Sunday, March 10, 2019

Today we have a couple episodes on value investing, two episodes on successful people struggling to be happy (NBA Players and one of Silicon Valley’s Elite’s), a message about the importance of having skin in the game by Nassim Taleb, and a return of Adam Grant’s podcast.

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Investing

• ***Must Listen*** The Latticework Podcast: Tom Russo on the Evolution of Quality Investing. This is one of my favorite all time episodes on fundamental investing and features investor Tom Russo, who is managing member of Gardner Russo & Gardner. He covers a lot, including the importance of investing for the long-term and avoiding capital gains taxes, how to evaluate management and what specific questions to ask, specific lessons he’s taken from Warren Buffett and how he applied them to international markets, and how people need to be aware of companies like Dollar Shave Club completely disrupting industries. The last 20 minutes is a Q&A session, but I suggest listening to the entire episode. [February 14, 2019–1 hour, 1 minute] iTunes Podcast | Overcast | Website Link
• The Acquirers Podcast: Chris Cole. In the first episode of this new podcast, Tobias Carlisle is joined by Chris Cole, who is the founder and CIO of Artemis Capital Management. He is a great listen on volatility and talks about both upside and downside volatility. One really interesting takeaway is what he’s learned about the rise of passive investing and the impact it has had on active managers ability to generate alpha. Cole’s thoughts are not the norm you hear in most investing podcast episodes, so it is great to hear a different perspective. [February 22, 2019–55 minutes] iTunes Podcast | Spotify | Overcast | Stitcher | Website Link
• MacroVoices: Barry Ritholtz: Quantitative tightening is not a good reason to be bearish. The first 13 minutes of the episode consists of the host, Erik Townsend, discussing the last week of the markets. Afterwards, they are joined by Barry Ritholtz, CIO of Ritholtz Wealth Management and host of the Masters in Business podcast. If you listen to this podcast every week, you’ll know Townsend has been bearish on the market going forward, and he said he brought on Ritholtz so he could have a bullish perspective on the podcast. Ritholtz goes through his views on why he’s bullish, and then has the rant of the year on crony capitalism and why people’s misuse of “capitalism” has caused so many people to go to now talking about socialism. [March 7, 2019–1 hour, 24 minutes] iTunes Podcast | Spotify | Overcast | Stitcher | Website Link
• The Intellectual Investor: Mature Company Stocks Are Not Bonds — Stop Treating Them That Way. This episode (and podcast series) features Vitaliy Katsenelson, who is Chief Investment Officer at Investment Management Associates and author of the blog Contrarian Edge. With interest rates so low lately, here has been a huge focus on dividend paying stocks outperforming and people treating them as bond-like substitutes. However, recently investors have been burned by companies like GE and Heinz cutting their dividends and stocks falling by a large percentage. Katsenelson explains why pouring money into dividend paying stocks just for the dividend is a dangerous game and should be avoided. [March 5, 2019–10 minutes] iTunes Podcast | Spotify | Overcast | Stitcher | Website Link

Sports

• Pull Up with CJ McCollum: Mental Health Within the NBA: The Downside of Social Media, Coping with Pressure and Anxiety, and the NBAPA’s Mental Wellness Program. Last week at the MIT Sloan Sports Analytics Conference, NBA Commissioner Adam Silver made a splash when discussing how he is concerned about players being unhappy and express concerned about players mental health. In this episode (starting at the 14 minute mark), NBA player CJ McCollum and his co-host give their reaction and provide some candid thoughts on how difficult it is to be a professional athlete sometimes. They touch on dealing with injuries, hateful talk from fans, spending a significant amount of time alone, and dealing with social media. I thought it was interesting to hear one of the top NBA players provide such a candid reaction. [March 7, 2019–50 minutes] iTunes Podcast | Spotify | Overcast | Stitcher

The Rest

• ***Must Listen*** Talks at Google: Ep30 — Nassim Nicholas Taleb: “Skin in the Game.” Taleb is an essayist, scholar and former trader, and author of multiple fantastic books (see all here). His most recent one is called Skin in the Game: Hidden Asymmetries in Daily Life. As the title says, it focuses on the importance of having skin in the game and participating in downside risk. As example he mentions is a CEO having to participate in downside risk and not solely benefit from the upside of stock options, as the CEO of Citi Bank did when he made $120 million and then stepped down after the government had to bail out the bank. He explains this is why we love stories about entrepreneurs becoming rich but dislike CEO’s making millions — the entrepreneur is participating in the risk of the company and has everything to lose if it fails. I don’t think you’ll find a more intelligent person speaking about probabilities, uncertainty, and randomness. [March 5, 2019–1 hour, 2 minutes] iTunes Podcast | Spotify | Overcast | Stitcher | Website Link
• EconTalk: Sebastian Junger on Tribe. Junger is the author of Tribe: On Homecoming and Belonging. This episode focuses on humans innate need to belong to groups and how the rise of social media and phones have made it more difficult for us to connect with others. Their conversation is a mix of history and psychology and is very relevant to societal issues today. The book is apparently a quick read (192 pages) and I also recommend if you enjoy this episode. [December 31, 2018–1 hour, 16 minutes] iTunes Podcast | Spotify | Overcast | Stitcher | Website Link
• WorkLife with Adam Grant: The Creative Power of Misfits. This is the first episode of season two of Adam Grant’s podcast. Grant is a professor at UPENN with a specializing in organizational psychology. This episode focuses on how to utilize people who are frustrated at your company, and propel them to “disrupt” yourself before another company does that to you (Blockbuster, Kodak). He interviews people from Pixar and other companies who exemplify this idea. [March 5, 2019–40 minutes] iTunes Podcast | Spotify | Overcast | Stitcher | Website Link
• Recode Decode: Chamath Palhapitiya: People in Silicon Valley are deeply unhappy. The first 21 minutes of this episode are great and tie into the conversation on depression, loneliness, and finding true happiness in life. Palhapitiya was one of the first employees at Facebook and became a self-made billionaire and part owner of the Golden State Warriors in his 30’s. He goes into the struggle to find happiness in his life when on the outside, it seems like he should be incredibly happy. This seems very similar to what Adam Silver spoke about last week, and what CJ McCollum speaks about in the episode mentioned above. [March 4, 2019–1 hour, 19 minutes] iTunes Podcast | Spotify | Overcast | Stitcher | Website Link

Throwback Episode

I wanted to tack onto the conversation about happiness and mental health with professional athletes. FYI — If you click the iTunes link, you will need to scroll back to the August 21, 2018 date to download and play the episode.

• The Woj Podcast: Jackie MacMullan. MacMullan is an NBA columnist for ESPN and in the middle of releasing 5 articles spotlighting mental health issues in the NBA. This is a powerful episode, and the articles are as well. Her talk with Woj covers some of the topics she wrote about, including Kevin Love opening up about a panic attack last season and Paul Pierce discussing effects from being stabbed 18 years ago. [August, 21, 2018–36 minutes] iTunes Podcast | Spotify | Overcast | Stitcher