1 00:00:00,040 --> 00:00:02,200 Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the Business Brew. 2 00:00:02,200 --> 00:00:05,760 I am your host, Bill Brewster. As always, thank you for your 3 00:00:05,760 --> 00:00:08,360 year. This episode features Alex 4 00:00:08,360 --> 00:00:12,520 Morris of TSOH Investment Research. 5 00:00:13,280 --> 00:00:16,400 I will drop his information in the show notes. 6 00:00:16,640 --> 00:00:21,120 He is stopping by to discuss his new book, Buffett and Munger 7 00:00:21,120 --> 00:00:24,520 Unscripted. 3 decades of investment and business insights 8 00:00:24,520 --> 00:00:27,600 from the Berkshire shareholder. Berkshire Hathaway shareholder 9 00:00:27,600 --> 00:00:30,320 Meetings. It is a fantastic book. 10 00:00:30,880 --> 00:00:35,880 I had the privilege to preview it and then I had the good 11 00:00:35,880 --> 00:00:40,760 fortune of getting APDF early. And I can attest that as 12 00:00:40,760 --> 00:00:45,000 somebody who has spent a lot of time listening to the annual 13 00:00:45,000 --> 00:00:48,000 meetings, this is a fantastic resource that groups all the 14 00:00:48,000 --> 00:00:50,240 concepts by different topic areas. 15 00:00:50,800 --> 00:00:56,600 I have found repetition of quotes that touch the same topic 16 00:00:56,600 --> 00:01:03,240 area force me to see slight differences in what the quotes 17 00:01:03,240 --> 00:01:07,200 are and have helped me think more clearly about what they're 18 00:01:07,200 --> 00:01:09,880 saying, what Mr. Buffett, Mr. Munger was saying. 19 00:01:10,360 --> 00:01:14,880 And 50% of the proceeds go to Glide, which is a charity that 20 00:01:14,880 --> 00:01:18,120 Berkshire Hathaway has historically, or Buffett. 21 00:01:18,120 --> 00:01:21,240 I'm sorry if I got that entity wrong because I know that that 22 00:01:21,240 --> 00:01:24,840 matters. But anyway, Mr. Buffett supports 23 00:01:24,840 --> 00:01:27,360 that entity. And I don't know, I can't say 24 00:01:27,360 --> 00:01:30,040 enough good things about Alex. And the book is worth buying. 25 00:01:30,360 --> 00:01:33,400 It's 45 bucks. You spend 45 bucks on things 26 00:01:33,400 --> 00:01:35,320 that are worth a lot less than this. 27 00:01:35,320 --> 00:01:38,320 And when you think about the time savings that you're going 28 00:01:38,320 --> 00:01:40,960 to get from it, the value is huge. 29 00:01:41,600 --> 00:01:43,480 Huge. You should have maybe priced it 30 00:01:43,480 --> 00:01:45,800 at 450 bucks and then had a sale. 31 00:01:45,800 --> 00:01:48,320 But anyway, I digress. Anyway, that's it. 32 00:01:48,640 --> 00:01:51,760 Nothing in this podcast is investment advice. 33 00:01:51,760 --> 00:01:56,000 Everything in the program is for entertainment purposes only. 34 00:01:56,720 --> 00:01:58,880 Consult your financial advisor before making investment 35 00:01:58,880 --> 00:02:01,080 decisions. Do your own research. 36 00:02:01,680 --> 00:02:04,920 You know the drill. Before this music drops, I do 37 00:02:04,920 --> 00:02:09,759 want to give a shout out to my editing team at Speech Docs. 38 00:02:09,759 --> 00:02:16,000 You can find them on Twitter at Speech and Docs's docs. 39 00:02:16,280 --> 00:02:19,160 Dax and his team is are fantastic. 40 00:02:19,480 --> 00:02:22,320 All I can say is that Dax and his team offer incredibly good 41 00:02:22,320 --> 00:02:26,160 value and I very much appreciate what they do on the back end of 42 00:02:26,160 --> 00:02:28,360 the show. So if you are somebody who is 43 00:02:28,360 --> 00:02:31,800 thinking about starting a podcast, please consider Dax and 44 00:02:31,800 --> 00:02:36,160 his team at Speech Docs. That's SPEECHDOCS. 45 00:02:55,920 --> 00:03:00,040 All right, ladies and gentlemen, my man Alex Morris, previously 46 00:03:00,040 --> 00:03:03,240 referred to as a Sherpa on this program, is back. 47 00:03:03,760 --> 00:03:05,680 Your mom liked the Sherpa comment, didn't she? 48 00:03:06,760 --> 00:03:09,080 My mom likes anything that's reasonably nice that's said 49 00:03:09,080 --> 00:03:11,040 about me, so yes. Oh, that's nice. 50 00:03:11,040 --> 00:03:13,960 Well, she's a nice lady. How's your dad doing? 51 00:03:13,960 --> 00:03:18,000 Is he eating dilly bars? My dad's hanging in there. 52 00:03:18,120 --> 00:03:20,760 My mom, she had us on a wild goose chase for something from 53 00:03:20,760 --> 00:03:23,600 Facebook Marketplace that she saved a couple $100 on, but it 54 00:03:23,600 --> 00:03:27,120 required my dad and I to go get it, and it required some moving 55 00:03:27,120 --> 00:03:30,280 abilities that neither of us particularly have any more. 56 00:03:30,280 --> 00:03:34,080 So hopefully that was the last time that will happen, but it 57 00:03:34,080 --> 00:03:35,840 probably won't be signs that he's good. 58 00:03:36,360 --> 00:03:38,920 All right, good deal. Well, sometimes you got to feel 59 00:03:38,920 --> 00:03:40,720 like your body's breaking to feel alive. 60 00:03:41,280 --> 00:03:46,560 It felt that way. Well, from a buffing among her 61 00:03:46,560 --> 00:03:49,280 books to moving you're you're a Renaissance man. 62 00:03:50,240 --> 00:03:53,000 Yes, it was an interesting week in terms of, you know, from a 63 00:03:53,600 --> 00:03:56,560 professional perspective, it was fairly it was a somewhat 64 00:03:56,560 --> 00:03:58,440 meaningful week. Felt like the book got off to a 65 00:03:58,440 --> 00:04:02,840 a good start and that was shortly followed by I guess not 66 00:04:02,840 --> 00:04:05,360 newborn at this point. 8 month old son getting sick and the 67 00:04:05,360 --> 00:04:08,560 whole family getting sick and the joy of the first thing was 68 00:04:08,560 --> 00:04:12,040 quickly overwhelmed by the realities of of what the rest of 69 00:04:12,040 --> 00:04:14,600 life is now so but it's all good. 70 00:04:15,120 --> 00:04:17,959 Well, it'll happen and you know you'll. 71 00:04:18,120 --> 00:04:19,640 You'll learn to live with the sickness. 72 00:04:19,640 --> 00:04:21,560 It'll it'll become easier over time. 73 00:04:22,280 --> 00:04:23,640 Yeah, the first one's a little scary. 74 00:04:23,640 --> 00:04:25,840 That was our first. That was our first run. 75 00:04:26,280 --> 00:04:30,960 Yeah, we had a, we had 104 once with the first one and it was 76 00:04:30,960 --> 00:04:33,400 like, oh boy, what's going on? Then it just, yeah, we thought 77 00:04:33,400 --> 00:04:34,880 it was. We thought it was a big deal. 78 00:04:34,880 --> 00:04:36,880 The pediatrician did did not agree. 79 00:04:37,600 --> 00:04:39,960 Yeah, you should think that, right? 80 00:04:39,960 --> 00:04:42,000 That's a parental. That's good. 81 00:04:42,000 --> 00:04:43,400 That's why your baby will survive. 82 00:04:44,000 --> 00:04:46,440 But the pediatrician is also actually seen real shit. 83 00:04:46,480 --> 00:04:50,440 You know, interestingly, I was talking to one of my wife's 84 00:04:50,440 --> 00:04:54,040 friends who is a doctor and she said that sometimes you get 85 00:04:54,040 --> 00:04:58,240 better care in facilities that you may think are a lot less 86 00:04:58,240 --> 00:05:03,200 nice because the population in those facilities, like the 87 00:05:03,200 --> 00:05:05,120 doctors actually see sick people. 88 00:05:05,960 --> 00:05:11,080 Whereas if you just kind of go to like a like a high end place, 89 00:05:11,600 --> 00:05:13,880 like I used to go to Northwestern because I had 90 00:05:13,880 --> 00:05:18,560 really nice healthcare and now I don't because I have Obamacare 91 00:05:18,560 --> 00:05:21,400 like we were talking about. But but apparently my care may 92 00:05:21,400 --> 00:05:24,240 actually be better because I'm there with the sickies, which is 93 00:05:24,240 --> 00:05:25,040 good. I. 94 00:05:25,040 --> 00:05:27,800 Guess that makes me feel slightly better as I'm perusing 95 00:05:27,800 --> 00:05:32,000 our healthcare options for 2025. Yeah, well, they, they called me 96 00:05:32,000 --> 00:05:36,640 and told me to opt for a high deductible plan, which as 97 00:05:36,640 --> 00:05:41,520 someone who had a a kid airlifted two years ago, I, I 98 00:05:41,520 --> 00:05:47,080 respect deductibles. Yes, yes. 99 00:05:48,120 --> 00:05:53,240 I have, I have a feeling that with with my kids, maybe I maybe 100 00:05:53,240 --> 00:05:57,040 I should focus on a low deductible because yeah, you're 101 00:05:57,080 --> 00:05:57,920 going to you're going to pay off. 102 00:05:58,640 --> 00:06:01,880 Yeah, that's right. Either way, either way you pay 103 00:06:01,880 --> 00:06:04,160 it seems. Yes, that's correct. 104 00:06:04,360 --> 00:06:07,840 That is correct. Well, let's get to it. 105 00:06:08,120 --> 00:06:12,520 You had a big book that came out or a book launch, right, Mr. 106 00:06:12,520 --> 00:06:16,480 Ackman, William gave you a a shout out and an endorsement. 107 00:06:16,480 --> 00:06:20,400 Bloomstrand give you gave you an endorsement on a much lower 108 00:06:20,400 --> 00:06:21,920 level. I gave you an endorsement. 109 00:06:21,920 --> 00:06:23,840 So how was that? It was good. 110 00:06:23,840 --> 00:06:25,480 It was good. You know, I've been working on 111 00:06:25,480 --> 00:06:29,320 this for right around three years, I believe. 112 00:06:29,320 --> 00:06:31,880 And, you know, it's been a long process. 113 00:06:31,880 --> 00:06:35,040 It started off with, you know, maybe he's taking a step back. 114 00:06:35,160 --> 00:06:38,880 I started investing in called the late 2000s. 115 00:06:38,880 --> 00:06:42,680 And when I first started, one of the books I really ravitated to 116 00:06:42,680 --> 00:06:46,520 was the essays of Warren Buffett, Larry Cunningham's, you 117 00:06:46,520 --> 00:06:50,200 know, his collection of, of topics from Warren Buffett's 118 00:06:50,200 --> 00:06:52,840 shareholder letters. And for me, I found it a really 119 00:06:52,840 --> 00:06:55,840 effective way to kind of learn about investing in, about 120 00:06:55,840 --> 00:06:58,920 business, You know, probably more, it's probably more useful 121 00:06:58,920 --> 00:07:01,120 to me at the time. And it's kind of pulling up the 122 00:07:01,120 --> 00:07:05,240 82 letter and reading it right. So it was, it was really, really 123 00:07:05,240 --> 00:07:08,320 useful tool for me and something I, I still look to these days 124 00:07:08,320 --> 00:07:10,520 and you know, like a lot of things with Buffett and Monger, 125 00:07:11,000 --> 00:07:13,800 you, you listen to it again, you've heard it five times 126 00:07:13,800 --> 00:07:16,240 before, but, but you're kind of a different person or a 127 00:07:16,240 --> 00:07:18,000 different investor than you were 2-3 years ago. 128 00:07:18,000 --> 00:07:20,600 So it hits you a different way. So it's, it's a book that 129 00:07:20,600 --> 00:07:24,360 remains incredibly useful to me. And when, when the company 130 00:07:24,360 --> 00:07:28,920 announced in 2018 that they were going to release all the, all 131 00:07:28,920 --> 00:07:32,240 the old meeting videos back to 1994, kind of immediately struck 132 00:07:32,240 --> 00:07:34,800 a chord with me that, you know, there's potentially an 133 00:07:34,800 --> 00:07:36,560 opportunity to do something like this. 134 00:07:36,560 --> 00:07:39,960 Obviously the challenge was that is going to be very, very 135 00:07:39,960 --> 00:07:42,440 daunting and time consuming to actually go through all that 136 00:07:42,440 --> 00:07:44,880 stuff. So I, I kind of had that idea in 137 00:07:44,880 --> 00:07:48,200 my head and then I never went forward with it, at least for a 138 00:07:48,200 --> 00:07:51,000 couple years. That ultimately led to the 139 00:07:51,680 --> 00:07:54,280 individual and working with that Herriman house, Chris. 140 00:07:54,400 --> 00:07:58,120 He, he reached out to me about writing a book and I actually 141 00:07:58,120 --> 00:08:00,200 had started working on something else. 142 00:08:00,760 --> 00:08:04,800 It was effectively, I think I had some salacious title like 143 00:08:04,800 --> 00:08:06,920 Don't Get Aft by your financial advisor. 144 00:08:06,920 --> 00:08:08,040 It was, it was essentially a book. 145 00:08:08,040 --> 00:08:09,080 Yeah, I. Remember that one? 146 00:08:09,080 --> 00:08:12,680 I do remember that one. It didn't make it too far, but 147 00:08:12,960 --> 00:08:15,280 essentially the thought process was, you know, I was seeing 148 00:08:15,280 --> 00:08:18,560 people in my life like my parents or my my grandma friends 149 00:08:19,200 --> 00:08:21,840 who were asking what do they do with their money? 150 00:08:21,840 --> 00:08:25,560 And, you know, I was working at a financial advisor previously 151 00:08:25,560 --> 00:08:29,200 and I think there's a lot of value add in working with a 152 00:08:29,200 --> 00:08:31,880 financial advisor or I also think there's limitations to 153 00:08:31,880 --> 00:08:35,799 what they can, what they can do. And, you know, it's important 154 00:08:35,799 --> 00:08:39,200 to, to recognize the difference between those two things. 155 00:08:39,200 --> 00:08:42,240 So it was a book that was kind of going to be focused on, on 156 00:08:42,240 --> 00:08:44,680 that idea and walking through those things like active and 157 00:08:44,680 --> 00:08:48,640 passive and you know, financial planning versus the investing 158 00:08:48,640 --> 00:08:52,400 part of the equation, etcetera. As I started writing it, I, I 159 00:08:52,400 --> 00:08:54,600 got kind of bored. I mean, it's a topic that I have 160 00:08:54,720 --> 00:08:57,720 some knowledge on, but I'm not I'm not deeply knowledgeable in 161 00:08:57,720 --> 00:09:00,040 a lot of financial planning ideas anyways. 162 00:09:00,400 --> 00:09:02,360 And it's not really what I love either. 163 00:09:02,360 --> 00:09:04,680 I love the investing part. I love the analysis part of the 164 00:09:04,680 --> 00:09:07,560 game. So the idea made me a bit bored. 165 00:09:07,560 --> 00:09:11,320 But when Chris asked if I had a book idea, I mentioned that one 166 00:09:11,320 --> 00:09:14,080 at first. And then after I thought about 167 00:09:14,080 --> 00:09:15,680 it a little more, I said, you know, I think there's another 168 00:09:15,680 --> 00:09:20,360 idea here for this essays of Warren Buffett esque book, but 169 00:09:20,360 --> 00:09:23,080 about the annual meeting. So Long story short, that was a 170 00:09:23,080 --> 00:09:26,080 couple years ago. Started working on it and 171 00:09:26,160 --> 00:09:30,080 eventually reached out to, to Berkshire to warn directly 172 00:09:30,080 --> 00:09:32,880 through, through Debbie with a little bit of help from from 173 00:09:32,880 --> 00:09:35,480 Adam Mead, who has also written a great book about Berkshire. 174 00:09:35,600 --> 00:09:38,880 So I reached out to them and said, hey, I'd like to do this. 175 00:09:38,920 --> 00:09:41,600 Actually, I've already been doing this, but I'd really like 176 00:09:41,600 --> 00:09:43,880 your approval before I keep moving forward because I don't 177 00:09:43,880 --> 00:09:48,040 want to try to release this book and, and then find out that that 178 00:09:48,040 --> 00:09:49,800 you are not OK with me having done this. 179 00:09:49,800 --> 00:09:53,240 So, so I reached out to them and, and, you know, told them 180 00:09:53,240 --> 00:09:56,240 my, my plans for the book, along with the fact that I'd give half 181 00:09:56,240 --> 00:09:59,280 of my net proceeds to glide, which I hoped would, would help 182 00:09:59,280 --> 00:10:00,880 it along. And then thankfully they said 183 00:10:00,880 --> 00:10:03,920 yes. So it took another, took another 184 00:10:04,320 --> 00:10:07,800 year and a half or so or two years from there to, to get to 185 00:10:07,800 --> 00:10:10,680 where we are, are today. And I'm thankful that it's 186 00:10:10,680 --> 00:10:17,200 finally a real thing. Your chapters have chapters, so 187 00:10:17,240 --> 00:10:22,560 how long did this take you to compile and? 188 00:10:22,560 --> 00:10:24,880 And then once you had it compiled, like how many 189 00:10:24,880 --> 00:10:29,280 different ways did you try to slice up the quotes? 190 00:10:29,440 --> 00:10:33,240 And and like how long did it take you to group them properly? 191 00:10:34,400 --> 00:10:38,680 The first time when I was really sad, I'm like, OK, this is going 192 00:10:38,680 --> 00:10:41,360 to happen. I started listening through and 193 00:10:41,360 --> 00:10:43,760 I got to like 2. I just went in chronological 194 00:10:43,760 --> 00:10:47,600 order and I got to like 2000. So, you know, 5-6 meetings in 195 00:10:48,160 --> 00:10:51,200 and I realized the process that I had the idea in my head for I 196 00:10:51,200 --> 00:10:54,520 was going to group this stuff really didn't make much sense at 197 00:10:54,520 --> 00:10:56,080 all. So I kind of had to go back and 198 00:10:56,080 --> 00:10:59,440 restart. And you know, once I restarted 199 00:10:59,440 --> 00:11:02,160 that, I thought about it a bit more deeply, thankfully. 200 00:11:02,480 --> 00:11:05,880 And yeah, I put together a fairly simple Excel sheet where 201 00:11:05,880 --> 00:11:10,000 I kind of group things in terms of in terms of a main topic and 202 00:11:10,000 --> 00:11:13,800 then kind of subtopics that I thought may or may be relevant. 203 00:11:13,800 --> 00:11:17,480 And then also like a high level, you know, green red grading 204 00:11:17,480 --> 00:11:20,080 system on is there any chances is going to be in the book 205 00:11:20,080 --> 00:11:24,600 versus no chance at all? I mean, I, I realized early on 206 00:11:24,760 --> 00:11:26,920 there are a lot of lot of questions over the years of the 207 00:11:26,920 --> 00:11:29,600 Bertram meetings about, you know, how would you live your 208 00:11:29,600 --> 00:11:33,280 life differently if you started over stuff about politics, stuff 209 00:11:33,280 --> 00:11:35,760 about philanthropy, etcetera. A lot, a lot of really useful 210 00:11:35,760 --> 00:11:38,160 stuff. But I, I didn't want that to be 211 00:11:38,160 --> 00:11:40,080 part of this book, one, because I already knew it was going to 212 00:11:40,080 --> 00:11:42,240 be very long. And two, I, I wanted to be more 213 00:11:42,240 --> 00:11:45,280 focused on, you know, the investment in business part of, 214 00:11:45,400 --> 00:11:47,680 of, of the wisdom that they've added over the years. 215 00:11:48,120 --> 00:11:50,440 So narrowing that down helped me a bit. 216 00:11:50,920 --> 00:11:54,160 And even then as I went through the early meetings, you know, 217 00:11:54,160 --> 00:11:57,400 I'd get done with one and be like, OK, I, I, I put a green 218 00:11:57,400 --> 00:11:59,320 check mark on 50% of the answers. 219 00:11:59,320 --> 00:12:02,760 That's, that's a lot of them. If I'm trying to really, you 220 00:12:02,760 --> 00:12:05,480 know, take these long transcripts in the putting, 221 00:12:05,560 --> 00:12:07,080 putting them into something digestible. 222 00:12:07,080 --> 00:12:10,880 But as I move forward, you know, answers and questions started to 223 00:12:10,880 --> 00:12:13,400 repeat themselves a bit, that made it a lot easier. 224 00:12:13,760 --> 00:12:16,680 And I just started to get more of a sense for, OK, there's 225 00:12:16,680 --> 00:12:19,960 going to be a high level topic about, you know, dealing with 226 00:12:19,960 --> 00:12:22,360 management or, you know, assessing management. 227 00:12:22,360 --> 00:12:24,440 There's going to be a high level topic on accounting. 228 00:12:24,440 --> 00:12:26,760 There's going to be a high level topic on, you know, what is 229 00:12:26,760 --> 00:12:29,920 value investing and what are kind of the key tenants of it. 230 00:12:30,080 --> 00:12:32,800 So it started to become a bit clearer, like how do I actually 231 00:12:32,800 --> 00:12:35,360 group this thing? And, you know, I kind of just 232 00:12:35,360 --> 00:12:38,880 went forward from there. Yeah, I, I love it, man. 233 00:12:38,880 --> 00:12:43,080 I, I love how it's organized. And I put out a tweet where I 234 00:12:43,080 --> 00:12:46,080 said one of the things that I liked about it is because you 235 00:12:46,080 --> 00:12:48,200 grouped it by topic. There are times that I was 236 00:12:48,200 --> 00:12:50,640 reading it where I was like, this is a little bit like 237 00:12:50,640 --> 00:12:54,040 contradictory, but not really. I mean, like it forced me to 238 00:12:54,040 --> 00:12:58,200 think about my perception of what might be contradictory and, 239 00:12:58,200 --> 00:13:02,040 and be like, oh, OK, now I now I think I actually understand 240 00:13:02,040 --> 00:13:05,200 what's actually being said. It also helps to get like, 241 00:13:05,200 --> 00:13:09,640 sometimes the answers beat the same concept into your head in 242 00:13:09,640 --> 00:13:12,320 different ways and it's like, oh OK, Charlie just told me this 243 00:13:12,320 --> 00:13:14,960 three different ways. Hopefully one of these ways 244 00:13:14,960 --> 00:13:16,720 sticks. Yeah. 245 00:13:16,720 --> 00:13:18,720 I mean, I'm obviously biased because I wrote this book and I 246 00:13:18,720 --> 00:13:21,240 didn't write the essays. But you know, Warren Buffett's 247 00:13:21,240 --> 00:13:25,240 essays to some extent have been scrubbed as much as they can 248 00:13:25,240 --> 00:13:29,000 possibly be scrubbed to make his message as clear and as, you 249 00:13:29,000 --> 00:13:33,520 know, as direct as he wants to say and as as you certainly know 250 00:13:33,520 --> 00:13:35,520 better than I do. But I know as well for being on 251 00:13:35,520 --> 00:13:38,520 podcast every once in a while when you start talking, 252 00:13:38,640 --> 00:13:42,440 sometimes you say things or your thoughts on a topic are a little 253 00:13:42,440 --> 00:13:45,120 bit more expansive and less polished than they might be 254 00:13:45,120 --> 00:13:47,400 otherwise. And I think, you know, I think 255 00:13:47,400 --> 00:13:50,720 when people see the book on a topic like, for example, 256 00:13:50,720 --> 00:13:53,480 Coca-Cola throughout the mid to late 90s and into the early 257 00:13:53,480 --> 00:13:57,040 2000s, Warren Buffett's thought thoughts on that investment. 258 00:13:57,040 --> 00:14:01,360 As you know, the valuation in the multiple climb to to much 259 00:14:01,360 --> 00:14:03,800 higher levels than where they had been 5 or 10 years earlier. 260 00:14:04,120 --> 00:14:09,040 You, you kind of see the thought process and, and the thinking in 261 00:14:09,040 --> 00:14:11,200 real time. And then, you know, leading to 262 00:14:11,200 --> 00:14:14,880 the 2000s where he kind of admits, hey, that was somewhat 263 00:14:14,880 --> 00:14:16,560 of a mistake. But even then, still talking 264 00:14:16,560 --> 00:14:19,560 about his thought process, how he thinks about how he thinks 265 00:14:19,560 --> 00:14:21,760 about it in the broader context of what Berkshire is. 266 00:14:21,760 --> 00:14:24,960 And I just think there's really insightful, there's really 267 00:14:24,960 --> 00:14:27,920 insightful commentary that comes out of this that I don't think 268 00:14:27,920 --> 00:14:30,800 you get as much when someone is, you know, sitting down and 269 00:14:30,800 --> 00:14:34,440 putting a very, very cleansed version of their views on, you 270 00:14:34,440 --> 00:14:36,560 know, A5 page or 10 page Britain report. 271 00:14:37,280 --> 00:14:42,680 So what did you see like with the Coca-Cola thought process 272 00:14:43,000 --> 00:14:47,320 over the years? You know, I think it's for one, 273 00:14:47,320 --> 00:14:49,920 I think obviously you'll have the business and they had a very 274 00:14:49,920 --> 00:14:54,200 significant unrealized game. They also had, you know, their 275 00:14:54,200 --> 00:14:57,760 image had certainly become intertwined with the company to 276 00:14:57,760 --> 00:15:00,480 some extent and there was involving with the board of 277 00:15:00,480 --> 00:15:02,040 directors. So those things were all very 278 00:15:02,040 --> 00:15:04,840 messy. You know, is, is that enough 279 00:15:04,840 --> 00:15:08,600 for, for Warren Buffett to not take action when The thing is, 280 00:15:08,720 --> 00:15:12,120 I, I believe at the peak it was at 35 or 40% of the equity book. 281 00:15:12,520 --> 00:15:14,080 And I've written about this previously. 282 00:15:14,080 --> 00:15:16,880 You know, I think the other, I think he admits it was a 283 00:15:16,880 --> 00:15:18,400 mistake. I think the other, the other 284 00:15:18,400 --> 00:15:21,680 part of this that plays in there is, you know, they've never 285 00:15:21,720 --> 00:15:26,000 sold, sold a share subsequently and it's down to these days to 286 00:15:26,000 --> 00:15:27,880 something like 5% of the equity book. 287 00:15:27,880 --> 00:15:32,400 I believe there's a real part of the game where seems weird, but 288 00:15:33,200 --> 00:15:35,760 you know, the, the quote UN quote, right decision for 289 00:15:35,760 --> 00:15:39,040 portfolio management, in my mind is, is significantly influenced 290 00:15:39,040 --> 00:15:43,880 by things like cash inflows and cash outflows and, and what that 291 00:15:43,880 --> 00:15:47,720 allows you to do or not do as you think about managing a a 292 00:15:47,720 --> 00:15:49,560 position. You know, obviously that can get 293 00:15:50,280 --> 00:15:53,680 that can get taken too far. And, you know, if to the extent 294 00:15:53,680 --> 00:15:56,680 that that happened there, I'm sure he would probably say that 295 00:15:56,680 --> 00:15:58,600 maybe it did get taken a little bit too far. 296 00:15:58,960 --> 00:16:01,560 But I think those are some of the parts of what might have 297 00:16:01,560 --> 00:16:04,520 gone into his thought process. I mean, I can't has, has he 298 00:16:04,520 --> 00:16:09,160 ever, I can't think of anything like a Coca-Cola or an apple 299 00:16:09,160 --> 00:16:12,880 where he's ever taken out a meaningful percentage of the 300 00:16:12,880 --> 00:16:15,240 position and subsequently rebought. 301 00:16:16,160 --> 00:16:18,720 So it's just not, it's just not what he does. 302 00:16:18,720 --> 00:16:21,920 And, you know, there's, there's, there's certainly downsides to 303 00:16:21,920 --> 00:16:24,160 that approach, but there's a lot of upsides to that way of 304 00:16:24,160 --> 00:16:27,560 thinking too. Yeah, I found, I mean, I'm sort 305 00:16:27,560 --> 00:16:30,600 of to prep, you know, I just started at Page 1 and I, I 306 00:16:30,600 --> 00:16:35,360 thought it was interesting how you, who was talking about the 307 00:16:35,360 --> 00:16:39,560 Walmart decision and how they were buying and then the price 308 00:16:39,560 --> 00:16:41,480 went up a little bit and he didn't buy anymore. 309 00:16:41,480 --> 00:16:44,080 And I forget what he said, it cost them, but maybe it was an 310 00:16:44,080 --> 00:16:46,360 $8 billion decision or something like that. 311 00:16:46,960 --> 00:16:49,600 It's an interesting game. The two situations are so 312 00:16:49,600 --> 00:16:53,480 different because you've got Coca-Cola that was running, but 313 00:16:53,480 --> 00:16:56,640 he owned it, so he kept it. And then you've got Walmart that 314 00:16:56,640 --> 00:17:00,080 was running and he liked it lower, so he didn't buy it. 315 00:17:00,560 --> 00:17:03,560 They're not that dissimilar, but the results are completely 316 00:17:03,560 --> 00:17:05,440 different, right? Presumably Walmart was starting 317 00:17:05,440 --> 00:17:08,400 from a much cheaper base. Well, it was. 318 00:17:09,319 --> 00:17:12,560 Yeah, I think he's, I think he said some early on. 319 00:17:12,680 --> 00:17:16,680 I mean, I, I can't remember the exact year. 320 00:17:16,680 --> 00:17:19,000 I think I have it in the book, but I think Warren says he 321 00:17:19,000 --> 00:17:23,560 missed Costco the first time He said it was I believe in 2001 or 322 00:17:23,560 --> 00:17:27,680 2002. And obviously Fast forward 2223 323 00:17:27,680 --> 00:17:30,800 years and he did not miss it in 2001, 2002. 324 00:17:30,800 --> 00:17:33,720 By the way, the stock also went through a bit of a rough 325 00:17:33,720 --> 00:17:36,960 stretch, I believe in O four O 5 somewhere in that window. 326 00:17:37,400 --> 00:17:41,000 And you know, there wasn't, he didn't do it as an opportunity 327 00:17:41,000 --> 00:17:43,080 to start buying it aggressively, obviously. 328 00:17:43,400 --> 00:17:45,120 Yeah, I don't know. It's, it's very interesting to 329 00:17:45,120 --> 00:17:50,400 think about the ideas that the ideas that any of us are 330 00:17:50,400 --> 00:17:53,160 attracted to in, in the broad opportunities in the market, 331 00:17:53,160 --> 00:17:55,040 right. And even think about something 332 00:17:55,040 --> 00:17:57,360 like Warren buying IBM. Yeah. 333 00:17:57,560 --> 00:18:01,080 As he said, he, he read the annual report for 50 years and 334 00:18:01,200 --> 00:18:03,960 he read it one year and it just struck him differently. 335 00:18:03,960 --> 00:18:05,160 I mean, the investment didn't work out. 336 00:18:05,160 --> 00:18:07,400 But even that idea that you're going to follow something for 50 337 00:18:07,400 --> 00:18:11,600 years, never have any significant involvement in the 338 00:18:11,600 --> 00:18:14,200 stock and then decide to make, I believe it was like a $10 339 00:18:14,200 --> 00:18:17,920 billion investment. I don't think you see too many 340 00:18:17,920 --> 00:18:20,240 people do that in the world of investing. 341 00:18:20,400 --> 00:18:23,280 You kind of find your niches and then stay there to some extent, 342 00:18:23,280 --> 00:18:25,440 right? This is off memory so it's bound 343 00:18:25,440 --> 00:18:29,400 to be wrong, but I seem to recall some CNBC interviews 344 00:18:29,400 --> 00:18:33,320 where he said that owning some of the businesses that he owned 345 00:18:33,320 --> 00:18:37,600 help him understand IBM's Moat or his perception of it a little 346 00:18:37,600 --> 00:18:41,120 bit better than he did. You know, from afar. 347 00:18:41,120 --> 00:18:44,240 That said, maybe would have been better had he not understood it 348 00:18:44,760 --> 00:18:47,080 in that particular case. Right. 349 00:18:47,080 --> 00:18:49,800 Even though it's another problem example where they, you know, 350 00:18:49,800 --> 00:18:54,480 specifically during that period, I think they were asked why IBM 351 00:18:54,480 --> 00:18:58,920 versus other tech companies. And I think I believe was Monger 352 00:18:59,000 --> 00:19:01,320 who explicitly said, you know, our ability to understand the 353 00:19:01,320 --> 00:19:04,200 mode at IBM is superior than our ability to understand something 354 00:19:04,200 --> 00:19:07,760 like Apple. And, you know, that was in 2012, 355 00:19:07,760 --> 00:19:10,640 2013, 2014, and a decade later that was not true. 356 00:19:11,320 --> 00:19:14,080 Yeah, in a very, very significant position in Apple. 357 00:19:14,080 --> 00:19:17,200 So again, I was, I just think all those things are, as you 358 00:19:17,200 --> 00:19:21,000 review them, you know, it's it's less of a obviously like a 359 00:19:21,080 --> 00:19:22,800 gotcha. Like you said this thing and you 360 00:19:22,800 --> 00:19:24,400 did the other thing. It's not about that. 361 00:19:24,400 --> 00:19:27,560 It's about how these are very, very smart people who tend to 362 00:19:27,560 --> 00:19:30,520 think about things correctly. And when they change their minds 363 00:19:30,520 --> 00:19:32,120 on something, there's probably something to be learned from 364 00:19:32,120 --> 00:19:34,680 that. Yeah, well, I'll tell you, man, 365 00:19:34,680 --> 00:19:38,800 the, the I think that the book is probably worth the price of 366 00:19:38,800 --> 00:19:42,080 admission just so people can read the call it first 60 pages 367 00:19:42,080 --> 00:19:47,480 right now 'cause Munger talks a lot about avoiding folly and not 368 00:19:47,480 --> 00:19:50,000 doing stupid things. And I might argue that in an 369 00:19:50,000 --> 00:19:53,520 environment where fartcoin has a $200 million market cash, people 370 00:19:53,520 --> 00:19:57,760 might do it themselves. A service to crack open the the 371 00:19:57,760 --> 00:20:02,040 wise words of an old man and maybe think about where we may 372 00:20:02,040 --> 00:20:02,560 be. I don't. 373 00:20:03,720 --> 00:20:06,960 Want to get too far off topic, but I thought we were all going 374 00:20:06,960 --> 00:20:10,120 to like Bitcoin is the coin that doubt we're going back to 375 00:20:10,120 --> 00:20:13,360 there's a whole what? What do you use fartcoin for 376 00:20:13,520 --> 00:20:15,520 versus Bitcoin? Speculation. 377 00:20:16,120 --> 00:20:18,720 Oh, OK. Yeah, just high beta stuff. 378 00:20:19,240 --> 00:20:21,720 OK. So you can't use it to like to 379 00:20:21,720 --> 00:20:24,080 buy stuff for as a currency. No. 380 00:20:24,080 --> 00:20:26,880 It would be sweet if you could fart and create coins though. 381 00:20:27,720 --> 00:20:31,800 That'd be pretty nice. Yeah, well, given, yeah, I would 382 00:20:31,800 --> 00:20:34,440 be a key owner, but anyway, yeah man, I don't know. 383 00:20:34,440 --> 00:20:38,080 I mean, you know the Bitcoin thing, like I don't have the 384 00:20:38,080 --> 00:20:41,600 same visceral hatred towards it that that those guys have. 385 00:20:41,840 --> 00:20:43,960 I'm kind of intrigued by it. I always have been. 386 00:20:44,520 --> 00:20:48,080 But I, I do kind of fundamentally view it as a, a 387 00:20:48,120 --> 00:20:53,720 faith in technology and math, which I mean, seems fiatish to 388 00:20:53,720 --> 00:20:57,800 me because the dollar is just like faith and taxation in the 389 00:20:59,040 --> 00:21:00,960 whereas. And I guess, you know, you can't 390 00:21:00,960 --> 00:21:03,400 create more of them or whatever. But if you can slice something 391 00:21:03,400 --> 00:21:07,200 infinite ways, I, I don't know, I like it 'cause it drives Peter 392 00:21:07,200 --> 00:21:08,880 Schiff nuts. That's my favorite part of 393 00:21:08,880 --> 00:21:11,920 Bitcoin. Well, yes, we could agree on 394 00:21:11,920 --> 00:21:14,120 that. Peter Schiff is a instead of fun 395 00:21:14,120 --> 00:21:16,840 run for him and some other notable people like him over the 396 00:21:16,840 --> 00:21:19,280 past 10-15 years. They've had many, many 397 00:21:19,280 --> 00:21:22,760 predictions along the way. And boy, some of them have been 398 00:21:23,400 --> 00:21:25,360 not too good. But I think it's all turned out 399 00:21:25,360 --> 00:21:27,480 all right for them in the end, so it's all good, yeah. 400 00:21:27,480 --> 00:21:29,160 Well, there's a couple things going on. 401 00:21:29,160 --> 00:21:32,400 He's got an incredible business selling gold coins, so you're 402 00:21:32,400 --> 00:21:35,360 not going to talk against your book 2 Gold has worked out 403 00:21:35,360 --> 00:21:37,120 pretty well. So I don't think that he can be 404 00:21:37,120 --> 00:21:38,960 too upset about it. But I do. 405 00:21:39,280 --> 00:21:42,440 I do like people that are certain of an answer to get a 406 00:21:42,440 --> 00:21:43,280 little bit of. I don't. 407 00:21:43,480 --> 00:21:46,480 It's kind of fun to see him get riled up over over people that 408 00:21:46,480 --> 00:21:48,960 are equally certain of a different answer because of some 409 00:21:48,960 --> 00:21:52,720 of the similar, similar reasons. I just kind of like that fight 410 00:21:53,440 --> 00:21:56,120 as an interested observer. It's entertaining to me. 411 00:21:57,320 --> 00:21:59,560 Oh, it's it's always a good idea to be very certain about things, 412 00:21:59,560 --> 00:22:02,600 especially if you've you appear to have been wrong for 10 or 15 413 00:22:02,600 --> 00:22:03,840 years. But keep at it. 414 00:22:03,840 --> 00:22:05,400 That's a. That's a smart way to approach 415 00:22:05,400 --> 00:22:09,480 it. Well, yes, that's yeah, I've, 416 00:22:09,480 --> 00:22:11,560 I've gone the other way. I'm not certain of anything. 417 00:22:12,640 --> 00:22:16,480 I'm I'm closer to your camp. Like do you have key learnings 418 00:22:16,480 --> 00:22:19,360 that you had in the book? Like, did it help you rethink 419 00:22:19,360 --> 00:22:23,160 anything or have you been fully baked as an investor to the 420 00:22:23,160 --> 00:22:27,320 point that, like, doing this didn't really change your 421 00:22:27,320 --> 00:22:28,880 inputs? Yeah. 422 00:22:28,880 --> 00:22:32,360 The hard part is I've been, I've, I've been listening to 423 00:22:32,360 --> 00:22:34,800 this stuff for so fun. Now again, like I said before, I 424 00:22:34,800 --> 00:22:38,000 think a lot of it is maybe it hits you a bit differently than 425 00:22:38,000 --> 00:22:41,360 it had previously and you start to, you know, you start to live 426 00:22:41,360 --> 00:22:43,400 through real, real world examples. 427 00:22:43,400 --> 00:22:45,360 I know this is what you and I have talked about in the past. 428 00:22:45,720 --> 00:22:48,280 There was a, there was a great quote from Charlie at one of the 429 00:22:48,280 --> 00:22:51,600 meetings where he talked about the idea of the net Nets and, 430 00:22:51,600 --> 00:22:54,960 and the cigar butts back in the day and the idea of actually 431 00:22:54,960 --> 00:22:58,200 shutting down a business and taking out the the working 432 00:22:58,200 --> 00:23:00,080 capital and the net assets and selling them off. 433 00:23:00,080 --> 00:23:02,960 And him saying it's basically a different era. 434 00:23:03,240 --> 00:23:06,400 And your ability to do that in particularly in certain 435 00:23:06,400 --> 00:23:09,600 countries around the world is greatly hindered, if not 436 00:23:09,600 --> 00:23:12,240 impossible to do. So it's a faulty way of thinking 437 00:23:12,240 --> 00:23:14,560 about that type of investment opportunity. 438 00:23:14,560 --> 00:23:17,880 I know and you and you and I have obviously talked even just 439 00:23:17,880 --> 00:23:19,640 getting management on board with the idea, right? 440 00:23:19,640 --> 00:23:23,720 Their incentives are typically such that they don't have great 441 00:23:23,720 --> 00:23:25,800 interest in shutting down the company and dealing with all the 442 00:23:25,800 --> 00:23:29,320 pain that brings and ultimately, ultimately pushing themselves 443 00:23:29,320 --> 00:23:32,400 out of a job. They'd rather than continue and 444 00:23:32,680 --> 00:23:35,160 they can continue to make a salary and you get paid very 445 00:23:35,160 --> 00:23:38,000 well for their services. So that's that's one example, 446 00:23:38,000 --> 00:23:41,080 something where as, as you and I just mean, it's going back 447 00:23:41,080 --> 00:23:43,680 couple years now, but even a company like a GameStop or other 448 00:23:43,680 --> 00:23:45,880 retailers thinking about, OK, what is this? 449 00:23:46,360 --> 00:23:48,800 What is this worth? If they truly rationalize, you 450 00:23:48,800 --> 00:23:52,800 can go as far as shutting down the business and just having a 451 00:23:52,800 --> 00:23:58,040 real appreciation for incentives and decision making and how how 452 00:23:58,040 --> 00:24:01,400 things work in the real world versus you know, what may or may 453 00:24:01,400 --> 00:24:03,840 not make sense on basically a spreadsheet. 454 00:24:04,360 --> 00:24:06,400 Yeah. Well, I mean we could talk about 455 00:24:06,400 --> 00:24:09,920 cable, right? I mean, you know, like one of 456 00:24:09,920 --> 00:24:14,800 one of the things that I have been unable to reconcile is the 457 00:24:14,800 --> 00:24:17,320 argument like the wireless companies are going to be 458 00:24:17,320 --> 00:24:20,120 rational all of a sudden, but they haven't been rational in 459 00:24:20,120 --> 00:24:24,840 the past, right? And you know, I was, I was one 460 00:24:24,840 --> 00:24:27,320 of the believers that fixed wireless would not be 461 00:24:27,320 --> 00:24:29,080 sufficient. But then if you look at MPs 462 00:24:29,080 --> 00:24:31,280 scores, I mean it, it clearly is. 463 00:24:31,960 --> 00:24:34,000 Yeah, sufficient. Might be understating it based 464 00:24:34,000 --> 00:24:36,960 on some of the some of the data I've seen, yeah. 465 00:24:37,160 --> 00:24:40,080 So, you know, it's like, it's one thing to believe something 466 00:24:40,920 --> 00:24:47,040 theoretically, but I think it's another thing to trust the 467 00:24:47,040 --> 00:24:51,440 incentives of what everyone has to do within the competitive 468 00:24:51,440 --> 00:24:53,600 landscape. And that's where it gets tough. 469 00:24:54,880 --> 00:24:56,960 Yeah, they're probably all longs now. 470 00:24:57,360 --> 00:24:59,160 A little tired of them, by the way. 471 00:24:59,800 --> 00:25:02,200 Yeah, you and me both. But no, it's another, you know, 472 00:25:02,200 --> 00:25:05,320 again, I think the meetings presented opportunities to 473 00:25:05,320 --> 00:25:08,760 discuss these things, the actual application of like investment 474 00:25:08,760 --> 00:25:11,480 theory that it's not as frequently seen in the letters, 475 00:25:11,480 --> 00:25:13,320 right? I mean, a prominent example is 476 00:25:14,120 --> 00:25:17,600 at at the meeting during the financial crisis when Warren 477 00:25:18,000 --> 00:25:21,760 sold all of the airline positions and and very quickly, 478 00:25:21,760 --> 00:25:24,320 right, you know, he was asked about that decision and said 479 00:25:24,320 --> 00:25:27,760 something along the lines of when when we basically conclude 480 00:25:27,760 --> 00:25:30,800 that we're wrong or no longer have faith in the thesis. 481 00:25:30,800 --> 00:25:36,480 We're not, we're not one to you kind of gingerly move, sell 20% 482 00:25:36,480 --> 00:25:38,040 or something. We don't want to own something 483 00:25:38,040 --> 00:25:40,640 or we don't. So we're basically out if we 484 00:25:40,640 --> 00:25:43,600 decide we don't want to own it. And there's exceptions to this 485 00:25:43,600 --> 00:25:46,760 as there is for is for anything. But again, I think it's a, it's 486 00:25:46,760 --> 00:25:50,120 an example of, you know, how he actually does things in practice 487 00:25:50,120 --> 00:25:53,560 and how he thinks about them. That for me continues to be 488 00:25:53,560 --> 00:25:57,120 useful in terms of, of thinking about kind of my own approach. 489 00:25:57,120 --> 00:26:01,880 And all this is in the context of any tactical decisions as 490 00:26:01,880 --> 00:26:05,400 part of portfolio management, position sizing, you know, 491 00:26:05,400 --> 00:26:08,520 adding trimming, whatever. To me it all of it only makes 492 00:26:08,520 --> 00:26:11,800 sense in the context of a given investment philosophy and an 493 00:26:11,800 --> 00:26:16,520 objective in terms of, you know, concentration, holding periods, 494 00:26:16,520 --> 00:26:19,120 etcetera. So without, without context for 495 00:26:19,120 --> 00:26:22,240 that, I don't think any of it's particularly relevant, but I, I 496 00:26:22,240 --> 00:26:27,480 tend to look at the portfolio construction, you know, question 497 00:26:27,760 --> 00:26:29,440 kind of somewhat similar to how they do. 498 00:26:29,440 --> 00:26:32,960 So for me, it it, it's been really helpful and kind of 499 00:26:32,960 --> 00:26:35,160 informative to see how they think about some of these things 500 00:26:35,160 --> 00:26:38,280 over time. Yeah, I'm just scrolling as 501 00:26:38,280 --> 00:26:40,320 you're speaking, which I should not be doing. 502 00:26:40,320 --> 00:26:42,600 I should be paying complete attention to what you're saying. 503 00:26:42,600 --> 00:26:48,160 But I, I thought that like, you know, when I was reading, right? 504 00:26:48,160 --> 00:26:51,920 There's a lot to be said for developing a temperament that 505 00:26:51,920 --> 00:26:53,960 can own securities without fretting. 506 00:26:54,600 --> 00:26:58,560 The fretful disposition is an enemy of long term performance. 507 00:26:58,840 --> 00:27:02,320 That's Charlie. And then Warren says it's almost 508 00:27:02,320 --> 00:27:05,040 impossible to do well in equities over a period of time 509 00:27:05,040 --> 00:27:07,920 if you go to bed every thinking about the price of them. 510 00:27:08,760 --> 00:27:14,480 And then not too far from that, you have a quote from Munger 511 00:27:15,280 --> 00:27:21,440 that says something about like, he got confidence when he went 512 00:27:21,440 --> 00:27:25,160 through tough periods. And then within 3 pages of that, 513 00:27:25,680 --> 00:27:29,160 you read about Munger saying, like, there's also the matter of 514 00:27:29,160 --> 00:27:32,680 underspending your income. I kind of seeing all of these 515 00:27:32,680 --> 00:27:37,800 things in one spot, right? Is basically like, and this is 516 00:27:37,800 --> 00:27:40,360 not rocket science, but it's nice to hear it from the people 517 00:27:40,360 --> 00:27:42,880 that, you know, I respect the most. 518 00:27:43,280 --> 00:27:45,280 It's like, OK, underspend what you earn. 519 00:27:46,960 --> 00:27:51,000 Don't fret too much. And you know, if you go through 520 00:27:51,000 --> 00:27:56,480 hard times, you probably learn who you are and and and then try 521 00:27:56,480 --> 00:27:59,160 to avoid the hard times because both of them would acknowledge 522 00:27:59,160 --> 00:28:01,800 that they'd they'd rather keep their big pile than go back to a 523 00:28:01,800 --> 00:28:03,720 small pile and compound again. Right. 524 00:28:03,720 --> 00:28:07,520 It's like, I just think it's an the book is nice in the way 525 00:28:07,520 --> 00:28:10,720 that, you know, I don't know if that that particular example is 526 00:28:10,720 --> 00:28:13,600 stupid or not, but it's one that that was meaningful to me. 527 00:28:13,600 --> 00:28:16,640 And I just think that when everything is grouped this way, 528 00:28:16,640 --> 00:28:18,400 it's just such a nice presentation. 529 00:28:19,520 --> 00:28:22,200 No, I appreciate that. Yeah, I kind of, you know, I 530 00:28:22,200 --> 00:28:25,840 went, I went through the process with the idea of being to some 531 00:28:25,840 --> 00:28:30,480 extent that this, you know, this would be applicable for the 532 00:28:30,480 --> 00:28:33,360 range of investors, for people who have kind of just started 533 00:28:33,360 --> 00:28:37,000 doing this to to people like myself or people who are even 534 00:28:37,000 --> 00:28:39,160 more experienced and seasoned than I am. 535 00:28:39,520 --> 00:28:41,960 And again, I think as you read through it, you know, there, 536 00:28:42,000 --> 00:28:45,000 there certainly will be things that you've heard elsewhere or 537 00:28:45,000 --> 00:28:46,880 that are, you know, particularly famous quotes. 538 00:28:46,880 --> 00:28:50,520 And I can guarantee you that there's also a large section of 539 00:28:50,520 --> 00:28:52,920 the book that you've probably never heard before and that may 540 00:28:52,920 --> 00:28:55,440 shed light on topics that you have not heard them discuss 541 00:28:55,440 --> 00:28:57,720 frequently. And I should also know, by the 542 00:28:57,720 --> 00:29:02,080 way, that in the book, I, I provide time timestamps to where 543 00:29:02,480 --> 00:29:05,600 the section of the meeting was. So, you know, to the extent that 544 00:29:05,600 --> 00:29:08,400 it's useful for someone to go back and listen to a particular 545 00:29:08,400 --> 00:29:11,200 answer on a particular topic, they can, they can do so very 546 00:29:11,200 --> 00:29:13,040 easily. But yeah, I think it'll, it'll 547 00:29:13,040 --> 00:29:16,880 hopefully be, you know, very useful for a, a wide group of 548 00:29:16,880 --> 00:29:18,960 readers. Again, I, for me putting it 549 00:29:18,960 --> 00:29:24,080 together, it was helpful because I, I could use it as kind of the 550 00:29:24,120 --> 00:29:27,880 input for, for certain articles at, at TSOH investment research 551 00:29:27,880 --> 00:29:30,000 and a lot of investment philosophy discussions over the 552 00:29:30,000 --> 00:29:33,720 past couple years kind of started from conversations at, 553 00:29:34,080 --> 00:29:36,920 at the annual meetings. But yeah, I think it hopefully 554 00:29:36,920 --> 00:29:39,200 it's going to be very useful for for a lot of people. 555 00:29:40,240 --> 00:29:45,400 So when I'm when I'm thinking of it will be useful for a lot of 556 00:29:45,400 --> 00:29:47,760 people for the record. But when I'm thinking of one of 557 00:29:47,760 --> 00:29:53,560 the things that keeps they talk about under businesses that are 558 00:29:53,560 --> 00:29:56,240 in the too hard pile and understanding how industries 559 00:29:56,240 --> 00:29:59,320 look 5/10/20 years down the road. 560 00:29:59,840 --> 00:30:05,520 And I can't help but think that you have been more public than 561 00:30:05,520 --> 00:30:09,320 most through this period of the downturn in the dollar stores. 562 00:30:09,920 --> 00:30:14,320 And I, I'm curious how you think about the role that those 563 00:30:14,560 --> 00:30:22,040 formats fill in people's lives, the technological change of 564 00:30:22,640 --> 00:30:26,920 things like T MU and Amazon Prime and all that. 565 00:30:27,240 --> 00:30:31,240 And how you get comfortable or see an investment through the 566 00:30:31,240 --> 00:30:33,320 lens of like, how do I know where this is going to be in 567 00:30:33,320 --> 00:30:36,440 five or ten years? I just kind of curious to hear 568 00:30:36,440 --> 00:30:40,760 you meld. Yeah, well, first of all, 569 00:30:40,760 --> 00:30:43,280 anybody who wants to. Hear, I mean the deep stuff is 570 00:30:43,280 --> 00:30:45,480 in your investment research letters, right? 571 00:30:45,560 --> 00:30:48,680 I'm just saying like high level. More well thought out and more 572 00:30:48,680 --> 00:30:51,840 clearly explained thought process on both Dollar General 573 00:30:51,840 --> 00:30:54,960 and Dollar Tree should go should go read my work at at that 574 00:30:54,960 --> 00:30:57,920 scientific.com. I mean you read how many? 575 00:30:57,920 --> 00:31:00,800 Articles on this a bunch, so we're not going to just cover it 576 00:31:00,800 --> 00:31:03,840 in 10 minutes, but yeah. Maybe maybe 10 total on two of 577 00:31:03,840 --> 00:31:06,400 them, obviously with a lot of, lot of overlap in the articles. 578 00:31:06,520 --> 00:31:09,640 And I've, and I've followed Dollar Tree by some useful 579 00:31:09,640 --> 00:31:12,080 context. I, I followed Dollar Tree for a 580 00:31:12,080 --> 00:31:16,080 very long time, probably probably close to a decade now 581 00:31:16,400 --> 00:31:18,880 fairly closely because I've long had interest in the namesake 582 00:31:18,880 --> 00:31:22,200 banner. But the Family Dollar deal and 583 00:31:22,600 --> 00:31:25,520 the plan there on the turn around has always made me 584 00:31:25,520 --> 00:31:28,920 cautious about, you know, it's, it's your typical for, for a 585 00:31:28,920 --> 00:31:32,440 long time it was your typical, you're getting, you're getting a 586 00:31:32,440 --> 00:31:34,960 piece of this for free, basically that, that kind of 587 00:31:34,960 --> 00:31:37,240 thesis. And I've always been skeptical 588 00:31:37,240 --> 00:31:39,560 of those, particularly in a situation like this where I 589 00:31:39,560 --> 00:31:42,440 worried about resource allocation time and money for 590 00:31:42,440 --> 00:31:45,040 management. And I, I think to some extent 591 00:31:45,040 --> 00:31:48,920 that has played out kind of as I worried in terms of them 592 00:31:48,920 --> 00:31:51,480 addressing that situation. But the real significant change 593 00:31:51,480 --> 00:31:55,520 on the Dollar Tree side has been recognition from them that this 594 00:31:55,520 --> 00:31:58,520 experiments kind of over the attempts to turn Family Dollar 595 00:31:58,520 --> 00:32:01,160 are, you know, have come to an end basically. 596 00:32:01,160 --> 00:32:03,800 And they need to part ways and they need to they need to run 597 00:32:03,800 --> 00:32:06,360 the namesake banner. So they're currently working 598 00:32:06,360 --> 00:32:09,360 through that process and hopefully it's resolved fairly 599 00:32:09,360 --> 00:32:12,560 soon. Once that's completed, you'll be 600 00:32:12,560 --> 00:32:17,480 left with the Dollar Tree banner, which for for roughly 35 601 00:32:17,480 --> 00:32:21,040 years, Dollar Tree was a everything for a dollar, you 602 00:32:21,040 --> 00:32:23,800 know, everything and with an asterisk on everything but 603 00:32:23,800 --> 00:32:25,960 almost everything for a dollar type of store. 604 00:32:26,320 --> 00:32:31,560 And what happened over time is the larger the, due to inflation 605 00:32:32,240 --> 00:32:35,920 and other cost expansion or increases, they, they started to 606 00:32:35,920 --> 00:32:38,320 be constrained in terms of what they could do within the 607 00:32:38,320 --> 00:32:40,000 confines of that dollar price point. 608 00:32:40,160 --> 00:32:43,600 So in 2021 and believe it was, they announced that they're 609 00:32:43,600 --> 00:32:47,560 going to dollar $1.25 as the base price, but also that they 610 00:32:47,560 --> 00:32:50,760 were going to start adding a small assortment of, of multi 611 00:32:50,760 --> 00:32:54,360 price offerings to the box. And you know, I, I, when it 612 00:32:54,360 --> 00:32:57,640 first happened, my perception was basically was a defensive 613 00:32:57,640 --> 00:33:00,040 measure. They, they had to do it because 614 00:33:00,040 --> 00:33:02,960 they were getting so pressed on. You know, imagine an example 615 00:33:02,960 --> 00:33:06,360 like aluminum foil or something where the cost kept going up and 616 00:33:06,400 --> 00:33:08,800 you know, you're getting to a point where the size of the 617 00:33:08,800 --> 00:33:12,400 product that someone's buying for a dollar, they cover like 3 618 00:33:12,400 --> 00:33:14,960 dishes and, and they're already out of aluminum foil. 619 00:33:14,960 --> 00:33:17,440 It's just, it's not, it's not useful at that point. 620 00:33:17,640 --> 00:33:20,200 Or another example that they, that they talked about was ICE 621 00:33:20,200 --> 00:33:23,680 where, you know, the industry had moved to a 7 LB bag as a 622 00:33:23,680 --> 00:33:26,200 standard size. They were getting a 5 LB bag 623 00:33:26,200 --> 00:33:28,640 custom made in order to hit that dollar price point. 624 00:33:28,640 --> 00:33:31,960 And eventually the supplier was like, this is this just isn't 625 00:33:31,960 --> 00:33:34,560 working. And, you know, the right move 626 00:33:34,560 --> 00:33:37,360 for Dollar Tree was to to move past that. 627 00:33:37,360 --> 00:33:39,840 Or did they, you know, the, the more program move would have 628 00:33:39,840 --> 00:33:41,800 been to move past that. So they've now done that. 629 00:33:42,120 --> 00:33:44,280 But so those are just kind of examples of what they had to do 630 00:33:44,600 --> 00:33:46,680 on defense in terms of playing offense. 631 00:33:46,680 --> 00:33:50,200 I think it really opens up how they merchandise the stores and 632 00:33:50,200 --> 00:33:54,280 how they, you know, continue to serve customers in, in important 633 00:33:54,280 --> 00:33:57,880 categories like seasonal and party and, you know, but also 634 00:33:58,080 --> 00:34:01,480 home, home, you know, cleaning supplies and a little bit of 635 00:34:01,480 --> 00:34:04,400 grocery excetera. So I think they can basically 636 00:34:04,400 --> 00:34:09,080 take what they've done very well for decades and, you know, 637 00:34:09,080 --> 00:34:11,400 expand their wallet share slightly. 638 00:34:11,400 --> 00:34:13,679 Not a not a significant increase, but when someone goes 639 00:34:13,679 --> 00:34:17,120 into the store to, you know, to buy 5 products, whatever it may 640 00:34:17,120 --> 00:34:20,880 be to now sell them one or two additional products or 641 00:34:20,880 --> 00:34:23,920 potentially at a higher price point, you know, by by offering 642 00:34:23,920 --> 00:34:27,840 a better shopping experience and it's a transition to get there. 643 00:34:28,320 --> 00:34:31,239 And you know, as I said before, they're still, there's still 644 00:34:31,239 --> 00:34:34,719 the, the, the headache from the Family Dollar situation. 645 00:34:34,719 --> 00:34:38,560 But I think once they get moving in the right direction and they 646 00:34:38,560 --> 00:34:41,440 have a lot of these remodels completed and once they start 647 00:34:41,440 --> 00:34:44,800 getting the unit growth on the namesake banner side rolling 648 00:34:44,800 --> 00:34:47,840 again, because that has taken a hit over the past, you know, 649 00:34:48,159 --> 00:34:52,520 five years. I, I think this could be, you 650 00:34:52,520 --> 00:34:56,800 know, one of the, one of the best opportunities as I see it 651 00:34:56,800 --> 00:35:01,040 in kind of the US retail, US retail landscape. 652 00:35:01,280 --> 00:35:04,960 I think the core banner is, is a very good business. 653 00:35:04,960 --> 00:35:08,320 That is, you know, somewhat misunderstood in terms of how 654 00:35:08,680 --> 00:35:12,400 someone actually shops at the number of items in their cart. 655 00:35:12,400 --> 00:35:16,000 Then you know, the ticket, the immediacy of the use for the 656 00:35:16,000 --> 00:35:19,480 purchase relative to, you know, when the transaction is 657 00:35:19,480 --> 00:35:22,280 completed. Simply, if you go on like Amazon 658 00:35:22,280 --> 00:35:25,880 or TMU and search for something, you know, search for party 659 00:35:25,880 --> 00:35:28,800 supplies. And if you go on Amazon, I'm not 660 00:35:28,800 --> 00:35:31,600 sure if you can do this as easily on T MU, but you can sort 661 00:35:31,600 --> 00:35:36,000 it by the the price of the product and go on there and look 662 00:35:36,000 --> 00:35:39,680 at how many products are even sold for two or three dollars. 663 00:35:39,680 --> 00:35:43,720 And then look at shipping times or shipping costs that are also 664 00:35:43,720 --> 00:35:46,320 included on there. I think you'll you'll quickly 665 00:35:46,320 --> 00:35:49,080 start to realize, especially if you then in a Dollar Tree store 666 00:35:49,080 --> 00:35:53,880 and you see how people shop it, that this is not actually a is 667 00:35:53,880 --> 00:35:56,960 not a substitute for how the vast majority of the core 668 00:35:56,960 --> 00:35:59,640 customers shop the store. So I did that will be more 669 00:35:59,640 --> 00:36:01,280 sustainable than a lot of people probably do. 670 00:36:01,280 --> 00:36:05,160 And you know, we'll see how that goes in the in the years ahead. 671 00:36:05,160 --> 00:36:07,600 Maybe we'll stop there before I start talking, DJ. 672 00:36:08,520 --> 00:36:11,600 No, yeah, no. So it to summarize, like it 673 00:36:11,600 --> 00:36:16,360 sounds to me like you believe that people are going to these 674 00:36:16,360 --> 00:36:20,800 stores consuming the purchase shortly thereafter they're 675 00:36:20,800 --> 00:36:24,640 purchasing or they have a thought like their design, they 676 00:36:24,640 --> 00:36:27,760 got a party that they need to throw and they want to go there. 677 00:36:27,760 --> 00:36:29,440 They want to actually see the product. 678 00:36:29,440 --> 00:36:30,680 They don't want to be dealing with. 679 00:36:30,680 --> 00:36:33,680 I got some stuff from Amazon. I don't like it, I'm sending it 680 00:36:33,680 --> 00:36:35,640 back. I'm ordering different things or 681 00:36:35,640 --> 00:36:40,320 whatever the price points competitive and therefore it 682 00:36:40,320 --> 00:36:43,160 serves a function and it serves it well. 683 00:36:43,560 --> 00:36:48,960 And in five to 10 years you're comfortable that there's the 684 00:36:48,960 --> 00:36:53,400 ability for another retailer to come in and compete is limited 685 00:36:53,440 --> 00:36:56,720 in that space. I think is is how you wrap your 686 00:36:56,720 --> 00:36:58,960 head around that, right? Or that's how you're seeing it. 687 00:36:59,800 --> 00:37:05,040 Yeah, I think another way to say it is the core concept was and 688 00:37:05,040 --> 00:37:08,360 remains a very unique idea in in retail. 689 00:37:08,360 --> 00:37:11,480 And you can, you can go look at, you know, for you and I, it's a 690 00:37:11,760 --> 00:37:15,280 grocery store like Publix, but go look at green cards or 691 00:37:15,280 --> 00:37:19,440 balloons or, you know, gift bags at a Publix that may be in the 692 00:37:19,440 --> 00:37:22,280 shop, same shopping Plaza as a Dollar Tree and compare those 693 00:37:22,280 --> 00:37:25,680 offerings on on price as an example, or, you know, the 694 00:37:25,680 --> 00:37:27,280 selection that's available to you. 695 00:37:27,840 --> 00:37:32,080 I just think Dollar Tree found a niche that's very unique and in 696 00:37:32,080 --> 00:37:34,560 some way similar to like a floor and a corner Home Depot, right? 697 00:37:34,560 --> 00:37:37,760 Like they're not playing the same game. 698 00:37:37,960 --> 00:37:40,960 So you can't, you can kind of, you know, attack somebody in a 699 00:37:40,960 --> 00:37:43,880 certain way or compete with them a bit differently when you're 700 00:37:43,880 --> 00:37:46,480 not trying to do the same thing. And those, those two companies 701 00:37:46,480 --> 00:37:47,840 are not trying to do the same thing. 702 00:37:48,280 --> 00:37:50,960 So I, I think Dollar Tree is very well positioned in that 703 00:37:50,960 --> 00:37:52,520 regard. And what was, what was true at a 704 00:37:52,520 --> 00:37:55,320 dollar is, is still true at $1.25. 705 00:37:55,320 --> 00:37:58,720 Now that said, multi price certainly does introduce some 706 00:37:58,720 --> 00:38:03,960 risk in terms of, you know, what the, what the banner is, how 707 00:38:03,960 --> 00:38:06,440 it's perceived. And then also they have to be, 708 00:38:06,440 --> 00:38:09,560 in my view, very thoughtful about how they merchandise the 709 00:38:09,560 --> 00:38:12,360 store to, to ensure that they're still playing in the same areas 710 00:38:12,360 --> 00:38:15,400 that they're in and not not expanding the scope too far 711 00:38:15,400 --> 00:38:18,240 beyond, you know, where they should probably where they 712 00:38:18,240 --> 00:38:21,520 probably should be and the, and the opportunities that they can 713 00:38:21,520 --> 00:38:23,680 kind of uniquely serve through their box. 714 00:38:24,080 --> 00:38:27,160 So, you know, there are risks as they go through this transition. 715 00:38:27,720 --> 00:38:32,120 But again, I think the main take away in my view is obviously the 716 00:38:32,120 --> 00:38:34,760 price points are are moving up to some extent. 717 00:38:34,760 --> 00:38:37,800 And, and a lot of categories like consumables, most of that 718 00:38:37,800 --> 00:38:40,640 value is just going to be given back to consumers in terms of 719 00:38:40,640 --> 00:38:42,240 pack sizes or whatever it may be. 720 00:38:42,600 --> 00:38:44,520 But it really opens up the opportunity for when someone 721 00:38:44,520 --> 00:38:49,000 walks into the store to have a selection of products that is a 722 00:38:49,000 --> 00:38:52,280 better value, not lower price, but a better value than what was 723 00:38:52,280 --> 00:38:54,840 in there previously. So they said that they do that. 724 00:38:54,840 --> 00:38:58,480 Well, I think they can take again, just a small amount of 725 00:38:58,480 --> 00:39:00,480 incremental wallet chair from their core customers. 726 00:39:00,800 --> 00:39:04,040 And you know, you can look at a, a retailer like Dollarama up in 727 00:39:04,040 --> 00:39:08,200 Canada to get some sense for what this can potentially look 728 00:39:08,200 --> 00:39:09,720 like. I wouldn't read too much into 729 00:39:09,720 --> 00:39:12,400 the specific numbers because, well, one, it's a much smaller 730 00:39:12,400 --> 00:39:15,440 chain and two, the competitive dynamics are a bit different in 731 00:39:15,440 --> 00:39:18,040 Canada. But I think you can, you can 732 00:39:18,040 --> 00:39:20,160 kind of look at the progression that they've gone through over 733 00:39:20,160 --> 00:39:24,200 time to get some sense for, for where Dollar Tree plays into 734 00:39:24,200 --> 00:39:26,160 this. And again, it's, you know, 735 00:39:26,160 --> 00:39:30,640 another prominent company in the space is 5 Below, which is very 736 00:39:30,640 --> 00:39:34,320 different customer mix, very different kind of product mix as 737 00:39:34,320 --> 00:39:35,920 well. They're going through something 738 00:39:35,920 --> 00:39:39,720 similar with Five Beyond. In my view, there's a massive 739 00:39:39,720 --> 00:39:42,680 difference between starting at $5 and now getting into an 740 00:39:42,680 --> 00:39:48,200 assortment that runs to let's say $20 versus starting at $1.25 741 00:39:48,200 --> 00:39:51,360 and getting to an assortment that that caps out at, you know, 742 00:39:51,360 --> 00:39:54,960 call it 5 to $7.00. So I, I like how they're 743 00:39:54,960 --> 00:39:56,640 positioned. And I think to the extent that 744 00:39:56,640 --> 00:39:59,480 they really nailed this, that we're going to look back in a 745 00:39:59,480 --> 00:40:03,600 couple years and realize that 8000 boxes was, there was 746 00:40:03,600 --> 00:40:06,200 opportunities for pretty significant incremental unit 747 00:40:06,200 --> 00:40:08,600 growth as well. So, so you send all those things 748 00:40:08,600 --> 00:40:12,160 come together, the stock is, is is going to prove very cheap 749 00:40:12,160 --> 00:40:15,040 from here. Yeah, I like it. 750 00:40:15,920 --> 00:40:18,680 You know, what I've been thinking about lately is brands 751 00:40:19,560 --> 00:40:25,800 and the one that that my most heretical take is that I was 752 00:40:25,800 --> 00:40:28,720 wondering if Jack Daniels is actually a good brand or not. 753 00:40:29,560 --> 00:40:33,560 And like I know that it's I, I understand that it's very well 754 00:40:33,560 --> 00:40:37,880 known and I understand that it has a lot of distribution. 755 00:40:38,600 --> 00:40:43,440 But I think like AI was, I was listening to an investor 756 00:40:43,440 --> 00:40:47,120 presentation and I was listening to what this investor that was 757 00:40:47,120 --> 00:40:48,920 pitching Brown Forman was saying. 758 00:40:49,680 --> 00:40:52,160 And they were like, you know, the price of, of Jack hasn't 759 00:40:52,160 --> 00:40:55,840 changed much. And I got on the interwebs and I 760 00:40:55,840 --> 00:41:02,240 saw like in 2013, a, a 750 of Jack basically cost the same 761 00:41:02,240 --> 00:41:06,440 that it does today. So like I think of every brand 762 00:41:06,640 --> 00:41:09,280 that I think of and very few of them. 763 00:41:10,120 --> 00:41:14,400 I mean, how much is inflation gone up and and the price has 764 00:41:14,400 --> 00:41:20,080 not moved at all. Now the argument is that the 765 00:41:21,000 --> 00:41:26,680 brand has expanded by introducing higher tier whiskeys 766 00:41:26,680 --> 00:41:29,880 or whatever. However, to the extent that you 767 00:41:29,880 --> 00:41:33,600 need to age that product more in order to sell it, there's a time 768 00:41:33,600 --> 00:41:38,400 value of money that's associated with pushing that price. 769 00:41:38,400 --> 00:41:42,600 And like, I don't know that people buy like Jack Single 770 00:41:42,600 --> 00:41:46,200 Barrel over something else. Woodford's a very good brand, 771 00:41:46,200 --> 00:41:48,560 but I've just been thinking about that one because it's one 772 00:41:48,560 --> 00:41:52,360 that that I have always heard it's a great brand and I've 773 00:41:52,360 --> 00:41:54,560 always just assumed it's a great brand. 774 00:41:55,320 --> 00:41:59,560 But like, I don't know, it's, I guess, I guess Bud Light's a 775 00:41:59,560 --> 00:42:02,160 good brand, but it feels like Bud Light to me almost, you 776 00:42:02,160 --> 00:42:05,880 know, in a way. Yeah, I mean, this is, you know, 777 00:42:05,880 --> 00:42:08,600 coming back to the book for a minute, this is a frequent topic 778 00:42:08,800 --> 00:42:10,680 of discussion. Is it there's a specific chapter 779 00:42:10,680 --> 00:42:14,320 on basically sees candy, Coca-Cola and consumer brands. 780 00:42:14,320 --> 00:42:16,960 And a big part of this discussion is, you know, sees 781 00:42:16,960 --> 00:42:19,960 Kraft Heinz, Costco or Coca-Cola, etcetera. 782 00:42:19,960 --> 00:42:23,440 And how they, how they've dealt with kind of the evolving retail 783 00:42:23,440 --> 00:42:26,160 landscape, most notably as it relates to a player like Costco, 784 00:42:26,440 --> 00:42:30,800 where, you know, Costco has been willing over time to, to have 785 00:42:30,800 --> 00:42:34,720 some pretty notable fights that a typical grocer would obviously 786 00:42:34,720 --> 00:42:37,520 never consider doing. A prominent example being coke 787 00:42:37,520 --> 00:42:41,240 and, and believe around the turn of like 2010 or so, 2012 788 00:42:41,240 --> 00:42:43,040 somewhere in that area, I believe. 789 00:42:43,400 --> 00:42:47,320 But I, I mean, as I look at the space, I, I personally, you 790 00:42:47,320 --> 00:42:50,360 know, the comment that you made on the net price, or at least 791 00:42:50,360 --> 00:42:53,600 for the, you know, kind of the main line, it, it doesn't strike 792 00:42:53,600 --> 00:42:57,840 me as particularly surprising. I, I really worry about those, 793 00:42:58,920 --> 00:43:02,440 those consumer brands generally speaking, where they shake out 794 00:43:02,440 --> 00:43:05,640 in a world of Kirkland on one end of the equation and that 795 00:43:05,640 --> 00:43:07,680 there's just in terms of price, right, not in terms of the 796 00:43:07,680 --> 00:43:09,880 problem. Is that Kirkland stuff is so 797 00:43:09,880 --> 00:43:11,360 good? Yeah. 798 00:43:11,360 --> 00:43:14,080 I mean, it's a, it's low price, it's not low, it's not low 799 00:43:14,080 --> 00:43:16,000 quality. Yeah, so. 800 00:43:16,320 --> 00:43:19,040 You know, that's a that's a huge, huge problem. 801 00:43:19,040 --> 00:43:21,360 And you know, there's also categories. 802 00:43:21,360 --> 00:43:25,680 I think liquor is a prominent 1 where depending on the the usage 803 00:43:25,680 --> 00:43:27,880 occasion, there's something to be said for walking in. 804 00:43:27,880 --> 00:43:31,320 Maybe it is a, maybe it's a Jack branded line of single barrel or 805 00:43:31,320 --> 00:43:34,160 something, or it's a brand note people are familiar with, right? 806 00:43:34,160 --> 00:43:37,640 It's a new kind of premium brand versus walking into the party 807 00:43:37,640 --> 00:43:42,080 with the big handle of Jack. So, and obviously it depends by, 808 00:43:42,520 --> 00:43:46,840 by category, but you know someone who shops at Costco 809 00:43:46,840 --> 00:43:49,560 fairly frequently. I, I see what they've done in, 810 00:43:49,840 --> 00:43:52,640 in categories like egg bites where they had, at least in my 811 00:43:52,640 --> 00:43:55,520 location, they had the Starbucks branded egg bites for like 6 812 00:43:55,520 --> 00:43:59,000 weeks and they've had the Kirkland branded egg bites ever 813 00:43:59,000 --> 00:44:02,000 since. And they're, you know, 1499 814 00:44:02,000 --> 00:44:05,840 instead of 1899 and it's probably the exact same product 815 00:44:05,840 --> 00:44:08,440 or close to it. And you know, I think they're, 816 00:44:08,480 --> 00:44:11,160 they're bad. Rightly so is the average Costco 817 00:44:11,160 --> 00:44:13,360 customer doesn't really care that it had Starbucks brand on 818 00:44:13,360 --> 00:44:14,800 it before. They're more than happy that it 819 00:44:14,800 --> 00:44:17,480 has the Kirkland brand on it, but that that makes life 820 00:44:17,480 --> 00:44:19,840 difficult. Well, the other thing that hurts 821 00:44:19,840 --> 00:44:24,000 is like this is this is not factual. 822 00:44:24,000 --> 00:44:26,560 Folks, please confirm this. But like, I'm pretty sure that 823 00:44:26,560 --> 00:44:31,840 when you buy like Dunkin' Donuts coffee at the store, I'm pretty 824 00:44:31,840 --> 00:44:34,360 sure is actually Folgers. Like I'm pretty sure they like 825 00:44:34,360 --> 00:44:35,800 come out of the same exact plant. 826 00:44:36,400 --> 00:44:38,880 But if you buy it at Dunkin' Donuts, I think it's actually 827 00:44:38,880 --> 00:44:40,920 different. And I just kind of wonder, like 828 00:44:40,920 --> 00:44:45,320 how much licensing of of names has deluded brands generally. 829 00:44:45,760 --> 00:44:49,240 But Starbucks is a good example of like a company that I would 830 00:44:49,240 --> 00:44:54,480 argue it, it has really flexed pricing power too far. 831 00:44:54,840 --> 00:44:59,400 And maybe maybe the true argument on Brown Foreman is 832 00:44:59,880 --> 00:45:02,800 they have a lot if, if you haven't moved price in 10 years, 833 00:45:03,400 --> 00:45:06,240 maybe you have a lot of latent pricing power that you can tap, 834 00:45:06,240 --> 00:45:07,400 right? Maybe that's what my brain 835 00:45:07,400 --> 00:45:10,880 should be thinking about rather than, you know, But it's like 836 00:45:10,880 --> 00:45:13,120 one of those things, it's not what you know that that gets you 837 00:45:13,120 --> 00:45:14,400 in trouble. It's what you know, that just 838 00:45:14,400 --> 00:45:15,400 ain't so. Yeah. 839 00:45:15,400 --> 00:45:16,800 It's hard again. I like I see it. 840 00:45:16,840 --> 00:45:20,080 I see it more and more now than I have overtime opened up the 841 00:45:20,080 --> 00:45:23,640 companies I follow to include like a Vita cocoa, a a fever 842 00:45:23,640 --> 00:45:26,080 tree, you know, Celsius and Monster. 843 00:45:26,600 --> 00:45:30,520 And you just walk through like a Costco and look at look at how 844 00:45:30,520 --> 00:45:33,960 those categories are merchandise and how they play the, the 845 00:45:33,960 --> 00:45:37,680 branded products and the private labels with each other and you 846 00:45:37,680 --> 00:45:39,280 know, against each other on pricing. 847 00:45:39,280 --> 00:45:43,360 And it's really nice to to sell a lot of product at Costco, but 848 00:45:43,680 --> 00:45:46,160 but they also have a really good understanding of, of what they 849 00:45:46,160 --> 00:45:49,280 bring to the table as well. And it, it makes that a pretty 850 00:45:49,280 --> 00:45:51,680 difficult decision in terms of how important it is to your 851 00:45:51,680 --> 00:45:54,480 overall business. But I guess that's been, that's 852 00:45:54,480 --> 00:45:56,560 been a reality for a while now. I. 853 00:45:56,560 --> 00:45:59,640 Mean, dude, I'm just looking at this and I'm not trying to make 854 00:45:59,640 --> 00:46:02,720 this like about Brown Foreman, but I'm curious for your take 855 00:46:02,720 --> 00:46:04,440 because I like talking to you about this thing. 856 00:46:04,840 --> 00:46:09,120 If I go back these things, if I go back to 2010 and then figure 857 00:46:09,120 --> 00:46:14,360 2010 is not really normalized. 2013, their total gross profit 858 00:46:14,400 --> 00:46:19,480 was nine, $1,955,000,000. OK. 859 00:46:19,480 --> 00:46:23,120 If I go to 2023, it's 2 1/2 billion. 860 00:46:23,120 --> 00:46:26,000 That's not that much growth over 10 years. 861 00:46:26,000 --> 00:46:27,320 And you're talking about a stock. 862 00:46:27,480 --> 00:46:31,400 I, I mean, they trade, it's not like particularly cheap and I 863 00:46:31,400 --> 00:46:36,800 don't know for, I mean, 440 million of cash flow, 520-3488, 864 00:46:36,800 --> 00:46:40,720 416-520-7526. Then it kind of steps up. 865 00:46:40,880 --> 00:46:43,360 I'm in here, we're at 798, I guess is peak. 866 00:46:43,680 --> 00:46:46,920 It's just one of those things I, I don't know, you know, it's 867 00:46:46,920 --> 00:46:50,120 like, I agree, people have it tattooed on their, on their arm 868 00:46:50,320 --> 00:46:54,800 and I agree that it's got great distribution, But what is the 869 00:46:54,800 --> 00:46:57,560 difference between a business that people perceive to be great 870 00:46:57,560 --> 00:47:00,280 and then the one that actually throws off cash and actually 871 00:47:00,280 --> 00:47:03,200 grows? And like, that's what I, you 872 00:47:03,200 --> 00:47:06,120 know, that's what I love about reading the book that you wrote 873 00:47:06,120 --> 00:47:09,760 because it it just kind of it's like going to church, man. 874 00:47:09,760 --> 00:47:12,760 It's nice to open up the pages and just get myself thinking 875 00:47:12,760 --> 00:47:15,680 again. And, and to the brown foreman 876 00:47:15,680 --> 00:47:18,760 longs, I'm sure I'm wrong. I'm happy to hear why I am. 877 00:47:18,760 --> 00:47:21,120 I mean, you guys have thought about a lot more than I have, 878 00:47:21,120 --> 00:47:22,920 but it's just something I've been thinking about. 879 00:47:23,520 --> 00:47:25,600 Yeah, there may be, there may be corporate transactions in there 880 00:47:25,600 --> 00:47:26,680 or something that we haven't seen. 881 00:47:26,760 --> 00:47:29,600 But no, I think it gets back to what I was trying to say earlier 882 00:47:29,600 --> 00:47:32,240 to this whole discussion. And you know, it's something 883 00:47:32,240 --> 00:47:34,840 that I, that I think about, especially as I'm like, for 884 00:47:34,840 --> 00:47:37,360 example, I've been following Monster in Celsius now and 885 00:47:37,360 --> 00:47:40,600 obviously Celsius, the stock prices has gone down a lot over 886 00:47:40,600 --> 00:47:42,920 the past 6-12 months, whatever it is. 887 00:47:42,920 --> 00:47:46,360 And you know, thinking about making a decision on a name like 888 00:47:46,360 --> 00:47:47,560 that. And I think sometimes the 889 00:47:47,560 --> 00:47:51,720 reality is you do the research, you start following the space, 890 00:47:52,000 --> 00:47:54,640 you start looking at an idea. It's kind of interesting to you 891 00:47:55,720 --> 00:47:57,880 and then it kind of plays forward, especially in a 892 00:47:57,880 --> 00:48:00,600 situation where the stock price is going down in the situation 893 00:48:00,600 --> 00:48:04,360 obviously continues devolve. And sometimes it's like, what is 894 00:48:04,360 --> 00:48:07,960 it that really gets me to to make a move here? 895 00:48:07,960 --> 00:48:10,720 Is this, is this a business I I truly want to own? 896 00:48:10,720 --> 00:48:12,360 Does this belong in a too hard pile? 897 00:48:12,360 --> 00:48:15,480 What what is this? And that's not always clear out 898 00:48:15,480 --> 00:48:17,800 of the gates or it certainly shouldn't be right. 899 00:48:17,800 --> 00:48:20,680 Otherwise the whole exercise is kind of a waste of time. 900 00:48:21,080 --> 00:48:25,400 But the answer to that question in my mind is greatly influenced 901 00:48:25,400 --> 00:48:29,320 by, you know, are you going to have, are you going to have 12 902 00:48:29,320 --> 00:48:34,200 positions and they're going to be in there for maybe 5-10 years 903 00:48:34,200 --> 00:48:37,040 on average if, if all goes according to plan, or are you 904 00:48:37,040 --> 00:48:41,880 going to have 3540 positions and, and you're willing to take 905 00:48:41,880 --> 00:48:45,360 something out if it has a nice 2550% pop there? 906 00:48:45,560 --> 00:48:50,040 So just figuring that part of it all out, which isn't easy, but I 907 00:48:50,040 --> 00:48:53,240 think, I mean, I think you see shops like ocry, at least 908 00:48:53,240 --> 00:48:55,640 historically, I haven't followed them as as closely lately or 909 00:48:55,640 --> 00:48:58,560 again, Berkshire, how they kind of manage their portfolio, or at 910 00:48:58,560 --> 00:49:02,120 least as Warren did. I, I just think you see how 911 00:49:02,680 --> 00:49:07,320 settling on the answers to that first part where right or wrong 912 00:49:07,320 --> 00:49:10,840 is certainly not as clearly defined as I probably once 913 00:49:10,840 --> 00:49:13,480 thought it was. But choosing a, a path that 914 00:49:13,480 --> 00:49:16,800 makes sense to you and which has some, you know, underlying logic 915 00:49:16,800 --> 00:49:20,680 to then informs what do I do now? 916 00:49:21,120 --> 00:49:24,480 You know, for me, it's one of the rules I've kind of 917 00:49:24,480 --> 00:49:28,640 implemented is that opening position size is 5% of the 918 00:49:28,640 --> 00:49:31,600 portfolio. And you know, maybe, maybe 919 00:49:31,600 --> 00:49:34,480 there's an argument to tweet that one way or the other. 920 00:49:34,480 --> 00:49:37,400 But you know, if it had been two, maybe that's something 921 00:49:37,400 --> 00:49:41,080 where I would have moved on it on a Celsius as an example here 922 00:49:41,080 --> 00:49:44,280 lately. Whereas at 5 it especially since 923 00:49:44,280 --> 00:49:46,120 I have to think about opportunity cost at that point 924 00:49:46,120 --> 00:49:48,160 and I have to potentially fund it out of something else in the 925 00:49:48,160 --> 00:49:51,120 portfolio, it made the decision a little bit tougher. 926 00:49:51,120 --> 00:49:55,720 So, you know, point being, I think those, those, those rules 927 00:49:55,720 --> 00:49:58,640 of those structures to how you approach investing are really, 928 00:49:58,640 --> 00:50:02,760 really important part of like the answer to hey, is XYZA good 929 00:50:02,760 --> 00:50:05,960 buy? When I kind of note this, I kind 930 00:50:05,960 --> 00:50:07,680 of noted in the introduction to the book too. 931 00:50:07,680 --> 00:50:09,720 It's like, that's one of the things about investing that for 932 00:50:09,720 --> 00:50:13,760 me as I, as I launched TSO, which investment research and 933 00:50:14,440 --> 00:50:17,000 you know, have made the transparency of it all a big 934 00:50:17,400 --> 00:50:20,760 part of kind of my sales pitch. It's the part of investing that 935 00:50:20,800 --> 00:50:24,320 infuriated me in, in kind of a prior life, the idea of someone 936 00:50:24,320 --> 00:50:27,480 saying like, you know, I really like XYZ stock and it's like, 937 00:50:27,480 --> 00:50:30,240 well, that that's certainly relevant. 938 00:50:30,240 --> 00:50:32,720 But another really relevant part of the discussion is if that's 939 00:50:32,720 --> 00:50:35,760 the case, then why is it 20 bits in your portfolio or why is it 2 940 00:50:35,760 --> 00:50:38,120 percentage points in your portfolio or why is it 20? 941 00:50:38,640 --> 00:50:43,240 Like those are those are really important discussions that that 942 00:50:43,240 --> 00:50:48,080 must not should, must be had as part of of that whole 943 00:50:48,520 --> 00:50:50,840 conversation for it to to make sense. 944 00:50:50,840 --> 00:50:55,320 So that's kind of kind of one of the things that I hope to do 945 00:50:55,320 --> 00:50:58,360 more, you know, through the book, obviously these ideas are 946 00:50:58,360 --> 00:51:02,160 explored a lot, but it's also very prominent part of of my 947 00:51:02,160 --> 00:51:04,120 research service. And the answers obviously are 948 00:51:04,120 --> 00:51:07,240 always are, are are not always clear. 949 00:51:07,240 --> 00:51:10,960 Sometimes it's like this is just my best idea and kind of how to 950 00:51:10,960 --> 00:51:13,040 do this now. And there's not a perfect answer 951 00:51:13,040 --> 00:51:16,040 to a lot of this stuff, but I think there's a lot of learnings 952 00:51:16,040 --> 00:51:19,600 and in the sitting down thinking about it, and particularly in 953 00:51:19,600 --> 00:51:22,080 the writing it as well. Yeah. 954 00:51:22,200 --> 00:51:26,320 You know, the other thing that I that I like about the game is, 955 00:51:26,320 --> 00:51:31,120 is how many people can get to the same, you know, like a guy, 956 00:51:31,120 --> 00:51:35,160 I mean like a guy like David Gardner has subscription revenue 957 00:51:35,160 --> 00:51:38,160 coming in all the time. So that's I think his version of 958 00:51:38,160 --> 00:51:41,120 insurance float right, 'cause that's the income that's coming 959 00:51:41,120 --> 00:51:43,960 in. And then he's fine like throwing 960 00:51:43,960 --> 00:51:47,720 little bets and averaging up and buying into things that are 961 00:51:47,720 --> 00:51:49,640 working. And then you have Buffett who 962 00:51:49,640 --> 00:51:52,600 wants to like swing at a fat pitch when when things are 963 00:51:52,600 --> 00:51:55,040 cheap. And then, you know, you've got 964 00:51:55,160 --> 00:51:58,640 people that say, OK, well, I've studied Monster and then 965 00:51:58,640 --> 00:52:03,120 Celsius. And you know, my personal bias 966 00:52:03,120 --> 00:52:06,440 is I'd like to be long energy drinks and short coffee from at 967 00:52:06,440 --> 00:52:09,640 least from a volume standpoint. Maybe I don't know who's going 968 00:52:09,640 --> 00:52:11,240 to win. So maybe I take a basket 969 00:52:11,240 --> 00:52:14,400 approach there and and that approach can win. 970 00:52:14,400 --> 00:52:16,960 And there's so many different ways to play. 971 00:52:16,960 --> 00:52:20,400 I don't know that any of them outperformed just buying the S&P 972 00:52:20,400 --> 00:52:23,320 and playing the flows. But maybe someday they will and 973 00:52:23,320 --> 00:52:25,120 maybe someday they won't. And maybe it doesn't even 974 00:52:25,120 --> 00:52:27,280 matter. I mean, maybe the goal is to get 975 00:52:27,280 --> 00:52:30,920 where you need to go. What I find fascinating the more 976 00:52:30,920 --> 00:52:33,920 I talk to people and I and I totally understand why the world 977 00:52:33,920 --> 00:52:38,120 is this way, but I find it interesting how many people I 978 00:52:38,120 --> 00:52:43,240 like it, but I can't own it for XYZ reasons and XYZ reasons have 979 00:52:43,240 --> 00:52:45,440 nothing to do with where they think the business is going to 980 00:52:45,440 --> 00:52:49,200 go and how cheap it is today. It has everything to do with 981 00:52:49,200 --> 00:52:52,480 they don't want to take the pain from now till then and they're 982 00:52:52,480 --> 00:52:56,640 waiting for a turn. And I there's probably a ton of 983 00:52:56,640 --> 00:53:03,480 merit in that, but it, it is fascinating when people say not 984 00:53:03,480 --> 00:53:06,160 just one, right? When like a cluster of people 985 00:53:06,160 --> 00:53:10,120 that are drawn to an idea say like, I like this, but just not 986 00:53:10,120 --> 00:53:12,640 yet. I find it interesting to just 987 00:53:12,640 --> 00:53:15,320 listen to why. And it seems like more often 988 00:53:15,320 --> 00:53:17,800 than not, it's career risk when you really through it. 989 00:53:18,560 --> 00:53:19,840 I mean, I'm sure that's part of it. 990 00:53:20,000 --> 00:53:25,920 You know, as someone who I watched a situation at Walmart 991 00:53:25,920 --> 00:53:30,520 over the past 10 plus years now and also a situation at Disney 992 00:53:30,520 --> 00:53:33,160 where I've been invested, which has been painful. 993 00:53:33,160 --> 00:53:36,280 And what's in my mind looks very, very similar to what I saw 994 00:53:36,280 --> 00:53:39,800 at Walmart, at least in terms of how we got to where we are today 995 00:53:39,800 --> 00:53:43,400 in terms of a business transitioning from legacy to 996 00:53:44,120 --> 00:53:47,760 where it needs to be. There is there is some argument 997 00:53:47,760 --> 00:53:51,760 in my mind for the rationale of wanting to actually see the turn 998 00:53:51,760 --> 00:53:55,000 because you can see a lot of turns before the real, you see a 999 00:53:55,000 --> 00:53:57,880 lot of turns that you think are appearing before the actual one 1000 00:53:58,240 --> 00:53:59,920 appears. So maybe not for the career risk 1001 00:53:59,920 --> 00:54:03,960 reason, as is much of A rationale, but you know, I think 1002 00:54:04,360 --> 00:54:06,560 you can run around and find a lot of things that you think are 1003 00:54:06,560 --> 00:54:09,000 just at the turning point and it's coming any day now. 1004 00:54:09,000 --> 00:54:12,320 And that is 2-3 years down the road and you're you're still 1005 00:54:12,320 --> 00:54:15,840 kind of just waiting for it. But but to your point now, I 1006 00:54:15,840 --> 00:54:18,360 don't know if, if you can actually spot when something 1007 00:54:18,360 --> 00:54:20,960 like that, it's going to turn that'll, that'll work very, very 1008 00:54:20,960 --> 00:54:22,480 well for you. I don't know how many people 1009 00:54:22,760 --> 00:54:26,320 not, not that this has been a huge winner or anything, but I 1010 00:54:26,320 --> 00:54:28,920 don't know how many people bought Disney at 85 or whatever 1011 00:54:28,920 --> 00:54:30,760 it was and have caught the turn from here. 1012 00:54:30,760 --> 00:54:32,560 Do what they did. Now you still have a decision 1013 00:54:32,560 --> 00:54:34,760 from here, right? I mean, then maybe they were 1014 00:54:34,760 --> 00:54:39,560 just playing that that 85 to to 115 or whatever it was, which, 1015 00:54:40,280 --> 00:54:42,800 OK. And if you can do that a lot of 1016 00:54:42,800 --> 00:54:45,760 times in a row and deal with the tax drag and all that jazz, then 1017 00:54:45,760 --> 00:54:48,440 you can make a lot of money. I don't think I can do that. 1018 00:54:48,800 --> 00:54:51,240 It's certainly not certainly not what I'm trying to do. 1019 00:54:51,440 --> 00:54:55,520 But yeah, I don't it's the the game is very difficult. 1020 00:54:55,520 --> 00:55:00,360 Even when you settle in a kind of a somewhat defined approach 1021 00:55:00,360 --> 00:55:02,120 and you start to find things that you think you can 1022 00:55:02,120 --> 00:55:03,960 understand and make that list a little bit longer to give 1023 00:55:03,960 --> 00:55:06,680 yourself some options, it's still very, very difficult. 1024 00:55:06,680 --> 00:55:10,440 I mean, it's where for some, for me, something like a Markel has 1025 00:55:10,480 --> 00:55:12,360 been and continues to be interesting is because if you 1026 00:55:12,360 --> 00:55:16,080 start from the premise of I trust the people who run this 1027 00:55:16,080 --> 00:55:19,760 company, I think they have the, you know, they have the ability 1028 00:55:19,760 --> 00:55:22,320 to do well over time. And obviously the insurance 1029 00:55:22,320 --> 00:55:24,880 business is a big part of of that point on Markel 1030 00:55:24,880 --> 00:55:26,680 specifically. But but then talking more 1031 00:55:26,680 --> 00:55:29,520 broadly about, OK, what's the breadth of capital allocation 1032 00:55:29,520 --> 00:55:32,040 decisions that we have in front of us as we wake up in any given 1033 00:55:32,040 --> 00:55:34,120 morning? I, I think that is a really 1034 00:55:34,120 --> 00:55:37,000 attractive position to be in relative to something where 1035 00:55:37,600 --> 00:55:41,080 you're really constrained in terms of what you can do then, 1036 00:55:41,080 --> 00:55:44,360 then you're kind of forced for one reason or another to kind of 1037 00:55:44,360 --> 00:55:47,040 just go down one Rd. But that still requires 1038 00:55:47,040 --> 00:55:50,320 obviously effective decision making, capital allocation, 1039 00:55:50,320 --> 00:55:51,040 etcetera. But. 1040 00:55:52,880 --> 00:55:57,640 How do you, well, I, I, I don't think you do, but how do you let 1041 00:55:57,640 --> 00:56:00,440 the game that you're playing factor into what you're writing 1042 00:56:00,440 --> 00:56:04,280 about? And, and I'm asking because the 1043 00:56:04,280 --> 00:56:09,840 newsletter business is seems to me to be as pro cyclical as the 1044 00:56:09,840 --> 00:56:11,960 actual asset management business. 1045 00:56:11,960 --> 00:56:15,440 I mean, and I one of the things that I really respect about you 1046 00:56:15,440 --> 00:56:18,320 is you're not out there writing about crypto projects right now 1047 00:56:18,320 --> 00:56:22,240 because you're not trying to get Subs for the wrong reasons. 1048 00:56:22,240 --> 00:56:24,200 But what's your philosophy on that? 1049 00:56:25,040 --> 00:56:28,680 I'd also have very very very little to write if I try to I. 1050 00:56:28,720 --> 00:56:30,880 Don't know, I think a lot of these people are just making 1051 00:56:30,880 --> 00:56:33,400 shit up anyway. Oh, OK, I could probably do that 1052 00:56:33,400 --> 00:56:34,120 then. OK, I'm good. 1053 00:56:35,680 --> 00:56:37,960 No, I think, you know, my philosophy from the jump has 1054 00:56:37,960 --> 00:56:41,360 been when I launched in April 2021, again, as I said like a 1055 00:56:41,360 --> 00:56:46,560 moment ago, a huge part of it was I, I'm not the best analyst 1056 00:56:46,560 --> 00:56:48,560 in the world. I try to do as well as I can at 1057 00:56:48,560 --> 00:56:49,640 this. I'm trying to be a good 1058 00:56:49,640 --> 00:56:51,720 investor. Obviously, I want to put up good 1059 00:56:51,720 --> 00:56:54,000 results over time. I have all my money behind the 1060 00:56:54,000 --> 00:56:57,520 portfolio that I show to people. But a big selling point was 1061 00:56:58,080 --> 00:57:01,560 transparency and a complete look at the investment philosophy and 1062 00:57:01,560 --> 00:57:03,360 the decision making in the thought process. 1063 00:57:03,360 --> 00:57:09,680 And everything I've tried to do from day one has been to support 1064 00:57:09,680 --> 00:57:12,920 that, that brand image, right, or that product image. 1065 00:57:12,920 --> 00:57:16,800 And that goes to pricing. It goes to the kind of companies 1066 00:57:16,800 --> 00:57:18,120 and the ideas that I talked about. 1067 00:57:18,120 --> 00:57:20,160 It goes to the nature of the investment philosophy 1068 00:57:20,160 --> 00:57:23,400 discussions and, you know, being comfortable with conclusions. 1069 00:57:23,400 --> 00:57:25,920 Like, listen, I don't Celsius is a prime example. 1070 00:57:25,920 --> 00:57:29,120 I just spoke about like getting to an of an article and being 1071 00:57:29,120 --> 00:57:31,000 like, I don't do something about this. 1072 00:57:31,000 --> 00:57:33,560 I'm still not ready to make a move. 1073 00:57:33,560 --> 00:57:36,840 And I don't have that perfectly defined as to why. 1074 00:57:36,840 --> 00:57:39,400 Here's kind of a couple thoughts on where it may be coming from. 1075 00:57:39,400 --> 00:57:43,160 But I don't know what the definitive answer is to this. 1076 00:57:43,160 --> 00:57:47,480 And that's not as compelling for a certain type of reader or 1077 00:57:47,480 --> 00:57:50,400 subscriber then, you know, being very specific and very 1078 00:57:50,400 --> 00:57:51,480 definitive. But that's OK. 1079 00:57:51,480 --> 00:57:53,720 I'm not particularly after those people. 1080 00:57:53,720 --> 00:57:57,320 And I think I've, you know, started to build, it takes time, 1081 00:57:57,320 --> 00:58:01,760 obviously, but I think I started to build 1 an audience, but also 1082 00:58:01,760 --> 00:58:06,200 to a, a reputation with the people that subscribe for, for 1083 00:58:06,200 --> 00:58:09,040 taking what I do very, very seriously and then trying to do 1084 00:58:09,040 --> 00:58:12,520 it to the best of my ability. So that, that gives me the 1085 00:58:12,520 --> 00:58:15,360 comfort to kind of just do that as best I can, right? 1086 00:58:15,360 --> 00:58:18,560 I've never been too overwhelmed by the idea of like, I'm going 1087 00:58:18,560 --> 00:58:20,560 to make a mistake or I'm going to do something wrong. 1088 00:58:20,560 --> 00:58:23,840 I mean, all I, I wrote about this many years ago, guru focus. 1089 00:58:23,840 --> 00:58:27,320 Like I, I'm pretty sure I'm not going to be the next Warren 1090 00:58:27,320 --> 00:58:29,760 Buffett. I'm also pretty sure I might not 1091 00:58:29,760 --> 00:58:32,400 get anywhere close to being the next Warren Buffett in terms of 1092 00:58:32,400 --> 00:58:35,680 this like investment ability. And I'm OK with that. 1093 00:58:35,680 --> 00:58:39,520 The one thing I do know that I'm in control of is how much effort 1094 00:58:39,520 --> 00:58:44,080 and time I put in and, you know, my continual efforts to try to, 1095 00:58:44,280 --> 00:58:47,360 to do better and to communicate to the people who support the 1096 00:58:47,360 --> 00:58:49,160 service about what that looks like. 1097 00:58:49,160 --> 00:58:51,800 So, you know, that's all I can realistically do. 1098 00:58:51,800 --> 00:58:55,200 And, and I'm kind of happy with, you know, where that's led me so 1099 00:58:55,200 --> 00:58:57,160 far. That's that I do not like, do 1100 00:58:57,160 --> 00:59:00,120 not like reading the things I've I've written previously at times 1101 00:59:00,120 --> 00:59:02,560 because especially if you go back like 5-10 years because 1102 00:59:02,560 --> 00:59:04,880 they're not very good. But I guess that's a good thing, 1103 00:59:04,880 --> 00:59:07,080 right? Yeah, Well, I don't know. 1104 00:59:07,080 --> 00:59:10,320 I always liked what you wrote, but I feel the same way. 1105 00:59:10,320 --> 00:59:12,560 I have the time. I'll listen to a podcast a week 1106 00:59:12,560 --> 00:59:15,120 later and I'll be like, cock, I was an idiot there. 1107 00:59:15,120 --> 00:59:17,880 But whatever. It's part of putting yourself 1108 00:59:17,880 --> 00:59:19,160 out there. It's impossible. 1109 00:59:19,520 --> 00:59:22,960 It's impossible to. Well, it's not impossible. 1110 00:59:22,960 --> 00:59:25,280 If you're not growing at all and you're not critical of yourself, 1111 00:59:25,280 --> 00:59:27,400 then you won't cringe a little at what you did. 1112 00:59:27,400 --> 00:59:29,400 But I mean, whatever. That's. 1113 00:59:29,560 --> 00:59:32,880 Yeah, I mean, the other, the other kicker on it all is being, 1114 00:59:33,640 --> 00:59:35,920 you know, we've talked about this before in other contexts 1115 00:59:35,920 --> 00:59:37,800 too. I think it's important is it's 1116 00:59:37,800 --> 00:59:41,880 important for a job or anywhere else too, in terms of going into 1117 00:59:41,880 --> 00:59:46,040 negotiations with a employer is, you know, I also have a sense 1118 00:59:46,040 --> 00:59:50,360 for the time and effort I put in and, and the value that I think 1119 00:59:50,360 --> 00:59:52,160 I add. And when I do that, when I put 1120 00:59:52,160 --> 00:59:55,560 in a lot of time and effort, I, I'm not afraid to then ask what 1121 00:59:55,560 --> 00:59:59,360 I think is a reasonable, you know, a request from the person 1122 00:59:59,360 --> 01:00:01,800 who's then consuming a product or subscribing to a service in 1123 01:00:01,800 --> 01:00:03,200 terms of what the value is there. 1124 01:00:03,200 --> 01:00:06,560 And I, you know, I can bookmark it to some extent in terms of, 1125 01:00:07,080 --> 01:00:10,120 you know, alternative offerings or different approaches that 1126 01:00:10,120 --> 01:00:11,720 people take to do some of these things. 1127 01:00:11,720 --> 01:00:13,680 And I think there's a lot to be said for that too. 1128 01:00:13,680 --> 01:00:16,520 I mean, if you're really putting time and effort into something 1129 01:00:16,960 --> 01:00:20,120 and you're producing the best work that you're capable of, you 1130 01:00:20,120 --> 01:00:23,920 shouldn't be too shy about then going to people and saying, hey, 1131 01:00:23,920 --> 01:00:26,360 if you're really the. Right, audience for this thing 1132 01:00:26,360 --> 01:00:29,160 and you think I'm adding value, You know, there needs to be an 1133 01:00:29,160 --> 01:00:31,360 exchange there that makes sense for both parties. 1134 01:00:31,520 --> 01:00:34,560 So think that's that's a big thing as well in my opinion. 1135 01:00:36,360 --> 01:00:39,080 Right. Which isn't always easy to do. 1136 01:00:40,440 --> 01:00:44,120 Right, I you haven't heard that. I don't know when this is going 1137 01:00:44,120 --> 01:00:49,240 to drop, but but I have two podcasts in the hopper and they 1138 01:00:49,240 --> 01:00:54,640 discuss how I need to charge, that I need to charge, not how I 1139 01:00:54,640 --> 01:00:57,040 need to charge because you and I have talked about this enough. 1140 01:00:57,040 --> 01:00:59,760 But yeah, it's dude, it's hard to find. 1141 01:01:00,280 --> 01:01:02,160 And I and I admire what you built. 1142 01:01:02,160 --> 01:01:05,640 It's hard to find a product that you can. 1143 01:01:06,200 --> 01:01:09,000 I mean, I remember when you left your, your former life and you 1144 01:01:09,000 --> 01:01:10,440 were like, I'm going to make this work. 1145 01:01:10,440 --> 01:01:13,080 And it's, it's been awesome to see if it work. 1146 01:01:13,240 --> 01:01:16,640 You know, hopefully it works bigger and bigger because your 1147 01:01:16,640 --> 01:01:21,120 healthcare inflation is not going away and nor is nor do 1148 01:01:21,120 --> 01:01:24,160 children get much cheaper. But it's been fun to watch, man. 1149 01:01:24,800 --> 01:01:28,920 Yeah, health insurance through an employer is a it's you don't 1150 01:01:28,920 --> 01:01:30,360 know what you have until you don't have it. 1151 01:01:30,720 --> 01:01:32,880 Yeah, don't it always seem to go you? 1152 01:01:32,880 --> 01:01:34,280 Don't want to do it yourself? It's not. 1153 01:01:34,440 --> 01:01:37,680 It's not too fun. No, it is not interesting. 1154 01:01:37,680 --> 01:01:41,280 Well, I I like the book man. Why are you giving 50% of the 1155 01:01:41,280 --> 01:01:43,680 proceeds away it? Was a weird thing where I felt 1156 01:01:43,680 --> 01:01:47,400 like, you know, I am writing this and as time went on as I as 1157 01:01:47,400 --> 01:01:50,720 I put introductions into the book and and did it some other 1158 01:01:50,720 --> 01:01:53,320 things like I included, for example, what one of my write 1159 01:01:53,320 --> 01:01:56,040 ups of science of hitting on national indemnity and how they 1160 01:01:56,360 --> 01:01:59,520 have they managed the the premiums volatility through the 1161 01:01:59,520 --> 01:02:03,240 period of I think it's the late 80s and through the 90s, which 1162 01:02:03,240 --> 01:02:07,680 really ties into one whatever discussions on on how to run the 1163 01:02:07,680 --> 01:02:10,440 insurance business basically. So I included some stuff like 1164 01:02:10,440 --> 01:02:13,240 that over time that made it a little bit more of kind of me 1165 01:02:13,240 --> 01:02:16,680 being the author, but I also really felt like, you know, 1166 01:02:16,680 --> 01:02:20,000 these are these are their words and obviously it did take they. 1167 01:02:20,000 --> 01:02:23,880 Did do at least half? It did take me a ton of work to 1168 01:02:24,360 --> 01:02:27,640 quote UN quote write it, but it were their words at the end of 1169 01:02:27,640 --> 01:02:30,560 the day. And I thought, you know, I, I'm 1170 01:02:30,560 --> 01:02:33,400 hugely appreciative for obviously they don't know who I 1171 01:02:33,400 --> 01:02:35,560 am, but I'm hugely appreciative for everything that Warren and 1172 01:02:35,560 --> 01:02:39,520 Charlie have done for decades to again, like, really get someone 1173 01:02:39,520 --> 01:02:43,360 like myself when I first started investing to put me in what I 1174 01:02:43,360 --> 01:02:47,360 think of as like the right frame of mind for how to approach this 1175 01:02:47,360 --> 01:02:49,400 business. And obviously that extends to, 1176 01:02:49,800 --> 01:02:52,280 to things beyond business as well that I've learned from 1177 01:02:52,280 --> 01:02:55,000 them. So I thought, you know, like, I, 1178 01:02:55,000 --> 01:02:57,280 I, I feel like this is probably the right thing to do. 1179 01:02:57,280 --> 01:03:00,160 And to the extent that, that it helps them with, with the 1180 01:03:00,160 --> 01:03:01,720 proving the book, that'd be great too. 1181 01:03:01,720 --> 01:03:04,600 I don't know if I knew it at the time, but the economics of a 1182 01:03:04,600 --> 01:03:07,320 book as well, or might be an industry to look into at some 1183 01:03:07,440 --> 01:03:09,360 point to understand what the heck is going on. 1184 01:03:09,600 --> 01:03:12,480 I don't know if there's too many people out there who who ended 1185 01:03:12,480 --> 01:03:13,760 up retiring because they wrote a book. 1186 01:03:13,760 --> 01:03:16,960 So yeah, giving away 50% is is OK. 1187 01:03:16,960 --> 01:03:18,040 I felt like the right thing to do. 1188 01:03:18,760 --> 01:03:20,480 Yeah, well, like I said, they wrote half. 1189 01:03:20,680 --> 01:03:23,240 Have you ever corresponded with the buff dog? 1190 01:03:24,360 --> 01:03:28,280 I have corresponded with Debbie again. 1191 01:03:28,280 --> 01:03:31,920 Thank you to Adam Mead for kind of helping me think about how to 1192 01:03:31,920 --> 01:03:33,960 do this. So as of this point, this is 1193 01:03:34,160 --> 01:03:36,400 December 9th. I still have not touched a copy 1194 01:03:36,400 --> 01:03:38,880 of the book there. There are some. 1195 01:03:40,240 --> 01:03:41,960 There. Are some on the way and when 1196 01:03:41,960 --> 01:03:46,120 they arrive I will be sending the first copy with a, with a 1197 01:03:46,120 --> 01:03:48,040 note to my friend Warren. For people who are watching on 1198 01:03:48,040 --> 01:03:49,720 video. If you look over my I guess it's 1199 01:03:49,720 --> 01:03:52,640 my, my left shoulder, right shoulder on your view, you'll 1200 01:03:52,640 --> 01:03:55,280 see a little picture on the wall and note. 1201 01:03:55,600 --> 01:03:58,680 I, I'm not a big physical possessions kind of person, but 1202 01:03:58,680 --> 01:04:02,960 that note is from, from Warren and I believe it was October of 1203 01:04:02,960 --> 01:04:08,000 2010 where I wrote him as I was graduating from college and 1204 01:04:08,000 --> 01:04:11,200 said, you know, I don't have any asks for you, but you've been 1205 01:04:11,440 --> 01:04:14,440 someone who has, you know, really been influential in my 1206 01:04:14,440 --> 01:04:16,760 life and in terms of where I'm trying to go in the, in the 1207 01:04:16,760 --> 01:04:19,040 years and decades ahead. So I just want to say thank you. 1208 01:04:19,040 --> 01:04:21,120 And he, he wrote back with that note. 1209 01:04:21,120 --> 01:04:24,280 So maybe I'll get another note when I sent him the book or I 1210 01:04:24,280 --> 01:04:27,240 don't know how I do. Your buddy, our buddy JT got a 1211 01:04:27,520 --> 01:04:30,440 phone call from Munger, right? Yeah, yeah, he did. 1212 01:04:30,560 --> 01:04:31,920 Well, yeah, he did I. Don't know if I could handle a 1213 01:04:31,920 --> 01:04:33,680 phone call. It's kind of like one of those 1214 01:04:33,680 --> 01:04:35,720 things like who is this? Who's pulling my chain? 1215 01:04:35,840 --> 01:04:37,560 This is not. Working well, I'll tell you what 1216 01:04:37,560 --> 01:04:39,320 you see an Omaha number you better pick up. 1217 01:04:39,840 --> 01:04:41,760 I, I will start. Let's not it's not. 1218 01:04:41,760 --> 01:04:44,000 Spam I. Never answer phone numbers who 1219 01:04:44,000 --> 01:04:46,000 call in. They're not starting it I. 1220 01:04:46,000 --> 01:04:48,480 Remember when I walked downstairs and I saw the return 1221 01:04:48,480 --> 01:04:51,560 address and it said, you know, it was like Berkshire's address? 1222 01:04:51,560 --> 01:04:54,400 And I was like, holy shit, it's crazy. 1223 01:04:54,400 --> 01:04:55,880 Now I don't know where my letter is. 1224 01:04:56,560 --> 01:04:59,520 Oh, come on. I I'm hopeful it's in a book 1225 01:04:59,520 --> 01:05:02,480 somewhere man. I somewhere in the three moves 1226 01:05:02,520 --> 01:05:06,240 it got displaced and misplaced and that sucks. 1227 01:05:07,080 --> 01:05:10,200 It was always on my desk, but alas, I should have had it 1228 01:05:10,200 --> 01:05:12,640 framed and hung. Mine's frame. 1229 01:05:12,640 --> 01:05:14,400 Ever. Mine's getting harder and harder 1230 01:05:14,400 --> 01:05:16,600 to read. The pen's starting to wear a 1231 01:05:16,600 --> 01:05:19,400 little bit, but Oh well. Yeah, well you should. 1232 01:05:19,400 --> 01:05:21,560 You should send them 2 copies of a book. 1233 01:05:21,560 --> 01:05:23,960 You should send you one back sign I. 1234 01:05:24,200 --> 01:05:25,600 That's a good idea. I will do that. 1235 01:05:25,920 --> 01:05:29,480 But you got Yeah. You know, I don't know, like I 1236 01:05:29,480 --> 01:05:30,800 We'll see. I'm going up there at the 1237 01:05:30,800 --> 01:05:32,600 meeting. I'm trying to try to get 1238 01:05:32,600 --> 01:05:34,640 involved with the, I believe it's called the bookworm, right? 1239 01:05:34,920 --> 01:05:37,080 Yeah, so you need to pop these downstairs. 1240 01:05:37,160 --> 01:05:39,800 Hell yeah, I'll help. Can I come help you hawk that 1241 01:05:39,800 --> 01:05:41,600 shit? Higher percent you're in. 1242 01:05:41,600 --> 01:05:43,880 My dad wants to go to bring this full of circles. 1243 01:05:44,080 --> 01:05:46,840 No, your dad's going to be eating the dilly bars, getting 1244 01:05:46,840 --> 01:05:49,880 them all over everything if you like. 1245 01:05:50,160 --> 01:05:51,520 You want some chocolate on your book? 1246 01:05:51,520 --> 01:05:54,400 Here you go. He'll just start signing them 1247 01:05:54,400 --> 01:05:58,280 for me. If if your dad gets if he gets 1248 01:05:58,280 --> 01:06:00,720 too close, I'll take him across the street to the bar. 1249 01:06:01,280 --> 01:06:04,120 There you go. Well, I'll, I'll both help you 1250 01:06:04,120 --> 01:06:06,280 Hock style. I used to sell stuff as a kid at 1251 01:06:06,280 --> 01:06:08,080 a flea market. I was pretty good at it. 1252 01:06:09,240 --> 01:06:12,400 So I can I know how to push product. 1253 01:06:13,040 --> 01:06:17,840 And then, yeah, that's a skill that I had and may still have. 1254 01:06:18,080 --> 01:06:20,440 And then if I have to divert your father, I can do that too. 1255 01:06:20,440 --> 01:06:23,880 I'll I'll be a dual role. Perfect all. 1256 01:06:23,920 --> 01:06:24,600 Right. Cool. 1257 01:06:24,680 --> 01:06:27,440 Well, we've got our May plan. I guess I have to book it. 1258 01:06:27,440 --> 01:06:29,320 Well, you've got to get into the bookworm first. 1259 01:06:29,920 --> 01:06:32,160 Yes, yes, need to get into the bookworm. 1260 01:06:32,520 --> 01:06:36,720 Yeah, I got to go this year. Assuming it's going on, I assume 1261 01:06:36,720 --> 01:06:39,720 it's going it will go on. Yes, fingers crossed. 1262 01:06:40,200 --> 01:06:42,880 Yeah. Well, yeah, that's right. 1263 01:06:42,880 --> 01:06:44,560 All right, man. Well, I hope you sell many 1264 01:06:44,560 --> 01:06:48,280 copies and I look forward to our continued conversations. 1265 01:06:49,320 --> 01:06:51,160 Thank you as always, big fan of the brew. 1266 01:06:51,840 --> 01:06:52,840 Oh well, thank you very much.