Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the Business Brew.
I am your host, Bill Brewster. As always, thank you for your
year. This episode features Alex
Morris of TSOH Investment Research.
I will drop his information in the show notes.
He is stopping by to discuss his new book, Buffett and Munger
Unscripted. 3 decades of investment and business insights
from the Berkshire shareholder. Berkshire Hathaway shareholder
Meetings. It is a fantastic book.
I had the privilege to preview it and then I had the good
fortune of getting APDF early. And I can attest that as
somebody who has spent a lot of time listening to the annual
meetings, this is a fantastic resource that groups all the
concepts by different topic areas.
I have found repetition of quotes that touch the same topic
area force me to see slight differences in what the quotes
are and have helped me think more clearly about what they're
saying, what Mr. Buffett, Mr. Munger was saying.
And 50% of the proceeds go to Glide, which is a charity that
Berkshire Hathaway has historically, or Buffett.
I'm sorry if I got that entity wrong because I know that that
matters. But anyway, Mr. Buffett supports
that entity. And I don't know, I can't say
enough good things about Alex. And the book is worth buying.
It's 45 bucks. You spend 45 bucks on things
that are worth a lot less than this.
And when you think about the time savings that you're going
to get from it, the value is huge.
Huge. You should have maybe priced it
at 450 bucks and then had a sale.
But anyway, I digress. Anyway, that's it.
Nothing in this podcast is investment advice.
Everything in the program is for entertainment purposes only.
Consult your financial advisor before making investment
decisions. Do your own research.
You know the drill. Before this music drops, I do
want to give a shout out to my editing team at Speech Docs.
You can find them on Twitter at Speech and Docs's docs.
Dax and his team is are fantastic.
All I can say is that Dax and his team offer incredibly good
value and I very much appreciate what they do on the back end of
the show. So if you are somebody who is
thinking about starting a podcast, please consider Dax and
his team at Speech Docs. That's SPEECHDOCS.
All right, ladies and gentlemen, my man Alex Morris, previously
referred to as a Sherpa on this program, is back.
Your mom liked the Sherpa comment, didn't she?
My mom likes anything that's reasonably nice that's said
about me, so yes. Oh, that's nice.
Well, she's a nice lady. How's your dad doing?
Is he eating dilly bars? My dad's hanging in there.
My mom, she had us on a wild goose chase for something from
Facebook Marketplace that she saved a couple $100 on, but it
required my dad and I to go get it, and it required some moving
abilities that neither of us particularly have any more.
So hopefully that was the last time that will happen, but it
probably won't be signs that he's good.
All right, good deal. Well, sometimes you got to feel
like your body's breaking to feel alive.
It felt that way. Well, from a buffing among her
books to moving you're you're a Renaissance man.
Yes, it was an interesting week in terms of, you know, from a
professional perspective, it was fairly it was a somewhat
meaningful week. Felt like the book got off to a
a good start and that was shortly followed by I guess not
newborn at this point. 8 month old son getting sick and the
whole family getting sick and the joy of the first thing was
quickly overwhelmed by the realities of of what the rest of
life is now so but it's all good.
Well, it'll happen and you know you'll.
You'll learn to live with the sickness.
It'll it'll become easier over time.
Yeah, the first one's a little scary.
That was our first. That was our first run.
Yeah, we had a, we had 104 once with the first one and it was
like, oh boy, what's going on? Then it just, yeah, we thought
it was. We thought it was a big deal.
The pediatrician did did not agree.
Yeah, you should think that, right?
That's a parental. That's good.
That's why your baby will survive.
But the pediatrician is also actually seen real shit.
You know, interestingly, I was talking to one of my wife's
friends who is a doctor and she said that sometimes you get
better care in facilities that you may think are a lot less
nice because the population in those facilities, like the
doctors actually see sick people.
Whereas if you just kind of go to like a like a high end place,
like I used to go to Northwestern because I had
really nice healthcare and now I don't because I have Obamacare
like we were talking about. But but apparently my care may
actually be better because I'm there with the sickies, which is
good. I.
Guess that makes me feel slightly better as I'm perusing
our healthcare options for 2025. Yeah, well, they, they called me
and told me to opt for a high deductible plan, which as
someone who had a a kid airlifted two years ago, I, I
respect deductibles. Yes, yes.
I have, I have a feeling that with with my kids, maybe I maybe
I should focus on a low deductible because yeah, you're
going to you're going to pay off.
Yeah, that's right. Either way, either way you pay
it seems. Yes, that's correct.
That is correct. Well, let's get to it.
You had a big book that came out or a book launch, right, Mr.
Ackman, William gave you a a shout out and an endorsement.
Bloomstrand give you gave you an endorsement on a much lower
level. I gave you an endorsement.
So how was that? It was good.
You know, I've been working on
this for right around three years, I believe.
And, you know, it's been a long process.
It started off with, you know, maybe he's taking a step back.
I started investing in called the late 2000s.
And when I first started, one of the books I really ravitated to
was the essays of Warren Buffett, Larry Cunningham's, you
know, his collection of, of topics from Warren Buffett's
shareholder letters. And for me, I found it a really
effective way to kind of learn about investing in, about
business, You know, probably more, it's probably more useful
to me at the time. And it's kind of pulling up the
82 letter and reading it right. So it was, it was really, really
useful tool for me and something I, I still look to these days
and you know, like a lot of things with Buffett and Monger,
you, you listen to it again, you've heard it five times
before, but, but you're kind of a different person or a
different investor than you were 2-3 years ago.
So it hits you a different way. So it's, it's a book that
remains incredibly useful to me. And when, when the company
announced in 2018 that they were going to release all the, all
the old meeting videos back to 1994, kind of immediately struck
a chord with me that, you know, there's potentially an
opportunity to do something like this.
Obviously the challenge was that is going to be very, very
daunting and time consuming to actually go through all that
stuff. So I, I kind of had that idea in
my head and then I never went forward with it, at least for a
couple years. That ultimately led to the
individual and working with that Herriman house, Chris.
He, he reached out to me about writing a book and I actually
had started working on something else.
It was effectively, I think I had some salacious title like
Don't Get Aft by your financial advisor.
It was, it was essentially a book.
Yeah, I. Remember that one?
I do remember that one. It didn't make it too far, but
essentially the thought process was, you know, I was seeing
people in my life like my parents or my my grandma friends
who were asking what do they do with their money?
And, you know, I was working at a financial advisor previously
and I think there's a lot of value add in working with a
financial advisor or I also think there's limitations to
what they can, what they can do. And, you know, it's important
to, to recognize the difference between those two things.
So it was a book that was kind of going to be focused on, on
that idea and walking through those things like active and
passive and you know, financial planning versus the investing
part of the equation, etcetera. As I started writing it, I, I
got kind of bored. I mean, it's a topic that I have
some knowledge on, but I'm not I'm not deeply knowledgeable in
a lot of financial planning ideas anyways.
And it's not really what I love either.
I love the investing part. I love the analysis part of the
game. So the idea made me a bit bored.
But when Chris asked if I had a book idea, I mentioned that one
at first. And then after I thought about
it a little more, I said, you know, I think there's another
idea here for this essays of Warren Buffett esque book, but
about the annual meeting. So Long story short, that was a
couple years ago. Started working on it and
eventually reached out to, to Berkshire to warn directly
through, through Debbie with a little bit of help from from
Adam Mead, who has also written a great book about Berkshire.
So I reached out to them and said, hey, I'd like to do this.
Actually, I've already been doing this, but I'd really like
your approval before I keep moving forward because I don't
want to try to release this book and, and then find out that that
you are not OK with me having done this.
So, so I reached out to them and, and, you know, told them
my, my plans for the book, along with the fact that I'd give half
of my net proceeds to glide, which I hoped would, would help
it along. And then thankfully they said
yes. So it took another, took another
year and a half or so or two years from there to, to get to
where we are, are today. And I'm thankful that it's
finally a real thing. Your chapters have chapters, so
how long did this take you to compile and?
And then once you had it compiled, like how many
different ways did you try to slice up the quotes?
And and like how long did it take you to group them properly?
The first time when I was really sad, I'm like, OK, this is going
to happen. I started listening through and
I got to like 2. I just went in chronological
order and I got to like 2000. So, you know, 5-6 meetings in
and I realized the process that I had the idea in my head for I
was going to group this stuff really didn't make much sense at
all. So I kind of had to go back and
restart. And you know, once I restarted
that, I thought about it a bit more deeply, thankfully.
And yeah, I put together a fairly simple Excel sheet where
I kind of group things in terms of in terms of a main topic and
then kind of subtopics that I thought may or may be relevant.
And then also like a high level, you know, green red grading
system on is there any chances is going to be in the book
versus no chance at all? I mean, I, I realized early on
there are a lot of lot of questions over the years of the
Bertram meetings about, you know, how would you live your
life differently if you started over stuff about politics, stuff
about philanthropy, etcetera. A lot, a lot of really useful
stuff. But I, I didn't want that to be
part of this book, one, because I already knew it was going to
be very long. And two, I, I wanted to be more
focused on, you know, the investment in business part of,
of, of the wisdom that they've added over the years.
So narrowing that down helped me a bit.
And even then as I went through the early meetings, you know,
I'd get done with one and be like, OK, I, I, I put a green
check mark on 50% of the answers.
That's, that's a lot of them. If I'm trying to really, you
know, take these long transcripts in the putting,
putting them into something digestible.
But as I move forward, you know, answers and questions started to
repeat themselves a bit, that made it a lot easier.
And I just started to get more of a sense for, OK, there's
going to be a high level topic about, you know, dealing with
management or, you know, assessing management.
There's going to be a high level topic on accounting.
There's going to be a high level topic on, you know, what is
value investing and what are kind of the key tenants of it.
So it started to become a bit clearer, like how do I actually
group this thing? And, you know, I kind of just
went forward from there. Yeah, I, I love it, man.
I, I love how it's organized. And I put out a tweet where I
said one of the things that I liked about it is because you
grouped it by topic. There are times that I was
reading it where I was like, this is a little bit like
contradictory, but not really. I mean, like it forced me to
think about my perception of what might be contradictory and,
and be like, oh, OK, now I now I think I actually understand
what's actually being said. It also helps to get like,
sometimes the answers beat the same concept into your head in
different ways and it's like, oh OK, Charlie just told me this
three different ways. Hopefully one of these ways
sticks. Yeah.
I mean, I'm obviously biased because I wrote this book and I
didn't write the essays. But you know, Warren Buffett's
essays to some extent have been scrubbed as much as they can
possibly be scrubbed to make his message as clear and as, you
know, as direct as he wants to say and as as you certainly know
better than I do. But I know as well for being on
podcast every once in a while when you start talking,
sometimes you say things or your thoughts on a topic are a little
bit more expansive and less polished than they might be
otherwise. And I think, you know, I think
when people see the book on a topic like, for example,
Coca-Cola throughout the mid to late 90s and into the early
2000s, Warren Buffett's thought thoughts on that investment.
As you know, the valuation in the multiple climb to to much
higher levels than where they had been 5 or 10 years earlier.
You, you kind of see the thought process and, and the thinking in
real time. And then, you know, leading to
the 2000s where he kind of admits, hey, that was somewhat
of a mistake. But even then, still talking
about his thought process, how he thinks about how he thinks
about it in the broader context of what Berkshire is.
And I just think there's really insightful, there's really
insightful commentary that comes out of this that I don't think
you get as much when someone is, you know, sitting down and
putting a very, very cleansed version of their views on, you
know, A5 page or 10 page Britain report.
So what did you see like with the Coca-Cola thought process
over the years? You know, I think it's for one,
I think obviously you'll have the business and they had a very
significant unrealized game. They also had, you know, their
image had certainly become intertwined with the company to
some extent and there was involving with the board of
directors. So those things were all very
messy. You know, is, is that enough
for, for Warren Buffett to not take action when The thing is,
I, I believe at the peak it was at 35 or 40% of the equity book.
And I've written about this previously.
You know, I think the other, I think he admits it was a
mistake. I think the other, the other
part of this that plays in there is, you know, they've never
sold, sold a share subsequently and it's down to these days to
something like 5% of the equity book.
I believe there's a real part of the game where seems weird, but
you know, the, the quote UN quote, right decision for
portfolio management, in my mind is, is significantly influenced
by things like cash inflows and cash outflows and, and what that
allows you to do or not do as you think about managing a a
position. You know, obviously that can get
that can get taken too far. And, you know, if to the extent
that that happened there, I'm sure he would probably say that
maybe it did get taken a little bit too far.
But I think those are some of the parts of what might have
gone into his thought process. I mean, I can't has, has he
ever, I can't think of anything like a Coca-Cola or an apple
where he's ever taken out a meaningful percentage of the
position and subsequently rebought.
So it's just not, it's just not what he does.
And, you know, there's, there's, there's certainly downsides to
that approach, but there's a lot of upsides to that way of
thinking too. Yeah, I found, I mean, I'm sort
of to prep, you know, I just started at Page 1 and I, I
thought it was interesting how you, who was talking about the
Walmart decision and how they were buying and then the price
went up a little bit and he didn't buy anymore.
And I forget what he said, it cost them, but maybe it was an
$8 billion decision or something like that.
It's an interesting game. The two situations are so
different because you've got Coca-Cola that was running, but
he owned it, so he kept it. And then you've got Walmart that
was running and he liked it lower, so he didn't buy it.
They're not that dissimilar, but the results are completely
different, right? Presumably Walmart was starting
from a much cheaper base. Well, it was.
Yeah, I think he's, I think he said some early on.
I mean, I, I can't remember the exact year.
I think I have it in the book, but I think Warren says he
missed Costco the first time He said it was I believe in 2001 or
2002. And obviously Fast forward 2223
years and he did not miss it in 2001, 2002.
By the way, the stock also went through a bit of a rough
stretch, I believe in O four O 5 somewhere in that window.
And you know, there wasn't, he didn't do it as an opportunity
to start buying it aggressively, obviously.
Yeah, I don't know. It's, it's very interesting to
think about the ideas that the ideas that any of us are
attracted to in, in the broad opportunities in the market,
right. And even think about something
like Warren buying IBM. Yeah.
As he said, he, he read the annual report for 50 years and
he read it one year and it just struck him differently.
I mean, the investment didn't work out.
But even that idea that you're going to follow something for 50
years, never have any significant involvement in the
stock and then decide to make, I believe it was like a $10
billion investment. I don't think you see too many
people do that in the world of investing.
You kind of find your niches and then stay there to some extent,
right? This is off memory so it's bound
to be wrong, but I seem to recall some CNBC interviews
where he said that owning some of the businesses that he owned
help him understand IBM's Moat or his perception of it a little
bit better than he did. You know, from afar.
That said, maybe would have been better had he not understood it
in that particular case. Right.
Even though it's another problem example where they, you know,
specifically during that period, I think they were asked why IBM
versus other tech companies. And I think I believe was Monger
who explicitly said, you know, our ability to understand the
mode at IBM is superior than our ability to understand something
like Apple. And, you know, that was in 2012,
2013, 2014, and a decade later that was not true.
Yeah, in a very, very significant position in Apple.
So again, I was, I just think all those things are, as you
review them, you know, it's it's less of a obviously like a
gotcha. Like you said this thing and you
did the other thing. It's not about that.
It's about how these are very, very smart people who tend to
think about things correctly. And when they change their minds
on something, there's probably something to be learned from
that. Yeah, well, I'll tell you, man,
the, the I think that the book is probably worth the price of
admission just so people can read the call it first 60 pages
right now 'cause Munger talks a lot about avoiding folly and not
doing stupid things. And I might argue that in an
environment where fartcoin has a $200 million market cash, people
might do it themselves. A service to crack open the the
wise words of an old man and maybe think about where we may
be. I don't.
Want to get too far off topic, but I thought we were all going
to like Bitcoin is the coin that doubt we're going back to
there's a whole what? What do you use fartcoin for
versus Bitcoin? Speculation.
Oh, OK. Yeah, just high beta stuff.
OK. So you can't use it to like to
buy stuff for as a currency. No.
It would be sweet if you could fart and create coins though.
That'd be pretty nice. Yeah, well, given, yeah, I would
be a key owner, but anyway, yeah man, I don't know.
I mean, you know the Bitcoin thing, like I don't have the
same visceral hatred towards it that that those guys have.
I'm kind of intrigued by it. I always have been.
But I, I do kind of fundamentally view it as a, a
faith in technology and math, which I mean, seems fiatish to
me because the dollar is just like faith and taxation in the
whereas. And I guess, you know, you can't
create more of them or whatever. But if you can slice something
infinite ways, I, I don't know, I like it 'cause it drives Peter
Schiff nuts. That's my favorite part of
Bitcoin. Well, yes, we could agree on
that. Peter Schiff is a instead of fun
run for him and some other notable people like him over the
past 10-15 years. They've had many, many
predictions along the way. And boy, some of them have been
not too good. But I think it's all turned out
all right for them in the end, so it's all good, yeah.
Well, there's a couple things going on.
He's got an incredible business selling gold coins, so you're
not going to talk against your book 2 Gold has worked out
pretty well. So I don't think that he can be
too upset about it. But I do.
I do like people that are certain of an answer to get a
little bit of. I don't.
It's kind of fun to see him get riled up over over people that
are equally certain of a different answer because of some
of the similar, similar reasons. I just kind of like that fight
as an interested observer. It's entertaining to me.
Oh, it's it's always a good idea to be very certain about things,
especially if you've you appear to have been wrong for 10 or 15
years. But keep at it.
That's a. That's a smart way to approach
it. Well, yes, that's yeah, I've,
I've gone the other way. I'm not certain of anything.
I'm I'm closer to your camp. Like do you have key learnings
that you had in the book? Like, did it help you rethink
anything or have you been fully baked as an investor to the
point that, like, doing this didn't really change your
inputs? Yeah.
The hard part is I've been, I've, I've been listening to
this stuff for so fun. Now again, like I said before, I
think a lot of it is maybe it hits you a bit differently than
it had previously and you start to, you know, you start to live
through real, real world examples.
I know this is what you and I have talked about in the past.
There was a, there was a great quote from Charlie at one of the
meetings where he talked about the idea of the net Nets and,
and the cigar butts back in the day and the idea of actually
shutting down a business and taking out the the working
capital and the net assets and selling them off.
And him saying it's basically a different era.
And your ability to do that in particularly in certain
countries around the world is greatly hindered, if not
impossible to do. So it's a faulty way of thinking
about that type of investment opportunity.
I know and you and you and I have obviously talked even just
getting management on board with the idea, right?
Their incentives are typically such that they don't have great
interest in shutting down the company and dealing with all the
pain that brings and ultimately, ultimately pushing themselves
out of a job. They'd rather than continue and
they can continue to make a salary and you get paid very
well for their services. So that's that's one example,
something where as, as you and I just mean, it's going back
couple years now, but even a company like a GameStop or other
retailers thinking about, OK, what is this?
What is this worth? If they truly rationalize, you
can go as far as shutting down the business and just having a
real appreciation for incentives and decision making and how how
things work in the real world versus you know, what may or may
not make sense on basically a spreadsheet.
Yeah. Well, I mean we could talk about
cable, right? I mean, you know, like one of
one of the things that I have been unable to reconcile is the
argument like the wireless companies are going to be
rational all of a sudden, but they haven't been rational in
the past, right? And you know, I was, I was one
of the believers that fixed wireless would not be
sufficient. But then if you look at MPs
scores, I mean it, it clearly is.
Yeah, sufficient. Might be understating it based
on some of the some of the data I've seen, yeah.
So, you know, it's like, it's one thing to believe something
theoretically, but I think it's another thing to trust the
incentives of what everyone has to do within the competitive
landscape. And that's where it gets tough.
Yeah, they're probably all longs now.
A little tired of them, by the way.
Yeah, you and me both. But no, it's another, you know,
again, I think the meetings presented opportunities to
discuss these things, the actual application of like investment
theory that it's not as frequently seen in the letters,
right? I mean, a prominent example is
at at the meeting during the financial crisis when Warren
sold all of the airline positions and and very quickly,
right, you know, he was asked about that decision and said
something along the lines of when when we basically conclude
that we're wrong or no longer have faith in the thesis.
We're not, we're not one to you kind of gingerly move, sell 20%
or something. We don't want to own something
or we don't. So we're basically out if we
decide we don't want to own it. And there's exceptions to this
as there is for is for anything. But again, I think it's a, it's
an example of, you know, how he actually does things in practice
and how he thinks about them. That for me continues to be
useful in terms of, of thinking about kind of my own approach.
And all this is in the context of any tactical decisions as
part of portfolio management, position sizing, you know,
adding trimming, whatever. To me it all of it only makes
sense in the context of a given investment philosophy and an
objective in terms of, you know, concentration, holding periods,
etcetera. So without, without context for
that, I don't think any of it's particularly relevant, but I, I
tend to look at the portfolio construction, you know, question
kind of somewhat similar to how they do.
So for me, it it, it's been really helpful and kind of
informative to see how they think about some of these things
over time. Yeah, I'm just scrolling as
you're speaking, which I should not be doing.
I should be paying complete attention to what you're saying.
But I, I thought that like, you know, when I was reading, right?
There's a lot to be said for developing a temperament that
can own securities without fretting.
The fretful disposition is an enemy of long term performance.
That's Charlie. And then Warren says it's almost
impossible to do well in equities over a period of time
if you go to bed every thinking about the price of them.
And then not too far from that, you have a quote from Munger
that says something about like, he got confidence when he went
through tough periods. And then within 3 pages of that,
you read about Munger saying, like, there's also the matter of
underspending your income. I kind of seeing all of these
things in one spot, right? Is basically like, and this is
not rocket science, but it's nice to hear it from the people
that, you know, I respect the most.
It's like, OK, underspend what you earn.
Don't fret too much. And you know, if you go through
hard times, you probably learn who you are and and and then try
to avoid the hard times because both of them would acknowledge
that they'd they'd rather keep their big pile than go back to a
small pile and compound again. Right.
It's like, I just think it's an the book is nice in the way
that, you know, I don't know if that that particular example is
stupid or not, but it's one that that was meaningful to me.
And I just think that when everything is grouped this way,
it's just such a nice presentation.
No, I appreciate that. Yeah, I kind of, you know, I
went, I went through the process with the idea of being to some
extent that this, you know, this would be applicable for the
range of investors, for people who have kind of just started
doing this to to people like myself or people who are even
more experienced and seasoned than I am.
And again, I think as you read through it, you know, there,
there certainly will be things that you've heard elsewhere or
that are, you know, particularly famous quotes.
And I can guarantee you that there's also a large section of
the book that you've probably never heard before and that may
shed light on topics that you have not heard them discuss
frequently. And I should also know, by the
way, that in the book, I, I provide time timestamps to where
the section of the meeting was. So, you know, to the extent that
it's useful for someone to go back and listen to a particular
answer on a particular topic, they can, they can do so very
easily. But yeah, I think it'll, it'll
hopefully be, you know, very useful for a, a wide group of
readers. Again, I, for me putting it
together, it was helpful because I, I could use it as kind of the
input for, for certain articles at, at TSOH investment research
and a lot of investment philosophy discussions over the
past couple years kind of started from conversations at,
at the annual meetings. But yeah, I think it hopefully
it's going to be very useful for for a lot of people.
So when I'm when I'm thinking of it will be useful for a lot of
people for the record. But when I'm thinking of one of
the things that keeps they talk about under businesses that are
in the too hard pile and understanding how industries
look 5/10/20 years down the road.
And I can't help but think that you have been more public than
most through this period of the downturn in the dollar stores.
And I, I'm curious how you think about the role that those
formats fill in people's lives, the technological change of
things like T MU and Amazon Prime and all that.
And how you get comfortable or see an investment through the
lens of like, how do I know where this is going to be in
five or ten years? I just kind of curious to hear
you meld. Yeah, well, first of all,
anybody who wants to. Hear, I mean the deep stuff is
in your investment research letters, right?
I'm just saying like high level. More well thought out and more
clearly explained thought process on both Dollar General
and Dollar Tree should go should go read my work at at that
scientific.com. I mean you read how many?
Articles on this a bunch, so we're not going to just cover it
in 10 minutes, but yeah. Maybe maybe 10 total on two of
them, obviously with a lot of, lot of overlap in the articles.
And I've, and I've followed Dollar Tree by some useful
context. I, I followed Dollar Tree for a
very long time, probably probably close to a decade now
fairly closely because I've long had interest in the namesake
banner. But the Family Dollar deal and
the plan there on the turn around has always made me
cautious about, you know, it's, it's your typical for, for a
long time it was your typical, you're getting, you're getting a
piece of this for free, basically that, that kind of
thesis. And I've always been skeptical
of those, particularly in a situation like this where I
worried about resource allocation time and money for
management. And I, I think to some extent
that has played out kind of as I worried in terms of them
addressing that situation. But the real significant change
on the Dollar Tree side has been recognition from them that this
experiments kind of over the attempts to turn Family Dollar
are, you know, have come to an end basically.
And they need to part ways and they need to they need to run
the namesake banner. So they're currently working
through that process and hopefully it's resolved fairly
soon. Once that's completed, you'll be
left with the Dollar Tree banner, which for for roughly 35
years, Dollar Tree was a everything for a dollar, you
know, everything and with an asterisk on everything but
almost everything for a dollar type of store.
And what happened over time is the larger the, due to inflation
and other cost expansion or increases, they, they started to
be constrained in terms of what they could do within the
confines of that dollar price point.
So in 2021 and believe it was, they announced that they're
going to dollar $1.25 as the base price, but also that they
were going to start adding a small assortment of, of multi
price offerings to the box. And you know, I, I, when it
first happened, my perception was basically was a defensive
measure. They, they had to do it because
they were getting so pressed on. You know, imagine an example
like aluminum foil or something where the cost kept going up and
you know, you're getting to a point where the size of the
product that someone's buying for a dollar, they cover like 3
dishes and, and they're already out of aluminum foil.
It's just, it's not, it's not useful at that point.
Or another example that they, that they talked about was ICE
where, you know, the industry had moved to a 7 LB bag as a
standard size. They were getting a 5 LB bag
custom made in order to hit that dollar price point.
And eventually the supplier was like, this is this just isn't
working. And, you know, the right move
for Dollar Tree was to to move past that.
Or did they, you know, the, the more program move would have
been to move past that. So they've now done that.
But so those are just kind of examples of what they had to do
on defense in terms of playing offense.
I think it really opens up how they merchandise the stores and
how they, you know, continue to serve customers in, in important
categories like seasonal and party and, you know, but also
home, home, you know, cleaning supplies and a little bit of
grocery excetera. So I think they can basically
take what they've done very well for decades and, you know,
expand their wallet share slightly.
Not a not a significant increase, but when someone goes
into the store to, you know, to buy 5 products, whatever it may
be to now sell them one or two additional products or
potentially at a higher price point, you know, by by offering
a better shopping experience and it's a transition to get there.
And you know, as I said before, they're still, there's still
the, the, the headache from the Family Dollar situation.
But I think once they get moving in the right direction and they
have a lot of these remodels completed and once they start
getting the unit growth on the namesake banner side rolling
again, because that has taken a hit over the past, you know,
five years. I, I think this could be, you
know, one of the, one of the best opportunities as I see it
in kind of the US retail, US retail landscape.
I think the core banner is, is a very good business.
That is, you know, somewhat misunderstood in terms of how
someone actually shops at the number of items in their cart.
Then you know, the ticket, the immediacy of the use for the
purchase relative to, you know, when the transaction is
completed. Simply, if you go on like Amazon
or TMU and search for something, you know, search for party
supplies. And if you go on Amazon, I'm not
sure if you can do this as easily on T MU, but you can sort
it by the the price of the product and go on there and look
at how many products are even sold for two or three dollars.
And then look at shipping times or shipping costs that are also
included on there. I think you'll you'll quickly
start to realize, especially if you then in a Dollar Tree store
and you see how people shop it, that this is not actually a is
not a substitute for how the vast majority of the core
customers shop the store. So I did that will be more
sustainable than a lot of people probably do.
And you know, we'll see how that goes in the in the years ahead.
Maybe we'll stop there before I start talking, DJ.
No, yeah, no. So it to summarize, like it
sounds to me like you believe that people are going to these
stores consuming the purchase shortly thereafter they're
purchasing or they have a thought like their design, they
got a party that they need to throw and they want to go there.
They want to actually see the product.
They don't want to be dealing with.
I got some stuff from Amazon. I don't like it, I'm sending it
back. I'm ordering different things or
whatever the price points competitive and therefore it
serves a function and it serves it well.
And in five to 10 years you're comfortable that there's the
ability for another retailer to come in and compete is limited
in that space. I think is is how you wrap your
head around that, right? Or that's how you're seeing it.
Yeah, I think another way to say it is the core concept was and
remains a very unique idea in in retail.
And you can, you can go look at, you know, for you and I, it's a
grocery store like Publix, but go look at green cards or
balloons or, you know, gift bags at a Publix that may be in the
shop, same shopping Plaza as a Dollar Tree and compare those
offerings on on price as an example, or, you know, the
selection that's available to you.
I just think Dollar Tree found a niche that's very unique and in
some way similar to like a floor and a corner Home Depot, right?
Like they're not playing the same game.
So you can't, you can kind of, you know, attack somebody in a
certain way or compete with them a bit differently when you're
not trying to do the same thing. And those, those two companies
are not trying to do the same thing.
So I, I think Dollar Tree is very well positioned in that
regard. And what was, what was true at a
dollar is, is still true at $1.25.
Now that said, multi price certainly does introduce some
risk in terms of, you know, what the, what the banner is, how
it's perceived. And then also they have to be,
in my view, very thoughtful about how they merchandise the
store to, to ensure that they're still playing in the same areas
that they're in and not not expanding the scope too far
beyond, you know, where they should probably where they
probably should be and the, and the opportunities that they can
kind of uniquely serve through their box.
So, you know, there are risks as they go through this transition.
But again, I think the main take away in my view is obviously the
price points are are moving up to some extent.
And, and a lot of categories like consumables, most of that
value is just going to be given back to consumers in terms of
pack sizes or whatever it may be.
But it really opens up the opportunity for when someone
walks into the store to have a selection of products that is a
better value, not lower price, but a better value than what was
in there previously. So they said that they do that.
Well, I think they can take again, just a small amount of
incremental wallet chair from their core customers.
And you know, you can look at a, a retailer like Dollarama up in
Canada to get some sense for what this can potentially look
like. I wouldn't read too much into
the specific numbers because, well, one, it's a much smaller
chain and two, the competitive dynamics are a bit different in
Canada. But I think you can, you can
kind of look at the progression that they've gone through over
time to get some sense for, for where Dollar Tree plays into
this. And again, it's, you know,
another prominent company in the space is 5 Below, which is very
different customer mix, very different kind of product mix as
well. They're going through something
similar with Five Beyond. In my view, there's a massive
difference between starting at $5 and now getting into an
assortment that runs to let's say $20 versus starting at $1.25
and getting to an assortment that that caps out at, you know,
call it 5 to $7.00. So I, I like how they're
positioned. And I think to the extent that
they really nailed this, that we're going to look back in a
couple years and realize that 8000 boxes was, there was
opportunities for pretty significant incremental unit
growth as well. So, so you send all those things
come together, the stock is, is is going to prove very cheap
from here. Yeah, I like it.
You know, what I've been thinking about lately is brands
and the one that that my most heretical take is that I was
wondering if Jack Daniels is actually a good brand or not.
And like I know that it's I, I understand that it's very well
known and I understand that it has a lot of distribution.
But I think like AI was, I was listening to an investor
presentation and I was listening to what this investor that was
pitching Brown Forman was saying.
And they were like, you know, the price of, of Jack hasn't
changed much. And I got on the interwebs and I
saw like in 2013, a, a 750 of Jack basically cost the same
that it does today. So like I think of every brand
that I think of and very few of them.
I mean, how much is inflation gone up and and the price has
not moved at all. Now the argument is that the
brand has expanded by introducing higher tier whiskeys
or whatever. However, to the extent that you
need to age that product more in order to sell it, there's a time
value of money that's associated with pushing that price.
And like, I don't know that people buy like Jack Single
Barrel over something else. Woodford's a very good brand,
but I've just been thinking about that one because it's one
that that I have always heard it's a great brand and I've
always just assumed it's a great brand.
But like, I don't know, it's, I guess, I guess Bud Light's a
good brand, but it feels like Bud Light to me almost, you
know, in a way. Yeah, I mean, this is, you know,
coming back to the book for a minute, this is a frequent topic
of discussion. Is it there's a specific chapter
on basically sees candy, Coca-Cola and consumer brands.
And a big part of this discussion is, you know, sees
Kraft Heinz, Costco or Coca-Cola, etcetera.
And how they, how they've dealt with kind of the evolving retail
landscape, most notably as it relates to a player like Costco,
where, you know, Costco has been willing over time to, to have
some pretty notable fights that a typical grocer would obviously
never consider doing. A prominent example being coke
and, and believe around the turn of like 2010 or so, 2012
somewhere in that area, I believe.
But I, I mean, as I look at the space, I, I personally, you
know, the comment that you made on the net price, or at least
for the, you know, kind of the main line, it, it doesn't strike
me as particularly surprising. I, I really worry about those,
those consumer brands generally speaking, where they shake out
in a world of Kirkland on one end of the equation and that
there's just in terms of price, right, not in terms of the
problem. Is that Kirkland stuff is so
good? Yeah.
I mean, it's a, it's low price, it's not low, it's not low
quality. Yeah, so.
You know, that's a that's a huge, huge problem.
And you know, there's also categories.
I think liquor is a prominent 1 where depending on the the usage
occasion, there's something to be said for walking in.
Maybe it is a, maybe it's a Jack branded line of single barrel or
something, or it's a brand note people are familiar with, right?
It's a new kind of premium brand versus walking into the party
with the big handle of Jack. So, and obviously it depends by,
by category, but you know someone who shops at Costco
fairly frequently. I, I see what they've done in,
in categories like egg bites where they had, at least in my
location, they had the Starbucks branded egg bites for like 6
weeks and they've had the Kirkland branded egg bites ever
since. And they're, you know, 1499
instead of 1899 and it's probably the exact same product
or close to it. And you know, I think they're,
they're bad. Rightly so is the average Costco
customer doesn't really care that it had Starbucks brand on
it before. They're more than happy that it
has the Kirkland brand on it, but that that makes life
difficult. Well, the other thing that hurts
is like this is this is not factual.
Folks, please confirm this. But like, I'm pretty sure that
when you buy like Dunkin' Donuts coffee at the store, I'm pretty
sure is actually Folgers. Like I'm pretty sure they like
come out of the same exact plant.
But if you buy it at Dunkin' Donuts, I think it's actually
different. And I just kind of wonder, like
how much licensing of of names has deluded brands generally.
But Starbucks is a good example of like a company that I would
argue it, it has really flexed pricing power too far.
And maybe maybe the true argument on Brown Foreman is
they have a lot if, if you haven't moved price in 10 years,
maybe you have a lot of latent pricing power that you can tap,
right? Maybe that's what my brain
should be thinking about rather than, you know, But it's like
one of those things, it's not what you know that that gets you
in trouble. It's what you know, that just
ain't so. Yeah.
It's hard again. I like I see it.
I see it more and more now than I have overtime opened up the
companies I follow to include like a Vita cocoa, a a fever
tree, you know, Celsius and Monster.
And you just walk through like a Costco and look at look at how
those categories are merchandise and how they play the, the
branded products and the private labels with each other and you
know, against each other on pricing.
And it's really nice to to sell a lot of product at Costco, but
but they also have a really good understanding of, of what they
bring to the table as well. And it, it makes that a pretty
difficult decision in terms of how important it is to your
overall business. But I guess that's been, that's
been a reality for a while now. I.
Mean, dude, I'm just looking at this and I'm not trying to make
this like about Brown Foreman, but I'm curious for your take
because I like talking to you about this thing.
If I go back these things, if I go back to 2010 and then figure
2010 is not really normalized. 2013, their total gross profit
was nine, $1,955,000,000. OK.
If I go to 2023, it's 2 1/2 billion.
That's not that much growth over 10 years.
And you're talking about a stock.
I, I mean, they trade, it's not like particularly cheap and I
don't know for, I mean, 440 million of cash flow, 520-3488,
416-520-7526. Then it kind of steps up.
I'm in here, we're at 798, I guess is peak.
It's just one of those things I, I don't know, you know, it's
like, I agree, people have it tattooed on their, on their arm
and I agree that it's got great distribution, But what is the
difference between a business that people perceive to be great
and then the one that actually throws off cash and actually
grows? And like, that's what I, you
know, that's what I love about reading the book that you wrote
because it it just kind of it's like going to church, man.
It's nice to open up the pages and just get myself thinking
again. And, and to the brown foreman
longs, I'm sure I'm wrong. I'm happy to hear why I am.
I mean, you guys have thought about a lot more than I have,
but it's just something I've been thinking about.
Yeah, there may be, there may be corporate transactions in there
or something that we haven't seen.
But no, I think it gets back to what I was trying to say earlier
to this whole discussion. And you know, it's something
that I, that I think about, especially as I'm like, for
example, I've been following Monster in Celsius now and
obviously Celsius, the stock prices has gone down a lot over
the past 6-12 months, whatever it is.
And you know, thinking about making a decision on a name like
that. And I think sometimes the
reality is you do the research, you start following the space,
you start looking at an idea. It's kind of interesting to you
and then it kind of plays forward, especially in a
situation where the stock price is going down in the situation
obviously continues devolve. And sometimes it's like, what is
it that really gets me to to make a move here?
Is this, is this a business I I truly want to own?
Does this belong in a too hard pile?
What what is this? And that's not always clear out
of the gates or it certainly shouldn't be right.
Otherwise the whole exercise is kind of a waste of time.
But the answer to that question in my mind is greatly influenced
by, you know, are you going to have, are you going to have 12
positions and they're going to be in there for maybe 5-10 years
on average if, if all goes according to plan, or are you
going to have 3540 positions and, and you're willing to take
something out if it has a nice 2550% pop there?
So just figuring that part of it all out, which isn't easy, but I
think, I mean, I think you see shops like ocry, at least
historically, I haven't followed them as as closely lately or
again, Berkshire, how they kind of manage their portfolio, or at
least as Warren did. I, I just think you see how
settling on the answers to that first part where right or wrong
is certainly not as clearly defined as I probably once
thought it was. But choosing a, a path that
makes sense to you and which has some, you know, underlying logic
to then informs what do I do now?
You know, for me, it's one of the rules I've kind of
implemented is that opening position size is 5% of the
portfolio. And you know, maybe, maybe
there's an argument to tweet that one way or the other.
But you know, if it had been two, maybe that's something
where I would have moved on it on a Celsius as an example here
lately. Whereas at 5 it especially since
I have to think about opportunity cost at that point
and I have to potentially fund it out of something else in the
portfolio, it made the decision a little bit tougher.
So, you know, point being, I think those, those, those rules
of those structures to how you approach investing are really,
really important part of like the answer to hey, is XYZA good
buy? When I kind of note this, I kind
of noted in the introduction to the book too.
It's like, that's one of the things about investing that for
me as I, as I launched TSO, which investment research and
you know, have made the transparency of it all a big
part of kind of my sales pitch. It's the part of investing that
infuriated me in, in kind of a prior life, the idea of someone
saying like, you know, I really like XYZ stock and it's like,
well, that that's certainly relevant.
But another really relevant part of the discussion is if that's
the case, then why is it 20 bits in your portfolio or why is it 2
percentage points in your portfolio or why is it 20?
Like those are those are really important discussions that that
must not should, must be had as part of of that whole
conversation for it to to make sense.
So that's kind of kind of one of the things that I hope to do
more, you know, through the book, obviously these ideas are
explored a lot, but it's also very prominent part of of my
research service. And the answers obviously are
always are, are are not always clear.
Sometimes it's like this is just my best idea and kind of how to
do this now. And there's not a perfect answer
to a lot of this stuff, but I think there's a lot of learnings
and in the sitting down thinking about it, and particularly in
the writing it as well. Yeah.
You know, the other thing that I that I like about the game is,
is how many people can get to the same, you know, like a guy,
I mean like a guy like David Gardner has subscription revenue
coming in all the time. So that's I think his version of
insurance float right, 'cause that's the income that's coming
in. And then he's fine like throwing
little bets and averaging up and buying into things that are
working. And then you have Buffett who
wants to like swing at a fat pitch when when things are
cheap. And then, you know, you've got
people that say, OK, well, I've studied Monster and then
Celsius. And you know, my personal bias
is I'd like to be long energy drinks and short coffee from at
least from a volume standpoint. Maybe I don't know who's going
to win. So maybe I take a basket
approach there and and that approach can win.
And there's so many different ways to play.
I don't know that any of them outperformed just buying the S&P
and playing the flows. But maybe someday they will and
maybe someday they won't. And maybe it doesn't even
matter. I mean, maybe the goal is to get
where you need to go. What I find fascinating the more
I talk to people and I and I totally understand why the world
is this way, but I find it interesting how many people I
like it, but I can't own it for XYZ reasons and XYZ reasons have
nothing to do with where they think the business is going to
go and how cheap it is today. It has everything to do with
they don't want to take the pain from now till then and they're
waiting for a turn. And I there's probably a ton of
merit in that, but it, it is fascinating when people say not
just one, right? When like a cluster of people
that are drawn to an idea say like, I like this, but just not
yet. I find it interesting to just
listen to why. And it seems like more often
than not, it's career risk when you really through it.
I mean, I'm sure that's part of it.
You know, as someone who I watched a situation at Walmart
over the past 10 plus years now and also a situation at Disney
where I've been invested, which has been painful.
And what's in my mind looks very, very similar to what I saw
at Walmart, at least in terms of how we got to where we are today
in terms of a business transitioning from legacy to
where it needs to be. There is there is some argument
in my mind for the rationale of wanting to actually see the turn
because you can see a lot of turns before the real, you see a
lot of turns that you think are appearing before the actual one
appears. So maybe not for the career risk
reason, as is much of A rationale, but you know, I think
you can run around and find a lot of things that you think are
just at the turning point and it's coming any day now.
And that is 2-3 years down the road and you're you're still
kind of just waiting for it. But but to your point now, I
don't know if, if you can actually spot when something
like that, it's going to turn that'll, that'll work very, very
well for you. I don't know how many people
not, not that this has been a huge winner or anything, but I
don't know how many people bought Disney at 85 or whatever
it was and have caught the turn from here.
Do what they did. Now you still have a decision
from here, right? I mean, then maybe they were
just playing that that 85 to to 115 or whatever it was, which,
OK. And if you can do that a lot of
times in a row and deal with the tax drag and all that jazz, then
you can make a lot of money. I don't think I can do that.
It's certainly not certainly not what I'm trying to do.
But yeah, I don't it's the the game is very difficult.
Even when you settle in a kind of a somewhat defined approach
and you start to find things that you think you can
understand and make that list a little bit longer to give
yourself some options, it's still very, very difficult.
I mean, it's where for some, for me, something like a Markel has
been and continues to be interesting is because if you
start from the premise of I trust the people who run this
company, I think they have the, you know, they have the ability
to do well over time. And obviously the insurance
business is a big part of of that point on Markel
specifically. But but then talking more
broadly about, OK, what's the breadth of capital allocation
decisions that we have in front of us as we wake up in any given
morning? I, I think that is a really
attractive position to be in relative to something where
you're really constrained in terms of what you can do then,
then you're kind of forced for one reason or another to kind of
just go down one Rd. But that still requires
obviously effective decision making, capital allocation,
etcetera. But.
How do you, well, I, I, I don't think you do, but how do you let
the game that you're playing factor into what you're writing
about? And, and I'm asking because the
newsletter business is seems to me to be as pro cyclical as the
actual asset management business.
I mean, and I one of the things that I really respect about you
is you're not out there writing about crypto projects right now
because you're not trying to get Subs for the wrong reasons.
But what's your philosophy on that?
I'd also have very very very little to write if I try to I.
Don't know, I think a lot of these people are just making
shit up anyway. Oh, OK, I could probably do that
then. OK, I'm good.
No, I think, you know, my philosophy from the jump has
been when I launched in April 2021, again, as I said like a
moment ago, a huge part of it was I, I'm not the best analyst
in the world. I try to do as well as I can at
this. I'm trying to be a good
investor. Obviously, I want to put up good
results over time. I have all my money behind the
portfolio that I show to people. But a big selling point was
transparency and a complete look at the investment philosophy and
the decision making in the thought process.
And everything I've tried to do from day one has been to support
that, that brand image, right, or that product image.
And that goes to pricing. It goes to the kind of companies
and the ideas that I talked about.
It goes to the nature of the investment philosophy
discussions and, you know, being comfortable with conclusions.
Like, listen, I don't Celsius is a prime example.
I just spoke about like getting to an of an article and being
like, I don't do something about this.
I'm still not ready to make a move.
And I don't have that perfectly defined as to why.
Here's kind of a couple thoughts on where it may be coming from.
But I don't know what the definitive answer is to this.
And that's not as compelling for a certain type of reader or
subscriber then, you know, being very specific and very
definitive. But that's OK.
I'm not particularly after those people.
And I think I've, you know, started to build, it takes time,
obviously, but I think I started to build 1 an audience, but also
to a, a reputation with the people that subscribe for, for
taking what I do very, very seriously and then trying to do
it to the best of my ability. So that, that gives me the
comfort to kind of just do that as best I can, right?
I've never been too overwhelmed by the idea of like, I'm going
to make a mistake or I'm going to do something wrong.
I mean, all I, I wrote about this many years ago, guru focus.
Like I, I'm pretty sure I'm not going to be the next Warren
Buffett. I'm also pretty sure I might not
get anywhere close to being the next Warren Buffett in terms of
this like investment ability. And I'm OK with that.
The one thing I do know that I'm in control of is how much effort
and time I put in and, you know, my continual efforts to try to,
to do better and to communicate to the people who support the
service about what that looks like.
So, you know, that's all I can realistically do.
And, and I'm kind of happy with, you know, where that's led me so
far. That's that I do not like, do
not like reading the things I've I've written previously at times
because especially if you go back like 5-10 years because
they're not very good. But I guess that's a good thing,
right? Yeah, Well, I don't know.
I always liked what you wrote, but I feel the same way.
I have the time. I'll listen to a podcast a week
later and I'll be like, cock, I was an idiot there.
But whatever. It's part of putting yourself
out there. It's impossible.
It's impossible to. Well, it's not impossible.
If you're not growing at all and you're not critical of yourself,
then you won't cringe a little at what you did.
But I mean, whatever. That's.
Yeah, I mean, the other, the other kicker on it all is being,
you know, we've talked about this before in other contexts
too. I think it's important is it's
important for a job or anywhere else too, in terms of going into
negotiations with a employer is, you know, I also have a sense
for the time and effort I put in and, and the value that I think
I add. And when I do that, when I put
in a lot of time and effort, I, I'm not afraid to then ask what
I think is a reasonable, you know, a request from the person
who's then consuming a product or subscribing to a service in
terms of what the value is there.
And I, you know, I can bookmark it to some extent in terms of,
you know, alternative offerings or different approaches that
people take to do some of these things.
And I think there's a lot to be said for that too.
I mean, if you're really putting time and effort into something
and you're producing the best work that you're capable of, you
shouldn't be too shy about then going to people and saying, hey,
if you're really the. Right, audience for this thing
and you think I'm adding value, You know, there needs to be an
exchange there that makes sense for both parties.
So think that's that's a big thing as well in my opinion.
Right. Which isn't always easy to do.
Right, I you haven't heard that. I don't know when this is going
to drop, but but I have two podcasts in the hopper and they
discuss how I need to charge, that I need to charge, not how I
need to charge because you and I have talked about this enough.
But yeah, it's dude, it's hard to find.
And I and I admire what you built.
It's hard to find a product that you can.
I mean, I remember when you left your, your former life and you
were like, I'm going to make this work.
And it's, it's been awesome to see if it work.
You know, hopefully it works bigger and bigger because your
healthcare inflation is not going away and nor is nor do
children get much cheaper. But it's been fun to watch, man.
Yeah, health insurance through an employer is a it's you don't
know what you have until you don't have it.
Yeah, don't it always seem to go you?
Don't want to do it yourself? It's not.
It's not too fun. No, it is not interesting.
Well, I I like the book man. Why are you giving 50% of the
proceeds away it? Was a weird thing where I felt
like, you know, I am writing this and as time went on as I as
I put introductions into the book and and did it some other
things like I included, for example, what one of my write
ups of science of hitting on national indemnity and how they
have they managed the the premiums volatility through the
period of I think it's the late 80s and through the 90s, which
really ties into one whatever discussions on on how to run the
insurance business basically. So I included some stuff like
that over time that made it a little bit more of kind of me
being the author, but I also really felt like, you know,
these are these are their words and obviously it did take they.
Did do at least half? It did take me a ton of work to
quote UN quote write it, but it were their words at the end of
the day. And I thought, you know, I, I'm
hugely appreciative for obviously they don't know who I
am, but I'm hugely appreciative for everything that Warren and
Charlie have done for decades to again, like, really get someone
like myself when I first started investing to put me in what I
think of as like the right frame of mind for how to approach this
business. And obviously that extends to,
to things beyond business as well that I've learned from
them. So I thought, you know, like, I,
I, I feel like this is probably the right thing to do.
And to the extent that, that it helps them with, with the
proving the book, that'd be great too.
I don't know if I knew it at the time, but the economics of a
book as well, or might be an industry to look into at some
point to understand what the heck is going on.
I don't know if there's too many people out there who who ended
up retiring because they wrote a book.
So yeah, giving away 50% is is OK.
I felt like the right thing to do.
Yeah, well, like I said, they wrote half.
Have you ever corresponded with the buff dog?
I have corresponded with Debbie again.
Thank you to Adam Mead for kind of helping me think about how to
do this. So as of this point, this is
December 9th. I still have not touched a copy
of the book there. There are some.
There. Are some on the way and when
they arrive I will be sending the first copy with a, with a
note to my friend Warren. For people who are watching on
video. If you look over my I guess it's
my, my left shoulder, right shoulder on your view, you'll
see a little picture on the wall and note.
I, I'm not a big physical possessions kind of person, but
that note is from, from Warren and I believe it was October of
2010 where I wrote him as I was graduating from college and
said, you know, I don't have any asks for you, but you've been
someone who has, you know, really been influential in my
life and in terms of where I'm trying to go in the, in the
years and decades ahead. So I just want to say thank you.
And he, he wrote back with that note.
So maybe I'll get another note when I sent him the book or I
don't know how I do. Your buddy, our buddy JT got a
phone call from Munger, right? Yeah, yeah, he did.
Well, yeah, he did I. Don't know if I could handle a
phone call. It's kind of like one of those
things like who is this? Who's pulling my chain?
This is not. Working well, I'll tell you what
you see an Omaha number you better pick up.
I, I will start. Let's not it's not.
Spam I. Never answer phone numbers who
call in. They're not starting it I.
Remember when I walked downstairs and I saw the return
address and it said, you know, it was like Berkshire's address?
And I was like, holy shit, it's crazy.
Now I don't know where my letter is.
Oh, come on. I I'm hopeful it's in a book
somewhere man. I somewhere in the three moves
it got displaced and misplaced and that sucks.
It was always on my desk, but alas, I should have had it
framed and hung. Mine's frame.
Ever. Mine's getting harder and harder
to read. The pen's starting to wear a
little bit, but Oh well. Yeah, well you should.
You should send them 2 copies of a book.
You should send you one back sign I.
That's a good idea. I will do that.
But you got Yeah. You know, I don't know, like I
We'll see. I'm going up there at the
meeting. I'm trying to try to get
involved with the, I believe it's called the bookworm, right?
Yeah, so you need to pop these downstairs.
Hell yeah, I'll help. Can I come help you hawk that
shit? Higher percent you're in.
My dad wants to go to bring this full of circles.
No, your dad's going to be eating the dilly bars, getting
them all over everything if you like.
You want some chocolate on your book?
Here you go. He'll just start signing them
for me. If if your dad gets if he gets
too close, I'll take him across the street to the bar.
There you go. Well, I'll, I'll both help you
Hock style. I used to sell stuff as a kid at
a flea market. I was pretty good at it.
So I can I know how to push product.
And then, yeah, that's a skill that I had and may still have.
And then if I have to divert your father, I can do that too.
I'll I'll be a dual role. Perfect all.
Right. Cool.
Well, we've got our May plan. I guess I have to book it.
Well, you've got to get into the bookworm first.
Yes, yes, need to get into the bookworm.
Yeah, I got to go this year. Assuming it's going on, I assume
it's going it will go on. Yes, fingers crossed.
Yeah. Well, yeah, that's right.
All right, man. Well, I hope you sell many
copies and I look forward to our continued conversations.
Thank you as always, big fan of the brew.
Oh well, thank you very much.