people
1:18:11 – The most memorable day in Peter’s career
1:22:31 – The kindest thing anyone has done for Peter
Learn More
For more episodes go to InvestorFieldGuide.com/podcast.
Sign up for the book club, where you’ll get a full investor curriculum and then 3-4 suggestions every month at InvestorFieldGuide.com/bookclub
Follow Patrick on twitter at @patrick_oshag
Nov 06 2018
1hr 27mins
My guest this week is Josh Wolfe, co-founder and managing partner at Lux Capital. I had Josh on the podcast last year which was one of the most popular episodes in the shows history. This is a continuation of our ongoing conversation about investing in the frontiers of technology. My favorite thing about Josh and the way that he invests is the mosaic that he and his team at Lux are constantly building to understand the world and where new companies may fit in. We cover a crazy variety of topics from business model innovation, roles of a CEO, the military, the death of privacy, and arrows of human progress. Please enjoy round two with Josh Wolfe.
For more episodes go to InvestorFieldGuide.com/podcast.
Sign up for the book club, where you’ll get a full investor curriculum and then 3-4 suggestions every month at InvestorFieldGuide.com/bookclub.
Follow Patrick on Twitter at @patrick_oshag
Show Notes
1:22 - (First Question) –Ability to tackle massive scale problems
4:05 – Key roles of leaders and his checklist for evaluating them
5:55 – Common traits among founders that make them incredible storytellers and leaders
10:22 – The concept of ill-liquidity
14:53 – Thoughts on the types of companies going public
16:41 – Most innovative business models
19:14 - Advice for LP’s
23:51 – Common devil
24:01 – The True Believer: Thoughts on the Nature of Mass Movements
25:09 – Big internal debates at his firm, starting with price discipline
28:45 – The value debate internally
33:34 – CRISPR from an investment standpoint
36:50 – Edge cases they are looking at
46:52 – How they target ideas in a single concept
50:01 – The Coast of Utopia: Voyage, Shipwreck, Salvage
51:04 – New theses that they chase
56:31 – Recent adventure with special operations guys
Learn More
For more episodes go to InvestorFieldGuide.com/podcast.
Sign up for the book club, where you’ll get a full investor curriculum and then 3-4 suggestions every month at InvestorFieldGuide.com/bookclub
Follow Patrick on twitter at @patrick_oshag
Apr 23 2019
1hr 3mins
My guest today is Michael Mauboussin, who is the head of global financial strategies at Credit Suisse and is on my short list of must read writers on all things investing. If you read his entire catalogue, Howard Marks's memos, and Buffett's shareholder letters, you be sitting pretty. Michael was also a big reason for the early success of this show appearing as my second guest and now my 37th. He and his team have been prolific in the last six months, publishing several long research reports on the most interesting aspects of the investing landscape. In this conversation, we talk about business moats, industry analysis, and how to combine man and machine when building an investment strategy and portfolio. As I tell Michael at the end, you won't be able to listen to this episode at two times speed, because we go deep quickly.
For comprehensive show notes on this episode go to http://investorfieldguide.com/michael
For more episodes go to InvestorFieldGuide.com/podcast.
Sign up for the book club, where you’ll get a full investor curriculum and then 3-4 suggestions every month at InvestorFieldGuide.com/bookclub.
Follow Patrick on Twitter at @patrick_oshag
May 16 2017
1hr 29mins
My guest this week is Keith Wasserman, co-founder of the real estate investment firm Gelt.
This was my first fully dedicated conversation on direct real estate investing, so we cover many different topics, including the pros and cons of different types of real estate, current valuations, risk vs. reward, tax protection, and the most interesting emergent areas.
You can tell Keith is an entrepreneur at heart so I enjoyed his energy and all that he has learned. Please enjoy.
For more episodes go to InvestorFieldGuide.com/podcast.
Sign up for the book club, where you’ll get a full investor curriculum and then 3-4 suggestions every month at InvestorFieldGuide.com/bookclub.
Follow Patrick on Twitter at @patrick_oshag
Show Notes
1:15 - (First Question) – Their interest in apartments and mobile homes as investments
2:32 – The returns spectrum for different classes of real estate
4:03 – His early entrepreneurial ventures and the start of Gelt
7:45 – Don’t be afraid of negotiating
8:34 – Going through early deals in real estate
11:57 – How he determines when it’s time to sell a property
14:13 – How do they think about taxes in their investment offerings
16:57 – Depreciation strategies in real estate investing
18:27 – The evolution of the types of real estate properties they’ve invested in
21:41 – Most important factors when evaluating a building to invest in
23:50 – Barriers to entry
25:41 – Changes in his cost of capital
28:51 – Cost of debt and deciding how much to put into a building
30:33 – A look at the competition
34:51 – Effective marketing strategies
37:07 – How demographics impact their strategies
39:11 – The co-living space
40:34 – Cloud kitchens and how he would invest in these
46:11 – How autonomous vehicles will impact real estate
47:52 – Pros and cons of developing new properties vs buying existing ones
49:59 – Early stage investing interest
53:48 – Favorite business/entrepreneur story
55:10 – Advice for younger entrepreneurs
57:09 – Kindest thing anyone has done for Keith
Learn More
For more episodes go to InvestorFieldGuide.com/podcast.
Sign up for the book club, where you’ll get a full investor curriculum and then 3-4 suggestions every month at InvestorFieldGuide.com/bookclub
Feb 05 2019
59mins
My guest this week for the third time is Michael Mauboussin. If there is a major question about markets and investing, Michael has usually written one of the best pieces of research on that topic. Today’s conversation is a mix of several of his research pieces, but focuses on the sources of alpha. The framing of the conversation is the brilliant question “who is on the other side” of a given trade. If you are buying, who is selling, and why? Knowing the answer to this question is one key to understanding where excess return comes from. As is usual with Michael, we also explore tons of other interesting ideas that will serve as food for thought. Please enjoy.
For more episodes go to InvestorFieldGuide.com/podcast.
Sign up for the book club, where you’ll get a full investor curriculum and then 3-4 suggestions every month at InvestorFieldGuide.com/bookclub.
Follow Patrick on Twitter at @patrick_oshag
Show Notes
1:23 - (First Question) – An outline of the syllabus for the course he teaches
4:02 – What are smart people missing when it comes to decision making
5:33 – Why Michael went down the path of defining major investing concepts
7:41 – On the impossibility of informational inefficient markets
9:14 – Beware behavioral finance
12:03 – What are the behavioral errors that people can take advantage of in a trade
15:14 – Timing opportunities
17:25 – Modest Proposal Podcast Episode
17:47 – Where the analytical edge comes from
21:16 – Is there an advantage to exhibit time arbitrage
23:53 – Technical arbitrage
29:34 – What impact do flows into ETFs play on the market
32:25 – Informational edge and how you source that edge
36:39 – Biggest changes that he has seen on the buy side
43:18 - How would Michael apply this as a sports GM
48:35 – His views on stock buybacks
51:02 – The Outsiders: Eight Unconventional CEOs and Their Radically Rational Blueprint for Success
52:55 – EBIT to EBITDA paper
54:43 – What Does a PE Multiple Mean?
59:28 – The concept of benign myths
1:02:06 – What the future holds of Michael
1:04:17 – The Myth of Capitalism: Monopolies and the Death of Competition
Learn More
For more episodes go to InvestorFieldGuide.com/podcast.
Sign up for the book club, where you’ll get a full investor curriculum and then 3-4 suggestions every month at InvestorFieldGuide.com/bookclub
Follow Patrick on twitter at @patrick_oshag
Mar 26 2019
1hr 6mins
My guest this week is Albert Wenger, a managing partner at Union Square Ventures and the author of the book World After Capital.
Albert studied economics at Harvard and earned a PhD in information from technology, but if you’d asked me to guess before looking those up, I’d have guessed that he studied philosophy because of how widely he has thought about the world and the impact of technology.
Our conversation is about how technology is changing the world from an Industrial Age to a knowledge age. We explore how cryptocurrencies, low cost computing, and regulation will impact our future and why the transition may require delicate care.
I loved this conversation because of my obsession with the concept of scarcity. We explore what has been scarce through time and what may be scarce in the future. Albert is one of the most interesting thinkers I’ve come across and was a pleasure to speak with. I hope you enjoy our conversation.
Hash Power is presented by Fidelity Investments
For more episodes go to InvestorFieldGuide.com/podcast.
Sign up for the book club, where you’ll get a full investor curriculum and then 3-4 suggestions every month at InvestorFieldGuide.com/bookclub.
Follow Patrick on Twitter at @patrick_oshag
Links Referenced
Show Notes
2:16 – (First Question) – Defining what it means to be human
2:58 – World After Capital
3:56 – Trans-humans vs neo-humans
4:37 – The concept of Qualia
5:25 – Albert’s investment philosophy=
8:27 – How Albert began his exploration into cryptocurrencies
12:59 – Most exciting things blockchains could enable
14:27 – How does Albert view blockchain technology from the view of an venture capital investor
17:00 - Why Albert thinks that the dominate cryptocurrency of our time may not exist just yet and what he is looking for in protocols that will become the leader in the space
20:16 – What are the central functions that will be important in cryptocurrencies
21:22 - The state of regulation in the cryptocurrency space
27:37 – What has Albert most excited for the future of blockchain
29:10 – The idea of universal basic income
32:26 – How do you solve the problem of giving money value in a world of universal basic income
35:00 – How scarcity has changed over time
39:01 – Role of financial capital in the last 200 years of civilization
42:39 – Are we as a society only capable of solving problems once they become an immediate threat
44:15 – Explaining the idea of attention as a scarce resource
47:56 – The two key drivers of change; zero marginal cost distribution and universality of computational power
53:13 - What should we as investors and inventors be focusing on as the new objective function
57:24 – Scariest aspect of this transition into the knowledge age
59:45 – Three basic freedoms we all seek; informational, economic, psychological
1:02:13 – Fermi’s paradox and the scarcity of attention
1:02:56 – How Albert thinks about his own day and wellbeing given all of this information
1:05:01 – Kindest thing anyone has done for Albert
Learn More
For more episodes go to InvestorFieldGuide.com/podcast.
Sign up for the book club, where you’ll get a full investor curriculum and then 3-4 suggestions every month at InvestorFieldGuide.com/bookclub
Follow Patrick on twitter at @patrick_oshag
Sep 17 2019
1hr 6mins
My guest this week is Jeff Ma. Jeff was on the famous MIT Blackjack team from the book Bringing Down the House but has spent his career in an around fields of analytics and data science. He’s studied sports betting and analytics, built companies for analyzing human capital, and ran the data science and analytics group at Twitter. Here are links to his book, blog, and podcast. Our discussion is about a number of fascinating ways data is being used to make decisions in the worlds of sports and business. Please enjoy!
For more episodes go to InvestorFieldGuide.com/podcast.
Sign up for the book club, where you’ll get a full investor curriculum and then 3-4 suggestions every month at InvestorFieldGuide.com/bookclub.
Follow Patrick on Twitter at @patrick_oshag
Show Notes
1:20 - (First Question) – How quantitative analytics have evolved in sports and how they’re being used
4:26 – Best role of humans in the analysis process
8:38 – Sports that are most interesting to observe through analytics
10:26 – How does luck play into sports analysis
11:54 – Team analytics vs better analytics
12:38 – Concentration of success among sports betters and their moats
14:58 – Favorite lessons learned from professional gamblers
16:45 – How analytics got introduced into gambling
19:21 – Understanding one’s own biases
24:04 – How he became VP of analytics at Twitter
28:37 – Primary lessons from the work evaluating human capital and talent with analytics
28:59 – Niel Roberson Podcast Episode
31:40 – How to model people for success when hiring
33:29 – How to hire the right data scientists’ team
37:54 – Most interesting problems they tackled at twitter
42:31 – Responsibility of social platforms to police itself
45:34 – Areas that would interest him in the future as an investor
49:24 – Kindest thing anyone has done for Jeff
51:50 – Values instilled in him by his parents.
Learn More
For more episodes go to InvestorFieldGuide.com/podcast.
Sign up for the book club, where you’ll get a full investor curriculum and then 3-4 suggestions every month at InvestorFieldGuide.com/bookclub
Follow Patrick on twitter at @patrick_oshag
Dec 10 2019
53mins
My guest today is Vaughn Tan, who studies quality, innovation, and organizational behavior. His resume is bonkers. He’s a PhD from Harvard, Was an infantry signals logistician in the Republic of Singapore Army, then worked at Google on advertising, Earth, Maps, spaceflight, and Fusion Tables. He’s also been a wood sculptor. But the topic of our conversation is how to foster quality and innovation in ourselves and inside of companies—lessons he learned in part by studying inside some of the world’s best restaurants. If you enjoy this conversation, I recommend you also check out his new book, The Uncertainty Mindset Innovation Insights from the Frontiers of Food. Please enjoy my conversation with Vaughn Tan.
For more episodes go to InvestorFieldGuide.com/podcast.
Sign up for the book club, where you’ll get a full investor curriculum and then 3-4 suggestions every month at InvestorFieldGuide.com/bookclub.
Follow Patrick on Twitter at @patrick_oshag
Show Notes
1:33 - (First Question) – Interesting ways to identify high quality
5:06 – The current problem with the way we think about the world
8:56 – How people think about their careers and college
11:21 – Uncertainty vs risk, and productive discomfort
19:08 – Cultivation of discomfort for an individual
24:05 – Successful innovation cultures
32:25 – Analyzing quality and restaurant bread
37:43 – The Slug idea
40:43 – His research project where he observed restaurants
45:44 – How do people mandate their own structure in the face of uncertainty
53:46 – How employees should approach this rent-to-buy hiring structure
57:17 – Example of someone who took advantage of uncertainty time
1:00:05 – Playful adults
1:00:07 – Jerry Neumann Podcast Episode
1:03:10 – Other changes companies can make to their culture to be more innovative
1:08:19 – The difference between simplicity and complexity
1:11:12 – How he applies his thinking into several different ideas, like Cannabis
1:16:17 – Asking the right question
1:19:05 – Andy Rachleff Podcast Episode
1:20:19 – Kindest thing anyone has done for Vaughn
Learn More
For more episodes go to InvestorFieldGuide.com/podcast.
Sign up for the book club, where you’ll get a full investor curriculum and then 3-4 suggestions every month at InvestorFieldGuide.com/bookclub
Follow Patrick on twitter at @patrick_oshag
Dec 03 2019
1hr 21mins
My guest this week is Gavin Baker, the founder, and manager of Atreides Management. I met Gavin in the same way I meet many of the most interesting people, on twitter. His focus is on consumer and technology growth investing, which is the topic of our conversation. We discuss many of the largest trends in these sectors, several fascinating investment cases, and also explore the videogame industry in detail—which I found especially interesting. Please enjoy my conversation with Gavin Baker.
For more episodes go to InvestorFieldGuide.com/podcast.
Sign up for the book club, where you’ll get a full investor curriculum and then 3-4 suggestions every month at InvestorFieldGuide.com/bookclub.
Follow Patrick on Twitter at @patrick_oshag
Show Notes
1:16 – (first question) – His unique view on the markets
4:00 – Distilling Apple as a growth investment
6:44 – What is the most important lever for Apple looking forward
9:01 – His view on Intel
11:03 – Most important technological changes that may dictate his investing strategy
16:20 – How do you look at a big idea, like AR, and then apply to an individual business
18:21 – Fortnite isn't a game, it's a place
18:26– Fortnite Is the Future, but Probably Not for the Reasons You Think
18:56 – His insight into video games and their ability to control attention
28:36 – How do you invest in the gaming sector
40:06 – Favorite video games
32:07 – Why gaming and customer sector allows him to find Alpha richness
34:17 – Being in the top 1% of knowledge before investing in a company
36:24 – His view on value investing today and, in the future,
41:15 – Increase of regulatory capture
42:01 – Headwinds to the tech companies today
43:50 – Thoughts on the Chinese internet market and how it impacts US markets
45:36 – How often companies look at China for ideas
46:21 – Role of alternative data in his process
49:36 – Big trends today we should be paying attention to
54:20 – the most interesting company he does not own
58:48 – Advice for new investors
1:00:17 – Non-obvious tech resources - TechMeme
1:00:50 – Favorite sci-fi character
1:01:19 – Kindest thing anyone has done for him
Learn More
For more episodes go to InvestorFieldGuide.com/podcast.
Sign up for the book club, where you’ll get a full investor curriculum and then 3-4 suggestions every month at InvestorFieldGuide.com/bookclub
Follow Patrick on Twitter at @patrick_oshag
All opinions expressed by Patrick and podcast guests are solely their own opinions and do not reflect the opinion of O'shaughnessy asset management. This podcast is for informational purposes only and should not be relied upon as a basis for investment decisions. Clients of O'shaughnessy asset management may maintain positions in the securities discussed in this podcast. Clients of the podcast guest’s firm may also maintain positions in the securities discussed in this podcast.
Nov 26 2019
1hr 4mins
My guests this week are Kevin Systrom and Mike Krieger, the co-founders of Instagram. I met Kevin and Mike a few months ago over a shared interest in business and investing. I have found them both to be extremely good people who have a rare talent for finding and solving interesting problems. Indeed, problem-solving and jobs-to-be-done is a big part of our conversation. I realized walking into the podcast that Kevin and Mike have a rare set of experiences: having both built and sold an extremely successful product from scratch, but then also operated and scaled inside one of the largest businesses in the world. This means they have unique knowledge to offer just about anyone interested in business and products. We dig into all those lessons here. I am working on hosting more founders and CEOs on the podcast, and can’t think of a better pair to show you why I want to do so. Please enjoy my conversation with Kevin and Mike.
For more episodes go to InvestorFieldGuide.com/podcast.
Sign up for the book club, where you’ll get a full investor curriculum and then 3-4 suggestions every month at InvestorFieldGuide.com/bookclub.
Follow Patrick on Twitter at @patrick_oshag
Show Notes
1:38 – (first question) – Projects they’ve been working on since leaving Instagram
5:22 – How they can apply what they are learning in machine learning
7:18 – Most interesting experience diving back into data and machine learning
8:42 – How startups compare today to when they founded Instagram
13:23 – Judging founders and whether they know how to use their data effectively
14:26 – The jobs-to-be-done framework
19:14 – Laying out a vision vs solving problems that pop up
25:20 – Developing and sharing the principles of the company with the team
30:48 – Creating a community when it includes almost the entire world
39:03 – The most popular ways people used the platform
41:24 – What was the jobs-to-be-done rational behind the stories feature
44:15 – Interesting things that they saw as Instagram entered the developing world
46:40 – Their thoughts on how Instagram shaped culture and if they focused on those
52:58 – The new waves that they are observing right now
55:11 – How their thinking on leadership and teams changed during their time at Instagram and Facebook
1:03:23 – The pillars of a good business, including humility and confidence
1:06:06 – Focus on growth and distribution in a startup
1:10:01 – How early were they thinking about monetization on this free platform
1:13:43 – How do they think about how they invest their money and allocate resources
1:17:36 – Mentors for Kevin and Mike
1:20:30 – Their passion for learning to fly and the someday/maybe list
1:23:01 – Their interest in coffee
1:26:24 – Advice for everyone else
1:30:00 – Kindest thing anyone has done for them
Learn More
For more episodes go to InvestorFieldGuide.com/podcast.
Sign up for the book club, where you’ll get a full investor curriculum and then 3-4 suggestions every month at InvestorFieldGuide.com/bookclub
Follow Patrick on twitter at @patrick_oshag
Nov 19 2019
1hr 33mins
My guest this week is Daniel Ek, the founder and CEO of Spotify.
In my conversations with Daniel, I’ve found him to be one of the most interesting and thoughtful business leaders in the world. You’ll see what I mean as you listen to our conversation.
We talk about Spotify plenty, but what I so enjoy about Daniel is his way of thinking in systems and frameworks. He is committed to evolution, innovation, and growth for both himself and for Spotify and is on my shortlist of CEOs to emulate.
This was one of my favorite conversations on the podcast, I hope you enjoy it.
For more episodes go to InvestorFieldGuide.com/podcast.
Sign up for the book club, where you’ll get a full investor curriculum and then 3-4 suggestions every month at InvestorFieldGuide.com/bookclub.
Follow Patrick on Twitter at @patrick_oshag
Show Notes
1:21 – (first question) – Management lessons from a Dubai chocolate maker
4:54 – Trends shaping the business landscape today: globalization, automation, and digitation
7:51 – How he thinks about the vertical integration of his business and scale
10:37 – Are companies doing a good job adjusting to the changes in the global business landscape
14:44 – How does Spotify view scale moving forward
17:59 – What trends has he seen among creators as a result of the Spotify platform
20:32 – The community benefit that has been created by the platform
23:47 – Intimacy of audio
25:31 – Creating an environment that continues to spur innovation
29:12 – Star vs constellation business strategy
32:21 – Measuring network health
35:12 – Spotify Originals and what his competition in the video market is doing
39:36 – How podcasts play into the growth strategy
43:04 – How did he solve the problem of competing with free
47:21 – Is their strategy repeatable, going after fractured suppliers
49:02 – Role of the CEO in a startup
51:22 – Others who have taught him great business lessons
53:18 – Kindest thing anyone has done for Daniel
Learn More
For more episodes go to InvestorFieldGuide.com/podcast.
Sign up for the book club, where you’ll get a full investor curriculum and then 3-4 suggestions every month at InvestorFieldGuide.com/bookclub
Follow Patrick on twitter at @patrick_oshag
Nov 12 2019
56mins
My guest this week is George Rzepecki, the found and managing partner Raba, an Africa focused investment firm. George is making investments across Africa in early-stage companies. Africa represents a fascinating opportunity: a huge and diverse population and enormous room for per capita GDP growth. We cover all aspects of investing in the continent, including unique potential rewards and risks.
Please enjoy our conversation.
For more episodes go to InvestorFieldGuide.com/podcast.
Sign up for the book club, where you’ll get a full investor curriculum and then 3-4 suggestions every month at InvestorFieldGuide.com/bookclub.
Follow Patrick on Twitter at @patrick_oshag
Show Notes
1:18 – (first question) – Interest in emerging markets and the tech landscape in Africa
4:57 – Similarities across all of the different metro markets across Africa
8:05 – Why has the continent lagged behind the rest of the world
10:49 – What is the history and landscape of capital in the African continent
13:32 – The market opportunity given the demographics
15:44 – US investment/involvement in Africa
18:06 – Kinds of companies that he likes to invest in
23:26 – Initiatives and investments that could help lift the population out of poverty: finance
29:33 – The public marketplace landscape in Africa
31:49 – Capacity on the private side
34:24 – How the valuation of deals compares to other markets
36:13 – Unique risks in the investments they are making
38:28 – Most exciting trends or changes he is seeing
40:22 – The professional investor environment
43:25 – How to learn more and get involved
43:49 – China Africa Research Initiative
44:17 – China Africa Project
44:38 – Factfulness: Ten Reasons We're Wrong About the World--and Why Things Are Better Than You Think
Learn More
For more episodes go to InvestorFieldGuide.com/podcast.
Sign up for the book club, where you’ll get a full investor curriculum and then 3-4 suggestions every month at InvestorFieldGuide.com/bookclub
Follow Patrick on twitter at @patrick_oshag
Nov 05 2019
46mins
My guest today is Chad Cascarilla, the CEO and co-founder of Paxos, which describes itself as a financial technology company “mobilizing assets at the speed of the internet.“ Thanks to more than 20 years of investing and financial services experience, Chad has a unique perspective on integrating blockchain technology with traditional systems. He also has one of my favorite bitcoin origin stories, which we explore. Before Paxos, Charles co-founded institutional asset management complex Cedar Hill Capital Partners in 2005 and its blockchain-focused venture capital subsidiary, Liberty City Ventures (LCV). Our conversation is less about cryptocurrencies and more about the history, current state, and potential future states of our financial system. Please enjoy.
For more episodes go to InvestorFieldGuide.com/podcast.
Sign up for the book club, where you’ll get a full investor curriculum and then 3-4 suggestions every month at InvestorFieldGuide.com/bookclub.
Follow Patrick on Twitter at @patrick_oshag
Show Notes
1:32 - (First Question) – His work in the finance world before crypto’s
5:12 – Experience navigating the subprime mortgage trend and what it taught him about blockchain
9:59 – The levers that matter in the financial services industry today vs when he first started
14:07 – Open vs closed money in financial services
19:16 – How slowdowns are different in the modern era
23:06 – What would lead to a major winding down of global debt
27:09 – What would be his focus as a traditional investor
29:21 – How he first got involved with bitcoin
29:47 – Elliott Wave Newsletter
31:53 – His measured view of Bitcoin and living through the volatility of it
32:03 – Bitcoin: A Peer-to-Peer Electronic Cash System
35:57 – Allocation of a portfolio which includes crypto
36:54 – His involvement and feelings on gold
37:56 – The formation of Paxos and the problem it exists to solve
41:34 – How Paxos is impacting the space
44:12 – Advantages of a private blockchain
43:59 – What is Pax Gold and how does it work
48:53 – Bad ways and situations to own gold
52:12 – Using a stable coin
56:00 – Biggest problem they are working on now
57:23 – What should people be paying attention to in the crypto currency space
59:23 – Coindesk Research Archive
59:39 – Has the influx of interest in crypto helped in other spaces
1:02:11 – Other lessons people should learn from his career
1:04:53 – Kindest thing anyone has done for Chad
Learn More
For more episodes go to InvestorFieldGuide.com/podcast.
Sign up for the book club, where you’ll get a full investor curriculum and then 3-4 suggestions every month at InvestorFieldGuide.com/bookclub
Follow Patrick on twitter at @patrick_oshag
Oct 29 2019
1hr 6mins
My guest this week is Bill Gurley, general partner at Benchmark Capital. Our conversation is about one specific issue that has popped up as a topic of interest in the investing community in recent months: the comparison between bringing a company public through a traditional IPO vs. what’s known as a direct listing.
As a third party observer with no real dog in the hunt (as we don’t buy IPOs at O’Shaughnessy Asset Management), I thought this was a small and nuanced issue. I’ve therefore been surprised by the strength of opinions on both sides of this issue as I’ve explored it behind the scenes this past week. It feels almost like I’ve encountered a political third rail, where one side throws a lot of vitriol towards the other.
To be clear, this episode is very much in favor of direct listings instead of traditional IPOs. For those that want a good discussion of the IPO process and its upsides, check out episode 173 of the Exponent podcast with Ben Thompson.
Now please enjoy my very interesting conversation with Bill Gurley
For more episodes go to InvestorFieldGuide.com/podcast.
Sign up for the book club, where you’ll get a full investor curriculum and then 3-4 suggestions every month at InvestorFieldGuide.com/bookclub.
Follow Patrick on Twitter at @patrick_oshag
Show Notes
1:22 - (First Question) – His view on the IPO process
5:42 – Will now be the turning point for IPO’s
6:40 – The engagement between a new company going public and their counterparty and the IPO process
13:38 – The math of capital costs
18:18 – Banks that underprice the IPO’s
20:45 – The psychology of IPO’s
23:14 – The pop in the IPO and the media
24:54 – The value that shareholders give vs VC’s
25:37 – The Green Shoots
28:17 – The lock-up
31:40 – Direct listings vs IPO’s
36:07 – Spotify’s CEO Reveals Why He’s Not Doing a Traditional IPO
38:23 – The capital raised in an IPO and diluting the company
40:18 – Privilege access and buy-side firms
43:33 – What will actually lead to changes in the IPO space
44:48 – Why he became so interested in the IPO space
Learn More
For more episodes go to InvestorFieldGuide.com/podcast.
Sign up for the book club, where you’ll get a full investor curriculum and then 3-4 suggestions every month at InvestorFieldGuide.com/bookclub
Follow Patrick on Twitter at @patrick_oshag
Sep 24 2019
47mins
My guest this week is Albert Wenger, a managing partner at Union Square Ventures and the author of the book World After Capital.
Albert studied economics at Harvard and earned a PhD in information from technology, but if you’d asked me to guess before looking those up, I’d have guessed that he studied philosophy because of how widely he has thought about the world and the impact of technology.
Our conversation is about how technology is changing the world from an Industrial Age to a knowledge age. We explore how cryptocurrencies, low cost computing, and regulation will impact our future and why the transition may require delicate care.
I loved this conversation because of my obsession with the concept of scarcity. We explore what has been scarce through time and what may be scarce in the future. Albert is one of the most interesting thinkers I’ve come across and was a pleasure to speak with. I hope you enjoy our conversation.
Hash Power is presented by Fidelity Investments
For more episodes go to InvestorFieldGuide.com/podcast.
Sign up for the book club, where you’ll get a full investor curriculum and then 3-4 suggestions every month at InvestorFieldGuide.com/bookclub.
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Links Referenced
Show Notes
2:16 – (First Question) – Defining what it means to be human
2:58 – World After Capital
3:56 – Trans-humans vs neo-humans
4:37 – The concept of Qualia
5:25 – Albert’s investment philosophy=
8:27 – How Albert began his exploration into cryptocurrencies
12:59 – Most exciting things blockchains could enable
14:27 – How does Albert view blockchain technology from the view of an venture capital investor
17:00 - Why Albert thinks that the dominate cryptocurrency of our time may not exist just yet and what he is looking for in protocols that will become the leader in the space
20:16 – What are the central functions that will be important in cryptocurrencies
21:22 - The state of regulation in the cryptocurrency space
27:37 – What has Albert most excited for the future of blockchain
29:10 – The idea of universal basic income
32:26 – How do you solve the problem of giving money value in a world of universal basic income
35:00 – How scarcity has changed over time
39:01 – Role of financial capital in the last 200 years of civilization
42:39 – Are we as a society only capable of solving problems once they become an immediate threat
44:15 – Explaining the idea of attention as a scarce resource
47:56 – The two key drivers of change; zero marginal cost distribution and universality of computational power
53:13 - What should we as investors and inventors be focusing on as the new objective function
57:24 – Scariest aspect of this transition into the knowledge age
59:45 – Three basic freedoms we all seek; informational, economic, psychological
1:02:13 – Fermi’s paradox and the scarcity of attention
1:02:56 – How Albert thinks about his own day and wellbeing given all of this information
1:05:01 – Kindest thing anyone has done for Albert
Learn More
For more episodes go to InvestorFieldGuide.com/podcast.
Sign up for the book club, where you’ll get a full investor curriculum and then 3-4 suggestions every month at InvestorFieldGuide.com/bookclub
Follow Patrick on twitter at @patrick_oshag
Sep 17 2019
1hr 6mins
My guest this week are Matt Smith and Ian singer of Deep Basin Capital, a hedge fund specializing in the energy sector.
I first met Matt almost 10 years and, in that time, I’ve grown to respect him as much as any investor that I’ve ever met. Now having spent time with Ian, who specializes in oil and gas field exploration companies and the rest of the Deep Basin team, I have similar respect and admiration for all of them.
Deep Basin does almost the exact opposite of what us quants do. In fact, their entire goal is to build a portfolio of mostly idiosyncratic or stock specific risk, the very thing us quants mostly remove from portfolios. Deep Basin positions the portfolio to make a series of carefully constructed bets, long and short, without taking market risk, style-factor risk, or even commodity risk. They use a hybrid fundamental and quantitative process which we explore in detail. This is definitely another good example of who we are all up against in public markets.
What makes this story unique is that we are investors in Deep Basin’s management company and so have a clear interest in their ongoing success. Listeners know that I want to be as transparent as possible on this podcast so we event spend a little time telling the story about how it all came together a few years ago.
I have learned a ton about investing from my countless hours with this team and hope that this conversation gives you a glimpse into what is happening at the cutting edge of investing in the world of hedge funds.
Please enjoy my conversation with Deep Basin
For more episodes go to InvestorFieldGuide.com/podcast.
Sign up for the book club, where you’ll get a full investor curriculum and then 3-4 suggestions every month at InvestorFieldGuide.com/bookclub.
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Books Referenced
Expectations Investing: Reading Stock Prices for Better Returns
Show Notes
2:47 – (First Question) – Looking at the universe of the energy space that they are focusing on
7:48 – Breaking down the important components and their labels in this space
10:27 – What makes energy companies distinct from the broader market.
12:52 – How the isolate unique value creation
14:58 – Ian’s take on the upstream part of the business where he has spent a lot of time
18:35 – How does Deep Basin use data and what edge do they derive from it.
21:31 – What insight are they looking for from updated well data
23:59 – How do they use combine the business value that they measure with the market price that is being forecasted
24:40 – Expectations Investing: Reading Stock Prices for Better Returns
29:34 – How do they build an actual portfolio
31:51 – Their systematic approach to energy investing
37:53 – What are their thoughts about using leverage when making investments in the energy space
40:53 – A look at the changes to the hedge fund industry over the entirety of their careers
45:46 – Defining the culture of Deep Basin
49:15 – The story of how OSAM and the O’Shaughnessy’s came to be investors in the Deep Basin
54:13 – Kindest thing anyone has done for each of them
Learn More
For more episodes go to InvestorFieldGuide.com/podcast.
Sign up for the book club, where you’ll get a full investor curriculum and then 3-4 suggestions every month at InvestorFieldGuide.com/bookclub
Follow Patrick on twitter at @patrick_oshag
Sep 11 2019
54mins
My guest this week is Pat Dorsey, who was the longtime director of equity research at Morningstar, where he specialized in economic moats: sources of sustained competitive advantage that allow a few companies to deliver huge returns over time. Several years ago he left Morningstar to form his own asset management firm, Dorsey asset management, and build a portfolio of companies with wide moats like those he studied at Morningstar. And while moats are critical, equally important is how companies allocate the capital generated--or made possible--by the existence of the moat.
A special thank you to Brian Bares who introduced me to Pat, and to Will Thorndike--an earlier guest on the show. In the vast majority of conversations you hear on this show, I'm meeting the guest for the first time. I mention this to encourage you to connect me with anyone whose story or way of looking at the world might resonate. Always feel free to contact me with ideas.
Pat and I begin our discussion with the key differences between the sell side and the buy side, and then discuss all aspects of moats and capital allocation.
For comprehensive show notes on this episode go to http://investorfieldguide.com/dorsey
For more episodes go to InvestorFieldGuide.com/podcast.
To get involved with Project Frontier, head to InvestorFieldGuide.com/frontier.
Sign up for the book club, where you’ll get a full investor curriculum and then 3-4 suggestions every month at InvestorFieldGuide.com/bookclub.
Follow Patrick on Twitter at @patrick_oshag
Show Notes
2:23 – (First question) – Transition from the sell side to the buy side and the biggest surprise
3:40 – What is a moat
5:16 – What part of the stock market universe has a moat
6:57 – Pat’s framework for identifying moat, starting with intangibles
8:32 – The power of brands
9:44 – what chance does an upstart have to come in and usurp a well-established brand
12:24 – Switching costs as part of the framework for identifying a moat
14:55 – The third component of identifying a moat, network effects, and what businesses should do to effectively build one
17:29 – Last component, cost advantages/economies of scale
19:29 – How do you analyze these four components into an investing framework that can be built into an actual strategy
21:13 – How does Pat think about this from a mis-pricing standpoint
23:37 – How does Pat incorporate current price of a company in consideration for future returns when pricing a moat
25:39 – How should a company with a moat operate to protect that characteristic, especially when it comes to their capital allocation
26:51 – Which characteristic of a moat does Pat find most intriguing
30:35 – What makes for good and smart capital allocation
35:58 – What is Pat’s process for identifying the best investment opportunities
38:38 – What are good economics when looking at a company
41:03 – If Pat could take any business, but have to swap leadership, what would he choose.
44:13 – Back to his process of finding investment opportunities
46:05 – Kindest thing anyone has ever done for Pat
Learn More
For more episodes go to InvestorFieldGuide.com/podcast.
Sign up for the book club, where you’ll get a full investor curriculum and then 3-4 suggestions every month at InvestorFieldGuide.com/bookclub
Follow Patrick on twitter at @patrick_oshag
Aug 27 2019
50mins
My guest this week is Joe McLean, the founder of Intersect Capital, which provides financial advisory services to a variety of clients, including a number of NBA players and other professional athletes.
What I loved about this conversation was the weaving of sport, coaching, and finance into a cohesive whole. There’s so much to take from this discussion—from the importance of service and low self-orientation to the impact of strict standards for who you work with, to common mistakes we all tend to make with money.
Please enjoy my conversation with Joe McLean.
For more episodes go to InvestorFieldGuide.com/podcast.
Sign up for the book club, where you’ll get a full investor curriculum and then 3-4 suggestions every month at InvestorFieldGuide.com/bookclub.
Follow Patrick on Twitter at @patrick_oshag
Show Notes
1:18 - (First Question) – His backstory and the combination of athleticism and finance
2:43 – His time in Ireland
3:29 – Moving away from basketball and into finance
6:08 – What the Intersect business is today and his early lessons
7:55 – Most important coach/mentor
8:59 – Where the name Intersect came from
10:22 – Setting high standards early on
12:35 – Biggest mistakes he saw in his early clients
14:04 – Developing his value proposition to clients
14:24 – Michael Kitces Podcast Episode
16:57 – Process when he’s working with a client signing a new athletic contract
19:53 – The concept of a Pro’s Pro and Top 50 Reasons Professional Athletes Remain Wealthy
22:40 – Managing clients’ interest in creating businesses off their brand
24:20 – The role media plays in athletes’ long-term strategies
25:40 – Getting early clients into compliance with his strategy
28:24 – Daily maintenance role he plays with clients
32:24 – What has impressed him most from his young clients
33:36 – What makes for a great coach
34:50 – The meaning of “all in” to Joe
35:54 – His assessment of the financial services industry today
37:32 – Where his value in service came from
39:05 – Longer term vision for his business
40:33 – Unique ways he finds himself helping his clients
43:49 – Watching his client’s mentor the next generation
45:10 – Historical players and teams he personally admires
46:22 – Athletes and venture capital investing
47:38 – Who makes up his trust network
49:09 – What he’s most excited about for the future of the business
49:46 – Kindest thing anyone has done for Joe
50:24 – Biggest impact a coach had on his life
Learn More
For more episodes go to InvestorFieldGuide.com/podcast.
Sign up for the book club, where you’ll get a full investor curriculum and then 3-4 suggestions every month at InvestorFieldGuide.com/bookclub
Follow Patrick on twitter at @patrick_oshag
Aug 20 2019
52mins
This week’s guest is, Zack Kanter, the founder and CEO of the Stedi. Zack and I decided not to talk much about his business on this podcast and opted instead to explore more generally, so a bit of an introduction to what they do may be helpful here for some extra context. Stedi is a platform for exchanging and automating 300+ types of business-to-business transactions - transactions like purchase orders, invoices, etc. It’s a modern take on an archaic protocol called EDI - electronic data interchange, something I’d never even heard of until several months ago. Learning about EDI is a bit like finding out about the Matrix - every physical object you come across, from the food you ate for breakfast to the clothes you’re wearing and consumer electronics you use - anything with a barcode on it - was likely touched by EDI, often dozens of times before making it into your hands. Stedi is the first update to this messaging later in decades.
Our conversation in this podcast is about business in general, starting with Zack’s fascination with Walmart and Amazon. I should also not that my family is a recent investor in Stedi, and I’m thankful to have learned a great deal from him over the past few months. Please enjoy our conversation.
For more episodes go to InvestorFieldGuide.com/podcast.
Sign up for the book club, where you’ll get a full investor curriculum and then 3-4 suggestions every month at InvestorFieldGuide.com/bookclub.
Follow Patrick on Twitter at @patrick_oshag
Show Notes
1:52 - (First Question) – Interest in Walmart and Amazon
4:02 – Sam Walton: Made In America
4:49 – What from their success can be applied elsewhere
11:07– The idea of tempo with a business
17:17 – Ability for a business to expand laterally
24:33 - Magic of Amazon as a constitution
26:24 – The concept of the OODA loop
26:40 – Boyd: The Fighter Pilot Who Changed the Art of War
31:51 – Orientation within software businesses
32:24 – The Systems Bible: The Beginner's Guide to Systems Large and Small
38:03 – Lessons in building software
38:37– Certain to Win: The Strategy of John Boyd, Applied to Business
41:51 – Setting a common vision for a company
44:14 – Changing the dynamic of teams and how different size teams can accomplish different things
48:00 – How leaders should think about build vs buy
51:07 – The different types of value propositions
53:07 – Utility for companies
57:31 – Concept of network health and the best question from VCs
1:04:04 – Massive projects are less frequent in a world where we can do a lot quickly
1:04:08 – Wait but Why
1:09:37 – Just in time vs just in case learning framework
1:11:55 – His favorite question
1:13:39 – Why is most commonly heard advice wrong
1:18:06 – Kindest thing anyone has done for Zack
Learn More
For more episodes go to InvestorFieldGuide.com/podcast.
Sign up for the book club, where you’ll get a full investor curriculum and then 3-4 suggestions every month at InvestorFieldGuide.com/bookclub
Follow Patrick on twitter at @patrick_oshag
Aug 13 2019
1hr 22mins
My guest this week is Chris Bloomstran, the president and chief investment officer of Semper Augustus Investments Group. He became famous in investing circles a few years back for his incredibly detailed investigations of Berkshire Hathaway. While we do cover Berkshire towards the end of the conversation, we spend most of our time talking about what makes for a quality business. I loved some of his angles on the current landscape, including our discussion of companies like Richemont and Disney which are actively taking distribution back in house. Please enjoy our conversation.
For more episodes go to InvestorFieldGuide.com/podcast.
Sign up for the book club, where you’ll get a full investor curriculum and then 3-4 suggestions every month at InvestorFieldGuide.com/bookclub.
Follow Patrick on Twitter at @patrick_oshag
Show Notes
1:18 - (First Question) – Largest investing error
4:52 – Defining quality investor and their investment strategy
11:48 – Incremental return on capital and other themes that they focus on with investments
15:33 – Importance of unique business models
22:58 – Ownership of the customer relationship
28:06 – Bringing distribution back in house
29:55 – Doing something unique with owned distribution
32:40 – His thoughts on growth and value
32:42 – Chuck Akre podcast episode
37:12 – History of his interest in Berkshire Hathaway and he characterizes the business
53:29 – How is Berkshire protected into the future
59:17 – Most important trends in adjustments
1:08:00 – Which sectors or industries would he focus on
1:10:02 – Most intriguing business he’s unlikely to own
1:11:44 – Kindest thing anyone has done for him
Learn More
For more episodes go to InvestorFieldGuide.com/podcast.
Sign up for the book club, where you’ll get a full investor curriculum and then 3-4 suggestions every month at InvestorFieldGuide.com/bookclub
Follow Patrick on twitter at @patrick_oshag
Aug 06 2019
1hr 17mins
My guest this week is Brian Christian, the author of two of my favorite recent books: Algorithms to Live By and The Most Human Human. Our conversation covers the present and future of how humans interact with and use computers. Brian’s thoughts on the nature of intelligence and what it means to be human continue to make me think about what works, and life, will be like in the future. I hope you enjoy our conversation.
For more episodes go to InvestorFieldGuide.com/podcast.
Sign up for the book club, where you’ll get a full investor curriculum and then 3-4 suggestions every month at InvestorFieldGuide.com/bookclub.
Follow Patrick on Twitter at @patrick_oshag
Show Notes
1:11 - (First Question) – Summarizing his collection of interests that led to his three books
2:59 – Biggest questions in AI
3:43 – Defining AGI (Artificial General Intelligence) and its history
5:18 – Computing Machinery and Intelligence
7:54 – The idea of the most human human
9:59 – Tactics that have changed the most in learning to be the most human human
16:10 –Tests for measuring AGI and updates made to them
20:12 – Concerns for once we have AGI
26:06 – Self-awareness as a threshold for AGI
31:58 – Skeptics’ take on AGI
37:14 – Advice for people building careers and how AGI will impact work
38:16 – Explore/Exploit trade-off
44:57 – How to explore/exploit applies to business concepts
49:16 – Impacts of AGI on the economy
52:40 – Highlights from his second book
57:39 – Kindest thing anyone has done for Brian
Learn More
For more episodes go to InvestorFieldGuide.com/podcast.
Sign up for the book club, where you’ll get a full investor curriculum and then 3-4 suggestions every month at InvestorFieldGuide.com/bookclub
Follow Patrick on twitter at @patrick_oshag
Jul 30 2019
59mins
My guest this week is Eric Sorensen, the CEO of Panagora asset management, which manages more than $46B for clients across a variety of strategies.
Eric began his career serving in the Air Force as both a pilot and instructor in high-performance jet aircraft. He then accumulated 40 years of quantitative research and investment experience, with a Ph.D. along the way.
Please enjoy our conversation on the changing landscape of quantitative investment strategies.
For more episodes go to InvestorFieldGuide.com/podcast.
Sign up for the book club, where you’ll get a full investor curriculum and then 3-4 suggestions every month at InvestorFieldGuide.com/bookclub.
Follow Patrick on Twitter at @patrick_oshag
Show Notes
1:15 - (First Question) – His background in the Air Force
1:23 – Boyd: The Fighter Pilot Who Changed the Art of War
3:18 – Training people on high-performance machines
4:47 – Traits that made for better pilots
5:51 – The evolution of quantitative equity research and its stages
7:56 – How his research led to becoming a practitioner
9:10 - The early feature sets in his research
10:44 – Tradeoffs in the spectrum of interpretability
12:08 – Early days of his practitioner career
13:24 – Risk Premia and the 5 C’s
14:28 – Quantitative Equity Portfolio Management: Modern Techniques and Applications
17:13 – Applying the 5 C’s to value investing
18:38 – Knowing when a strategy/signal is broken
21:24 – What does this strategy plan mean for his firm today
24:56 – Mixing expert systems and portfolio construction
30:07 – Natural language processing
32:00 – The cultivating the power and creativity to ask good questions
35:13 – The concept of a research graveyard
37:45 – State of risk premia today
40:04 – Active equity process
46:37 – Frontiers of research that he’s excited about
48:53 – Safe havens for non-quantitative investors
52:16– Advice for young quants
54:36 – Quants on the buy-side that he admires
55:41 – Kindest thing anyone has done for him
Learn More
For more episodes go to InvestorFieldGuide.com/podcast.
Sign up for the book club, where you’ll get a full investor curriculum and then 3-4 suggestions every month at InvestorFieldGuide.com/bookclub
Follow Patrick on Twitter at @patrick_oshag
Jul 23 2019
57mins
Jane McGonigal, PhD is a world-renowned designer of alternate reality games — or, games that are designed to improve real lives and solve real problems.
She is the Author of Reality is Broken: Why Games Make Us Better and How They Can Change the World and is the inventor and co-founder of SuperBetter, a game that has helped nearly a million players tackle real-life health challenges such as depression, anxiety, chronic pain, and traumatic brain injury.
Our conversation is about how to design useful games, how games effect us and our kids, and what the future might hold. Please enjoy.
For more episodes go to InvestorFieldGuide.com/podcast.
Sign up for the book club, where you’ll get a full investor curriculum and then 3-4 suggestions every month at InvestorFieldGuide.com/bookclub.
Follow Patrick on Twitter at @patrick_oshag
Show Notes
1:22 - (First Question) – Her take on the history of gaming and studying the players themselves
3:44 – Where her passion for gaming really started
4:55 – Her take on flow states
7:47 – Kids and gaming
10:32 – Advice for parents when it comes to the role of games
13:53 – Types of games that develop the right skills for kids
16:20 – Four things all games share in common
16:23 – Reality Is Broken: Why Games Make Us Better and How They Can Change the World
20:50 – Her take on Carse’s theory about infinite gaming
21:04 – Finite and Infinite Games
26:28 – How to understand gaming culture if you’ve never played a game before
28:28 – Amazon and gaming
31:18 – How fun makes anything more enjoyable
34:55 – How game designers calibrate feedback loops
39:14 – The good and bad of gamifying life
45:01 – What is the superbetter app
52:43 - Why powerups and bad guys are so important in games
57:03 – Secret identity
59:04 – Playing with boundaries
1:00:36 – Most worried about in the gaming world, and most exited about
1:07:32 – Kindest thing anyone has done for Jane
Learn More
For more episodes go to InvestorFieldGuide.com/podcast.
Sign up for the book club, where you’ll get a full investor curriculum and then 3-4 suggestions every month at InvestorFieldGuide.com/bookclub
Follow Patrick on twitter at @patrick_oshag
Jul 16 2019
1hr 10mins
My guest this week is Bill Gurley, a general partner at Benchmark Capital and one my favorite investment thinkers. As you’ll hear, despite enormous success through his career, Bill is clearly still in love with business and investing. Where many might discuss past glories, I’ve been incredibly impressed with how both Bill and his partners emphasize the current portfolio and market landscape. I’m thankful to have had the chance to speak with him in this format. I hope you enjoy our conversation.
For more episodes go to InvestorFieldGuide.com/podcast.
Sign up for the book club, where you’ll get a full investor curriculum and then 3-4 suggestions every month at InvestorFieldGuide.com/bookclub.
Follow Patrick on Twitter at @patrick_oshag
Show Notes
1:13 - (First Question) – The idea of increasing returns
1:21 – Competiting Technologies, Increasing Returns, and Lock-in By Historical Events
2:07 – Complex Systems Theory – Santa Fe Institute
4:35 – Markers that could be a sign of network effect in a company
6:27 – The opportunities for companies to capture network effect
8:46 – Are there certain teams/leaders that are more conducive to leading a network effect company
11:55 – Liquidity quality
13:35 – How important is the revenue model at the beginning
15:59 – Fascination with Nextdoor
17:56 – Paradox of Choice
18:39 – Finding opportunities
20:17 – Potential marketplaces and assets that could be commoditized
20:20 – All Markets Are Not Created Equal: 10 Factors To Consider When Evaluating Digital Marketplaces
21:39 – Usage yield on the world’s assets
23:50 – Has technology changed the world of value investing
26:28 – Hyper niche marketplaces
27:52 – Challenges of labor marketplaces
30:12 – User generated content businesses
32:44 – People who are capable of building UGC businesses
33:16 – His interest in Discord
34:31 – Factors of a healthy marketplace
37:57 – Fools’ gold in marketplace businesses
39:04 – How influx of cash is impacting the marketplace business landscape
40:43 – All Revenue is Not Created Equal: The Keys to the 10X Revenue Club
43:20 – How does the influx of money into the space impact him
46:44 – Spending money to attack top brands
50:32 – Regulatory capture
53:36 – His thoughts on the IPO market
57:49 – How did he realize this was his passion
1:00:42 – Qualifying his passion
1:01:52 – Favorite thing about working with entrepreneurs
102:48 – Honing your craft
1:04:33 – Making yourself a good mentor
1:05:56 – Kindest thing anyone has done for him
Learn More
For more episodes go to InvestorFieldGuide.com/podcast.
Sign up for the book club, where you’ll get a full investor curriculum and then 3-4 suggestions every month at InvestorFieldGuide.com/bookclub
Follow Patrick on twitter at @patrick_oshag
Jul 02 2019
1hr 8mins
This week I have a very special guest years in the making. Like another favorite episode, with anonymous guest Modest Proposal, this conversation is with one of the stars of the financial twitter universe who writes anonymously and goes by the pseudonym Jesse Livermore. I met Jesse 6 years ago after reading his unbelievably unique investing research, which tackled all the big and interesting issues in markets. He now also works with me as a research partner at OSAM, where’s he’s used our data to continue to his search for truth in markets. Despite being one of the brightest minds I’ve encountered he is also as humble and unassuming as they come. I’m at least a slightly better person because of trying to emulate how he conducts himself. I get to have many conversations with him that go from 0-100 fast, and I’m thrilled to be able to share one of those with you.
For more episodes go to InvestorFieldGuide.com/podcast.
Sign up for the book club, where you’ll get a full investor curriculum and then 3-4 suggestions every month at InvestorFieldGuide.com/bookclub.
Follow Patrick on Twitter at @patrick_oshag
Show Notes
1:33 - (First Question) – Jesse’s origin story for investing
4:37 – Exploring his ways of problem solving starting with intuitive
7:53 – David Epstein Podcast Episode
11:46 – Looking at the analytical way of problem solving
15:42 – Statistical inference
24:45 – Should we opt for simplicity in the investment process
25:26 – Does his own investing include all three, intuition, analysis, and statistics
26:09 – The evolution of his research, process, and thinking on various investment factors.
31:38 – Thoughts on inflation and its impact on market valuation
40:05 – The Earnings Mirage
46:25 – Free Cash flow and valuations
50:51 – What should investors take away from this research
53:01 – Thoughts on trend as an interesting market signal
59:00 – The problems with trend
1:00:34 – Post on “The Single Greatest Predictor of Future Stock Market Returns”
1:11:15 – His work into understanding factors
1:15:36 – Looking at momentum
1:18:16 – His curiosity into the current market cycle
1:20:04 – Lessons learned from his time in the military, an effective way to create an environment where people can safely disagree with their co-workers
1:30:10 – The concept of progress in meaningful work
1:33:08 – Kindest thing anyone has done for him
Learn More
For more episodes go to InvestorFieldGuide.com/podcast.
Sign up for the book club, where you’ll get a full investor curriculum and then 3-4 suggestions every month at InvestorFieldGuide.com/bookclub
Follow Patrick on twitter at @patrick_oshag
Jun 25 2019
1hr 37mins
My guest today is Chuck Akre, a now widely famous investor who founded Akre Capital Management in 1989, which now manages approximately $10B dollars. We discuss his investing style and his “three-legged stool” for evaluating companies. Please enjoy this great conversation.
For more episodes go to InvestorFieldGuide.com/podcast.
Sign up for the book club, where you’ll get a full investor curriculum and then 3-4 suggestions every month at InvestorFieldGuide.com/bookclub.
Follow Patrick on Twitter at @patrick_oshag
Show Notes
1:06 - (First Question) – Advantage of being in Middleburg, Virginia
2:11 – What a day looks like for Chuck
3:06 – Why imagination is more important than knowledge
3:38 – Difference between curiosity and imagination
4:38 – The origins of the Nirvana Three-Legged Stool concept
10:14 – First leg of the stool, Extraordinary business and ROE’s with a focus on Bandag.
14:36 – How his evaluations of value has changed over the last 10-15 years
16:10 – A look at recent businesses that he’s bought and why they are interesting
19:56 – Why they keep things simple
21:35 – Second leg of the stool, the people involved and characteristics of managers he has invested in
23:20 – Role of capital allocation in the people he focuses on
28:03 – Favorite biographies
29:34 – Third leg of the stool, reinvestment
21:09 – How does he think about diversifying across an investment area
33:32 – Great businesses wrapped in a bad balance sheet
37:35 – What would cause him to sell
38:52 – What does he look for in people
43:27 – How curiosity has impacted his interest in land conservation
43:51 – Advice for investors, especially younger ones
46:14 – Kindest thing anyone has done for him
Learn More
For more episodes go to InvestorFieldGuide.com/podcast.
Sign up for the book club, where you’ll get a full investor curriculum and then 3-4 suggestions every month at InvestorFieldGuide.com/bookclub
Follow Patrick on twitter at @patrick_oshag
Jun 18 2019
47mins
To debut season 2 of Lindzanity, Howard is talking to Patrick O'Shaughnessy an American investor and the founder, Chairman, and Chief Investment Officer of O'Shaughnessy Asset Management, LLC, an asset management firm headquartered in Stamford, Connecticut.
They discuss: - What is Patrick's podcast "Invest Like the Best" About? - Best episodes from his podcast - How does Patrick prepare for recording podcasts? - How does Patrick use Twitter? - How is his company O'Shaughnessy Asset Management ran? - Patrick's family - What "Quantitative" means within his company - Why data is important - What excites Patrick about the market now - Is Patrick interested in start ups? - If he were to invest in the early stages of a company, what sector would he invest in? - What inspired the idea of Canvas? - What is Canvas? - What excited him about Canvas the most?
Connect with Patrick: Website: osam.com Twitter: @Patrick_OShag Linkedin: www.linkedin.com/in/patrick-o-shaughnessy-cfa-6721176
Sep 18 2019
37mins
Author Background:
Patrick O’Shaughnessy, CFA is a Principal and Portfolio Manager at O’Shaughnessy Asset Management (OSAM). Patrick is the author of Millennial Money: How Young Investors can Build a Fortune and is a contributing author to the fourth edition of What Works on Wall Street. Patrick’s is an expert in investment strategy research and investor behavior and holds a B.A. in Philosophy from the University of Notre Dame.
Aug 19 2015
9mins
In this episode, The Investors talk to quant investing expert Patrick O'Shaughnessy. Patrick talks about his experiences in statistical backtesting and modeling of the stock market.
Click here to get full access to our show notes.
Dec 06 2015
1hr 1min
Patrick O’Shaughnessy is the CEO of O’Shaughnessy Asset Management, the host of the Invest Like the Best podcast, and a great friend. Patrick’s podcast and widely read monthly mailing list of books, available at investorfieldguide.com, have made him a celebrity of sorts in the investing world. Those familiar with his voice will already know how wide his curious mind travels, but I image far fewer know much about his daily investing activities.
Our conversation begins with Patrick’s early start in the business and discovered passion for research. We turn to investing at OSAM, covering four core quantitative factors, how those factors work, the research process to dive deeper into each factor and explore new ones, machine learning, differentiated portfolio construction, and the impact of quants on the market. We then turn to Patrick’s experience as a podcaster, discussing his conceptual learning loop, lessons from interviewing, and the ways he has applied lessons from the podcast to OSAM’s asset management business. We close by discussing investing in external managers, including a great nugget on probing quantitative strategies.
Patrick and I both finished this conversation feeling that we had just scratched the surface, which might be fodder for a Part B down the road. Regardless, I’m indebted to Patrick for being the catalyst behind the creation of Capital Allocators two years ago, and it was my great pleasure to get him on the other side of the microphone.
Learn More Discuss show and Read the Transcript Join Ted's mailing list at CapitalAllocatorsPodcast.com Join the Capital Allocators Forum Write a review on iTunes Follow Ted on twitter at @tseides For more episodes go to CapitalAllocatorsPodcast.com/Podcast
Jun 10 2019
1hr 13mins
Jan. 11 (Bloomberg) -- Bloomberg View columnist Barry Ritholtz interviews Patrick O’Shaughnessy, portfolio asset manager at O'Shaughnessy Asset Management and author of the book Millennial Money. They discuss the Millennial generation and their investments. This comment aired on Bloomberg Radio.\u0010\u0010(Barry Ritholtz is a Bloomberg View columnist. The opinions expressed are his own.)
Jan 11 2015
1hr
Feb 27 2015
37mins
Guests:
Samuel Hartzmark - Assistant Professor of Finance and the William Ladany Memorial Faculty Scholar at the University of Chicago’s Booth School of Business
Patrick O’Shaughnessy - the Chief Executive Officer at O’Shaughnessy Asset Management.
Feb 02 2018
54mins
Published on 27 Jun 2016. Meb and Patrick cover lots of ground in this fun episode. They discuss stocks not to own right now, Meb’s worst market loss of all time, and Patrick’s career advice in response to listener Q&A. They then get a laugh reading aloud the worst book reviews that each has received on their respective investing books (posted anonymously on Amazon). There’s far more, including discussion on stock buybacks, roboadvisors, value versus growth investing, some microbrew tasting, and even how Meb once cheated his own grandmother.
Nov 27 2017
Naval Ravikant is the CEO and co-founder of AngelList. He’s invested in more than 100 companies, including Uber, Twitter, Yammer, and many others.
It’s difficult to nail down exactly what we discuss in our conversation because I had so many questions to ask him. Naval is an incredibly deep thinker who challenges the status quo on so many things. This is an interview you’ll want to listen to, think a bit, and then listen to again.
Here are just a few of the many things we cover in this episode:
And so, so much more.
Just a heads up, this is the longest podcast I’ve ever done. While it felt like only thirty minutes, our conversation lasted over two hours!
And although it is the longest, it’s also our most downloaded episode on the Knowledge Project, so make sure you have a pen and paper handy. There’s a lot of wisdom up for grabs here.
Enjoy this amazing conversation.
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For comprehensive show notes on this episode, including a full edited transcript, go to https://www.fs.blog/podcast/
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Feb 27 2017
2hr 1min
In Episode 90, we welcome Founder and Portfolio Manager of Verdad, Dan Rasmussen.
We start with a brief walk-through of Dan’s background. It involves a Harvard education, a New York Times best-selling book, a stint at Bridgewater, consulting work with Bain, then his own foray into private equity.
Turning to investments, Meb lays the groundwork by saying how many people misunderstand the private equity market in general (often confusing it for venture capital). He asks Dan for an overview, then some specifics on the state of the industry today.
Dan clarifies that when he references “private equity” (PE), he’s talking about the leveraged buyout industry – think “Barbarians at the Gate.” He tells us that PE has been considered the crown jewel of the alternative world, then provides a wonderful recap of its evolution – how this market outperformed for many years (think Mitt Romney in the 80s, when he was buying businesses for 4-6 times EBIT), yet its outsized returns led to endowments flooding the market with capital ($200 - $300 billion per year, which was close to triple the pre-Global Financial Crisis average), driving up valuations. Today, deals are getting done at valuations that are nowhere near as low as in the early days. And so, the outsized returns simply haven’t existed. Yet that hasn’t stopped institutional investors from believing they will. Dan tells us about a study highlighting by just how much institutional managers believe PE will outperform in coming years…yet according to Dan’s research, their number is way off.
Dan then delves into leverage and the value premium, telling us how important this interaction is. He gives us great details on the subject based on a study he was a part of while at Bain Consulting. The takeaway was that roughly 50% of deals done at multiples greater than 10x EBITDA posted 0% returns to investors, net of fees.
Meb asks about the response to this from the private equity powers that be… What is their perspective on adding value improvements, enabling a higher price? Dan gives us his thoughts, but the general take is that doing deals at 10x EBITDA is nuts.
Next, the guys delve into Dan’s strategy at Verdad. In essence, he’s taking the strategy that made PE so successful in the 80s and applying it to public markets. Specifically, he’s looking for microcap stocks, trading at sub-7 EBITDAs, that are 50%-60% levered. With this composition, this mirrors PE deals.
The guys then get neck-deep in all things private equity… control premiums, fees, and illiquidity… the real engine behind PE alpha… sector bets… portfolio weights…
Meb and Dan land on “debt” for a while. Dan tell us how value investors tend to have an aversion to debt. But if you’re buying cheap companies that are cash-flow generating, then having debt and paying it off is a good thing. Debt paydown is a better form of capital allocation than dividends or buybacks because it improves the health of the biz, leading to multiple expansion.
The guys cover so much ground in this episode, it’s hard to capture it all here: They discuss how to balance quantitative rules with a human element… The Japanese market today, and why it’s a great set-up for Dan’s PE strategy… Rules that should work across geography, asset classes, markets, and time… Currency hedging… And far more.
For the moment, we’re still ending shows with “your most memorable trade.” Dan’s involves a Japanese company that had been blemished by a corporate scandal. Did it turn out for or against him? Find out in Episode 90.
Jan 17 2018
1hr 1min
Tim O'Reilly (@timoreilly) is one of the most fascinating polymaths I've ever encountered. Wired has called him "the trend spotter" in the world of tech and macrotrends.
Tim is the founder and CEO of O'Reilly Media, Inc. His original business plan was pretty simple: "interesting work for interesting people," and that's worked out pretty well. His company has generated hundreds of millions of dollars in revenue doing everything from online learning, book publishing, running conferences, urging companies to create more value than they capture, and trying to change the world by spreading and amplifying the knowledge of innovators.
In '93, Tim launched the first commercial website. In '98, he organized the meeting where the term "open source software" was agreed upon and helped the business world understand its emerging importance. Tim has now turned his attention and is very focused on Artificial Intelligence (AI) and its implications, the on-demand economy, and other technologies that are transforming the nature of work and the future shape of the business world.
His new book is WTF?: What's the Future and Why It's Up to Us. Enjoy!
This podcast is brought to you by Peloton, which has become a staple of my daily routine. I picked up this bike after seeing the success of my friend Kevin Rose, and I’ve been enjoying it more than I ever imagined. Peloton is an indoor cycling bike that brings live studio classes right to your home. No worrying about fitting classes in your busy schedule or making it to a studio with a crazy commute.
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Peloton is offering listeners to this show a special offer. Visit onepeloton.com and enter the code "TIM" at checkout to receive $100 off accessories with your Peloton bike purchase. This is a great way to get in your workouts, or an incredible gift. Again, that’s onepelton.com and enter the code TIM.
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ZipRecruiter developed its own system and platform for helping solve two of the biggest bottlenecks for employers: posting jobs easily and making it even easier to find the best candidates. More than 80 percent of jobs posted return qualified candidates based on your criteria in just 24 hours. As a listener to this show, you can give it a try for free at ziprecruiter.com/tim!
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If you enjoy the podcast, would you please consider leaving a short review on Apple Podcasts/iTunes? It takes less than 60 seconds, and it really makes a difference in helping to convince hard-to-get guests. I also love reading the reviews!
For show notes and past guests, please visit tim.blog/podcast.
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For transcripts of episodes, go to tim.blog/transcripts.
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Follow Tim:
Twitter: twitter.com/tferriss
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YouTube: youtube.com/timferriss
Nov 08 2017
2hr 9mins
Cal Fussman (@calfussman) is a New York Times bestselling author and a writer-at-large for Esquire magazine, where he is best known for being a primary writer of the "What I've Learned" feature. He has transformed oral history into an art form, conducting probing interviews with a long list of icons who've shaped the last 50 years of world history. I've been trying to get Cal to do his own podcast. Rather than overthinking it, I simply asked Cal to interview a friend who I would also love to have on the podcast: Larry King. This episode is the result of that request. Larry King (@kingsthings) has been dubbed "The most remarkable talk show host on TV, ever" by TV Guide and "Master of the mic" by Time Magazine. Larry's been described as the Muhammad Ali of the broadcast interview, and he's been inducted into five of the nation's leading broadcasting halls of fame. He's the recipient of the Allen H. Neuharth Award for Excellence in Journalism, an Emmy, the George Foster Peabody Award for Excellence in Broadcasting, ten CableACE awards -- the list goes on. Enjoy! Show notes and links for this episode can be found at tim.blog/podcast. This podcast is brought to you by Shopify. With the help of Shopify, many readers of my blog -- first-time business owners -- have ended up making millions of dollars each with their side gigs. Back in 2009, I helped create Shopify's Build a Business, which is now the world's largest entrepreneurship competition. The goal of this competition is to entice would-be entrepreneurs to get off the couch and make things happen, and all you have to do to qualify is open a store on Shopify and start selling. Top sellers in each category then have the exclusive opportunity to learn from mentors and experts like Tony Robbins, Daymond John, Seth Godin, Sir Richard Branson, and me a location like Oheka (aka Gatsby's) Castle or Necker Island. Listeners to this show can go to shopify.com/tim to sign up for a free, 30-day trial and get access to video courses that will help you get started -- including How to Quickly Start a Profitable Dropshipping Store with Corey Ferreira and some goodies from me. Check it out at shopify.com/tim today! This podcast is also brought to you by Kettle & Fire, which makes some of the best bone broth I've ever tasted. It came highly recommended by past podcast guests such as Amelia Boone and Dr. Dom D’Agostino. Kettle & Fire is the first shelf-stable (i.e. never frozen) bone broth that uses bones from 100% grass-fed, organically raised animals. They use longer cook times (20+ hours), which means more collagen and other nutrients. Visit Kettleandfire.com/tim and you can receive 20% off your entire order.
***
If you enjoy the podcast, would you please consider leaving a short review on Apple Podcasts/iTunes? It takes less than 60 seconds, and it really makes a difference in helping to convince hard-to-get guests. I also love reading the reviews!
For show notes and past guests, please visit tim.blog/podcast.
Sign up for Tim’s email newsletter (“5-Bullet Friday”) at tim.blog/friday.
For transcripts of episodes, go to tim.blog/transcripts.
Interested in sponsoring the podcast? Visit tim.blog/sponsor and fill out the form.
Discover Tim’s books: tim.blog/books.
Follow Tim:
Twitter: twitter.com/tferriss
Instagram: instagram.com/timferriss
Facebook: facebook.com/timferriss
YouTube: youtube.com/timferriss
Aug 16 2017
1hr 32mins
For decades, introversion was looked at as something to overcome, almost like an illness. The way to win in life was through charisma, outspokenness, and self-promotion.
Even now, in an increasingly noisy world, introverts may feel added pressure to take one of two paths: force themselves into more extroverted behavior, or become even more reserved and shrink back to themselves.
My guest Susan Cain says both paths are wrong and in fact, rob the world of the unique contributions introverts make when they choose to be true to themselves.
Susan knows what she’s talking about. A self-proclaimed introvert, she wrote the New York Times bestselling book, Quiet: the Power of Introverts in a World that Can't Stop Talking and delivered one of the most popular TED talks ever delivered, with nearly 18 million views to date.
Whether you consider yourself an extrovert, an introvert, or an ambivert (those lucky bastards in the middle) you’ll find a ton of value in this interview.
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Nov 01 2017
56mins
Oct 29 2018
1hr 10mins
Nick Kokonas (IG: @nkokonas, TW: @NickKokonas) is the co-owner and co-founder of The Alinea Group of restaurants, which includes Alinea, Next, The Aviary, Roister, and The Aviary NYC. He is also the founder and CEO of Tock, Inc, a reservations and CRM system for restaurants with more than 2.5M diners and clients in more than 20 countries.
Alinea has been named the Best Restaurant in America and Best Restaurant in The World by organizations and lists as diverse as The James Beard Foundation, World's 50 Best, TripAdvisor, Yelp, Gourmet Magazine, and Elite Traveler. His restaurants have won nearly every accolade afforded to them.
Nick has been a subversive entrepreneur and angel investor since 1996. He spent a decade as a derivatives trader, has co-written three books, and believes in radical transparency in markets and business. His latest effort is The Aviary Cocktail Book, which is perhaps the most gorgeous book I've ever seen. It is self-published, has already pre-sold nearly $1M in copies, and is being released and shipped in October of 2018.
We've been trying to get this interview going ever since Nick was of immense help to me for The 4-Hour Chef, so I hope you enjoy this as much as I did. We talk about much more than the restaurant business, including philosophy, derivatives trading, favorite books, and how Nick tends to break every industry he enters in the most productive way possible! Enjoy!
This episode is brought to you by 99designs, the global creative platform that makes it easy for designers and clients to work together. From logos to apps and packaging to books, 99designs is the go-to design resource for any budget.
Right now, my listeners can get 50 dollars off a logo and brand identity package from 99designs, plus a free upgrade that lets you promote your project on the platform (an additional 99 dollar value), by visiting 99designs/Tim50.
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Oct 18 2018
3hr 5mins
When Amazon became a publicly traded company in 1997, it was losing money. And it wouldn’t turn a profit for years. So how did it convince Wall Street to do something unprecedented: Turn a blind eye to profit? And how did that help Amazon become one of the world’s most valuable companies today -- and how did it change the way tech companies grow?
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Aug 20 2019
37mins
A candid conversation of the host with his father, covering his career on Wall Street, premeditation and formative books.