Pods & Recs: No. 164
Today we have Ray Dalio on investing during cycle, Scott Belsky on the future of the operator-investor, and former Falcons GM and UPenn professor on the upcoming NFL draft.
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Investing
The Business Brew: Aaron Edelheit — Mindset Mastery. Edelheit is the CEO and Founder of Mindset Capital, a private investment firm. They start with his philosophy on investing and life — thinking long-term, being a contrarian and finding a game with few competitors, and finding convex situations for your personal life. Then they dive into investing in marijuana — they talk about regulations, valuations, tailwinds, and risks. The end is about his approach to work. He’s a workaholic but after running himself into the group, he forces himself to take a a day off each week (even no phone!). [April 20, 2021–2 hours, 9 minutes] iTunes Podcast | Spotify | Google | Breaker | Website Link
The Jordan Harbinger Show: 491: Ray Dalio | The Changing World Order. Dalio is hitting the circuit to discuss his new book, The Changing World Order: Why Nations Succeed and Fail. He argues we’re in the middle of multiple long-term cycles that are causing a lot of the things we’re seeing across the world now (like the rise of populism and bifurcation of the world between the East and the West). He also talks about the issues we have in the U.S. around education and what he saw in CT when it went remote last year — tens of thousands with kids without laptops and/or internet couldn’t learn. The most impactful part is listening to him talk about the tragic passing of his son last year. [April 6, 2021–1 hour, 31 minutes] iTunes Podcast | Spotify | Google | Breaker | Website Link
Village Global’s Venture Stories: Scott Belsky’s Angel Investing Lessons and Requests For Startups. Belsky is an angel investor and Chief Product Officer at Adobe. He talks about the trends he’s seeing within venture capital and operator-investors have the biggest opportunity going forward. He looks back on his past, including what led him to invest in both Uber and Pinterest and why joining Benchmark was a mistake he realized early on. He also walks through areas he’s bullish and bearish on (productivity tools). [April 15, 2021–45 minutes] iTunes Podcast | Spotify | Google | Breaker | Website Link
Invest Like the Best with Patrick O’Shaughnessy: Paul Enright — The Buy Side Primer. Enright is the managing partner at Krainos Capital and previously worked at both Viking Global and Morgan Stanley. He does a great job walking through the differences between the buy side and sell side, including the psychological makeup that’s best for each, pay structures, and drivers of success. Then he dives into investment teams on the buy side. He explains the research process, the difference between doing the deep dives and implementing the idea, and the different types of funds that are most prominent right now. [April 20, 2021–1 hour, 26 minutes] iTunes Podcast | Spotify | Google | Breaker | Website Link
The Meb Faber Show
The Meb Faber Show: #303 — Kevin Lozer, Holistiplan — Streamline And Scale The Tax Planning Process For Advisors. Kevin Lozer is co-founder of Holistiplan, a tax planning software for financial advisors. Kevin shares how creating software to help with tax planning for his own clients then turned into a standalone business. He walks through the process of using the software and how it not only saves the advisor time but also helps find potential planning opportunities. He also explains how advisors have been utilizing the tools to help with business development and why the software complements instead of competes against CPA’s. [April 19, 2021–46 minutes] iTunes Podcast | Spotify | Google | Breaker | Website Link
The Meb Faber Show: #304 — Damon Ficklin, Polen Capital — Even Though We Are Clearly A Growth Manager, A Lot Of Us Have Value-Oriented Roots. Damon Ficklin works for Polen Capital, where he is the head of the Large Company Growth Team and the lead portfolio manager of the firm’s Global Growth Strategy. Damon’s a high quality, concentrated growth investor who has crushed it the past few years. He starts by describing his process for analyzing companies and the key metrics they look for when doing so. Then he covers the paradigm shift we’ve seen in the last year and how companies have adapted to the new norm. He talks about companies that have navigated the shift to e-commerce like Estee Lauder, and others that have transformed their business model like Adobe. At the end, he shares why one of his most memorable investments is Invisalign, a stock that has soared in the past year. [April 21, 2021–58 minutes] iTunes Podcast | Spotify | Google | Breaker | Website Link
The Rest
The Ringer NFL Show: Thomas Dimitroff on the Draft, the Falcons, and More. Dimitroff was the GM of the Atlanta Falcons and a front-office executive for years with the N.E. Patriots. Some of the episode is about current topics like the upcoming draft, but a lot is about team building and running a franchise. He looks back on his decision to trade up for Julio Jones in the 2011 NFL Draft, a decision his mentor Bill Belichick said he wouldn’t have done. He also touches on the difficulty of the draft, the importance of drafting players that fit your coaching staff, and developing a long-term strategy for the organization. [April 21, 2021–1 hour, 1 minute] iTunes Podcast | Spotify | Google | Breaker | Website Link
You cannot sit on your hands in this league anymore as a team builder.
Capital Allocators: Cade Massey — People Analytics in Investing and the NFL. Massey is a professor at UPenn where he focuses on judgement and decision making. If you’re a fan of Philip Tetlock or Annie Duke, you’ll love this episode. He talks about probabilities, decision making, bet sizing, and what’s necessary to harness the wisdom of crowds, including betting markets. He finishes by sharing what his research has shown are best practices for using algorithms to assist in the decision making process. [April 19, 2021–58 minutes] iTunes Podcast | Spotify | Google | Breaker | Website Link
RECOMMENDATIONS
Books
Cade Massey (Professor, UPenn’s Wharton School):
Jack Brennan (Chairman & former CEO, The Vanguard Group):
- The Bully Pulpit: Theodore Roosevelt and the Golden Age of Journalism by Doris Kearns Goodwin
- The Splendid and the Vile: A Saga of Churchill, Family, and Defiance During the Blitz by Erik Larson
- The Earth Beneath Their Feet: The British, the Americans, the Nazis and the Mountaineering Race to Conquer the Himalayas by Scott Ellsworth
