Pods & Recs: No. 170
Today we have Alex Rodriguez on his post-career business interest, Scott Harrison on innovation within the not-for-profit sector, Dan Pickering on oil & gas trends, and a fascinating conversation between Grant Williams and Demetri Kofinas.
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Investing
Capital Allocators: Alex Rodriguez — Business after Baseball. MLB Hall of Famer & World Series Champion Alex Rodriquez discusses his journey with money and post-career business interests. The two stories he shares about his interactions with Warren Buffett in the first 10 minutes are worth listening to the episode itself. He shares how he gets deal flow, his involvement with SPACs, and his relationship with Marc Lorey, which has led them to do a VC fund and buy the NBA’s Minnesota Timberwolves together. He also looks back on how his 2014 suspension for steroids changed him as a man and led him to see a therapist twice per week. [June 7, 2021–53 minutes] iTunes Podcast | Spotify | Google | Breaker | Website Link
“I don’t really believe in branding, I believe in reputation.”
The Pomp Podcast: #577 Scott Harrison on the Bitcoin Water Trust. Harrison is the founder of charity:water and one of the most innovative people in the not-for-profit space. After briefly sharing his journey (for the full story, listen here), he shares why he started the Bitcoin Water Trust, which is a way for those who have generated wealth to donate money, get the tax benefits, and know he is not selling for another five years. For $10,000 he can build one well to supply water to a group of people, so if the bet pays off, it will be huge for the organization. [June 9, 2021–42 minutes] iTunes Podcast | Spotify | Google | Breaker | Website Link
In Real Terms: Episode 06: Oil, Dan Pickering. Pickering is one of the oil industry’s leading experts and in this episode, he covers the current state of the energy markets. He walks through the impact of supply shrinkage due to lack of capital because of ESG and the impact of investing in alternative energies to cut carbon output, which he thinks has an unrealistic timeline. He expects the industry to grow for 15 years and then slowly decline thereafter, with muted volatility along the way, a contrarian view for what he says is being priced in today .[June 9, 2021–50 minutes] iTunes Podcast | Spotify | Google | Website Link
“I think we have a cyclical recovery in oil and gas…and we’ve got this secular growth in energy transition that’s going to consume a lot of capital. And so, I think they’re both waves worth riding right now.”
Hidden Forces: Financial Nihilism, Narrative Investing, & the Hyperreality of Markets. This conversation between Demetri Kofinas and Grant Williams starts with Demetri’s diagnosis of a brain tumor before the age of 30, the impact that had on him, and his journey to reinvent himself. Then they dive into Demetri’s idea of financial nihilism, which can be described as “a philosophy that treats the objects of speculation as though they’re intrinsically worthless.” They have a masterful way of intertwining the financial markets and social instability, and covering peoples’ need for connection and things that are real in a digital world where we’re more connected yet more isolated than we’ve ever been. [June 1, 2021–1 hour, 36 minutes] iTunes Podcast | Spotify | Google | Breaker | Website Link
Planet Money: Used Car Talk. This is a great episode about the used car market, which is seeing prices soar and causing prices at wholesale auction to be higher than they were when sold. It’s also caused rental prices to soar, turning people to rent U-Hauls because they’re cheaper. Essentially, supply and demand stalled the used car market. [July 11, 2021–24 minutes] iTunes Podcast | Spotify | Google | Breaker | Website Link
The Meb Faber Show
The Meb Faber Show: #318 — Perth Tolle, Life + Liberty Indexes — If I Was In Hong Kong Right Now, I Would Be Arrested, Definitely, For Doing This. Perth Tolle is founder of Life + Liberty Indexes, which is behind the $FRDM ETF. The ETF weights emerging market countries based on their score in a freedom index. She shares the story of how she launched the ETF with the help of Rob Arnott and Wes Gray. She shares the inner workings of her Freedom Index and how it uses personal and economic freedom metrics as factors. At the end, Perth explains how it differs from most emerging market funds and what the reaction has been from people all around the glove. [June 7, 2021–57 minutes] iTunes Podcast | Spotify | Google | Breaker | Website Link
The Meb Faber Show: #319 — Brandon Zick, Ceres Partners — The Market Is $3 Trillion And Institutional Investors Own About 3% Of That. Brandon Zick is the Chief Investment Officer of Ceres Partners, a specialist investment manager focused exclusively on food and agriculture. Brandon begins with an update on the asset class, including the impact of both rising commodity prices and COVID. He spends some time on his firms’ investment process and how they evaluate potential deals. Then he walks through lots of factors affecting the space — lack of water, solar and other non-farm value options, and the tax uncertainty with a new administration. Towards the end of the episode, they discuss the firm’s private investing in ag-related businesses and what he’s seeing in that area. [June 9, 2021–59 minutes] iTunes Podcast | Spotify | Google | Breaker | Website Link
The Rest
What Got You There with Sean DeLaney: #249 James Kerr — Creating a Culture for Leadership & High Performance. Kerr is the author of one of my all-time favorite books, Legacy, which covers the All-Blacks, a New Zealand Rubgy team. He shares what makes a great team, the role of a coach or leader in building an environment that allows greatness to happen, and the common values he sees in great teams that tie them together so people pursue the team’s success above their own. Throughout the conversation, he shares examples of different teams and groups that exemplify these characteristics. [June 6, 2021–1 hour, 29 minutes] iTunes Podcast | Spotify | Google | Breaker | Website Link
“The enemy of high performance is entitlement.”
Book Recommendations
Tony Xu (CEO, Door Dash):
