My guest this week is Carl Kawaja. It’s the second time I’ve had Carl on the show and my first conversation with him is one I go back to often. Carl is a portfolio manager at Capital Group, where he’s quietly overseen a huge portfolio for decades. He is one of the top investors operating today as well as one of my favorite people. The investing world has changed quite a bit since Carl and I first spoke in mid-2021 so this was a great chance to use Carl’s curious mind and wide range of experiences to discuss the regime change taking place across capital markets. In true Kawaja fashion, we go all over the map and discuss Apple, the Amazonian rainforest, baseball, the oil & gas industry, Muhammad Ali, and more. Please enjoy my great discussion with Carl Kawaja.
For the full show notes, transcript, and links to mentioned content, check out the episode page here.
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This episode is brought to you by Tegus, the modern research platform for leading investors. I’m a longtime user and advocate of Tegus, a company that I’ve been so consistently impressed with that last fall my firm, Positive Sum, invested $20M to support Tegus’ mission to expand its product ecosystem. Whether it's quantitative analysis, company disclosures, management presentations, earnings calls - Tegus has tools for every step of your investment research. They even have over 4000 fully driveable financial models. Tegus’ maniacal focus on quality, as well as its depth, breadth and recency of content makes it the one-stop, end-to-end research platform for investors. Move faster, gather deep research to build conviction and surface high-quality, alpha-driving insights to find your differentiated edge with Tegus. As a listener, you can take the Tegus platform for a free test drive by visiting tegus.co/patrick.
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Invest Like the Best is a property of Colossus, LLC. For more episodes of Invest Like the Best, visit joincolossus.com/episodes.
Past guests include Tobi Lutke, Kevin Systrom, Mike Krieger, John Collison, Kat Cole, Marc Andreessen, Matthew Ball, Bill Gurley, Anu Hariharan, Ben Thompson, and many more.
Stay up to date on all our podcasts by signing up to Colossus Weekly, our quick dive every Sunday highlighting the top business and investing concepts from our podcasts and the best of what we read that week. Sign up here.
Follow us on Twitter: @patrick_oshag | @JoinColossus
Show Notes
[00:02:44] - [First question] - What the market feels like to him today
[00:06:00] - The pros and cons of the cost of capital and experimentation
[00:09:09] - Things we can learn from Oil & Gas stocks and resource commodities in general
[00:14:38] - Pulling apart the key lessons from Berkshire’s purchases of IBM and Apple
[00:20:37] - The practical implications of wanting to land more soft-wins in investing that aren’t apparent out of the gate
[00:25:52] - How he approaches and considers products and product cycles writ large
[00:31:10] - The Systems Bible
[00:33:15] - Thoughts about making money from value based strategies
[00:38:31] - His methodology to go about finding the next diamond in the rough
[00:42:48] - A New Innings
[00:45:13] - The Arc of Boxing; Lessons from Muhammad Ali fighting Cleveland Williams
[00:48:54] - Someone he thinks is an exemplar in both business and the world
[00:54:37] - Don’t Sleep There Are Snakes
[00:59:41] - The role fossil fuels play in the energy transition and the current regime change
[01:07:35] - What we can learn from uncontroversial transitions in the past
My guest this week is Daryl Morey, who is President of basketball operations for the Philadelphia 76ers. Daryl is a computer science graduate but has become one of the NBA’s most successful General Managers during his time with the Houston Rockets and the 76ers. Together with my friend and past guest of the show, Sam Hinkie, Daryl pioneered the analytics movement in basketball. He’s been so influential his style has its own name, “Moreyball”, a nod to Michael Lewis’s book about baseball, Moneyball. Daryl is also the co-founder of the MIT Sloan Sports Analytics Conference, which has become the gold standard forum for leaders in sports analytics. I had a blast talking to him about negotiation tactics, systems thinking, hiring, and a ton more. Please enjoy this great conversation with Daryl Morey.
Founders Episode #136 A Success Story: Estee Lauder
Invest Like the Best with David Senra: Passion & Pain
For the full show notes, transcript, and links to mentioned content, check out the episode page here.
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This episode is brought to you by Tegus. Tegus streamlines the investment research process so you can get up to speed and find answers to critical questions on companies faster and more efficiently. The Tegus platform surfaces the hard-to-get qualitative insights, gives instant access to critical public financial data through BamSEC, and helps you set up customized expert calls. It’s all done on a single, modern SaaS platform that offers 360-degree insight into any public or private company. I’ve been so impressed by the platform that my firm, Positive Sum, recently made an investment in Tegus. We did so because we feel that Tegus will be the gold standard platform for investing research for decades to come. As a listener, you can take Tegus for a free test drive by visiting tegus.co/patrick.
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Invest Like the Best is a property of Colossus, LLC. For more episodes of Invest Like the Best, visit joincolossus.com/episodes.
Past guests include Tobi Lutke, Kevin Systrom, Mike Krieger, John Collison, Kat Cole, Marc Andreessen, Matthew Ball, Bill Gurley, Anu Hariharan, Ben Thompson, and many more.
Stay up to date on all our podcasts by signing up to Colossus Weekly, our quick dive every Sunday highlighting the top business and investing concepts from our podcasts and the best of what we read that week. Sign up here.
Follow us on Twitter: @patrick_oshag | @JoinColossus
Show Notes
[00:03:15] - [First question] - The basic principles of sports and what makes for a great sport
[00:09:54] - How resource concentration influences outcomes in various sports
[00:13:13] - The degree of certainty in predicting sports outcomes based on existing data
[00:16:32] - Using the concept of KPIs to optimize for certain characteristics to win games
[00:18:45] - Training teams on specific systems and plays versus leveraging individual talent
[00:21:07] - Why superstar athletes are key to success in basketball
[00:24:02] - Dealing with constant expected value calculations to appease stakeholders
[00:25:30] - Building the organization’s back office to find talented athletes
[00:28:32] - How he and other GMs make organization-level decisions
[00:34:12] - Why he’s involved with basketball as opposed to other sports
[00:36:17] - How he uses his frameworks to figure out systems outside of mainstream sports
[00:37:41] - Problems with the rules and economic factors of professional soccer
[00:41:53] - Suggestions to mitigate huge point spreads that make viewers disinterested
[00:42:54] - Trends he’s observed in the worlds of music, movies, and books
[00:45:33] - His perspective on developing one’s own career path
[00:48:22] - How challenges in his youth benefited him in the long run
[00:49:28] - The person he would call for advice if he was stuck in a foreign prison
[00:51:01] - His emphasis on first principles and why he supports free speech
[00:52:31] - Takeaways from a Harvard negotiation class he took
[00:57:07] - The power of refining the terms and definitions of a deal post-negotiation
[00:58:51] - The four people in the world that intrigue him most
[01:01:40] - The kindest thing anyone has ever done for him
My guest today is Miles Grimshaw. Miles is in his early thirties and is a General Partner at Benchmark. His experience and success belie his age. He was an early investor in Segment, Benchling, and Airtable, all before they had 30 employees. I have learned a ton from Miles about software investing and that’s why I was excited to have him on the show. We discuss his biological approach to investing, whether pure API companies can be good businesses, and what most has his attention right now. Please enjoy this conversation with Miles Grimshaw.
Founders Episode #136 A Success Story: Estee Lauder
Invest Like the Best with David Senra: Passion & Pain
For the full show notes, transcript, and links to mentioned content, check out the episode page here.
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This episode is brought to you by Tegus. Tegus streamlines the investment research process so you can get up to speed and find answers to critical questions on companies faster and more efficiently. The Tegus platform surfaces the hard-to-get qualitative insights, gives instant access to critical public financial data through BamSEC, and helps you set up customized expert calls. It’s all done on a single, modern Saas platform that offers 360-degree insight into any public or private company. I’ve been so impressed by the platform that my firm, Positive Sum, recently made an investment in Tegus. We did so because we feel that Tegus will be the gold standard platform for investing research for decades to come. As a listener, you can take Tegus for a free test drive by visiting tegus.co/patrick.
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Invest Like the Best is a property of Colossus, LLC. For more episodes of Invest Like the Best, visit joincolossus.com/episodes.
Past guests include Tobi Lutke, Kevin Systrom, Mike Krieger, John Collison, Kat Cole, Marc Andreessen, Matthew Ball, Bill Gurley, Anu Hariharan, Ben Thompson, and many more.
Stay up to date on all our podcasts by signing up to Colossus Weekly, our quick dive every Sunday highlighting the top business and investing concepts from our podcasts and the best of what we read that week. Sign up here.
Follow us on Twitter: @patrick_oshag | @JoinColossus
Show Notes
[00:02:57] - [First question] - His notion of the investor as a biologist or a physicist
[00:05:24] - Why he seeks out new companies with unique business models
[00:07:53] - How his investments are based on present and future needs in the market
[00:11:55] - Evaluating the genetics of a nascent or small company
[00:13:38] - The half-life of information as it flows through a company or platform
[00:17:26] - Unpacking how software companies can survive re-evaluation periods
[00:21:03] - The power of environment creation and facilitation
[00:25:10] - The importance of user conferences
[00:25:45] - A company’s potential for a differentiated second act as a sign of good genes
[00:30:21] - Product quality, timing, and reinvention in tech startups
[00:33:10] - Why it’s crucial for companies to avoid copying their heroes
[00:37:41] - Breaking down market perspective on pure API companies
[00:41:29] - His views on software targeted to vertical versus horizontal markets
[00:44:29] - Carefully leveraging relationships with core customers
[00:48:06] - Operational lessons from his experience with the companies he’s invested in
[00:50:26] - His maxim that software development is as much an art as a science
[00:51:12] - His idea of a product magician in the software industry
[00:52:19] - Effects of new products and categories at the forefront of the space
[00:58:21] - How software founders should prepare for 2023
[01:01:41] - How both market structure and product shape the genetics of a business
[01:04:32] - The challenge of pricing and packaging for SaaS companies
[01:06:42] - Cardinal sins in software investing
[01:07:42] - The kindest thing anyone has ever done for him
My guest today is John Fiorentino. John is a product inventor and entrepreneur who, in the space of a few years, has bootstrapped four products; Gravity Blanket, Moon Pod, Moon Pals, and Birthdate Candles which have collectively sold hundreds of millions of dollars of revenue. Our conversation is quite different than normal. Alongside his successful brands, John has had a range of life experiences – from starting as a Jazz musician to working for Justin Bieber - that give him an original worldview. I was especially interested in his points around product positioning, creating magic for consumers, not letting yourself become the product, and how to build enduring brands. Please enjoy this great conversation with John Fiorentino.
For the full show notes, transcript, and links to mentioned content, check out the episode page here.
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This episode is brought to you by Tegus. Tegus streamlines the investment research process so you can get up to speed and find answers to critical questions on companies faster and more efficiently. The Tegus platform surfaces the hard-to-get qualitative insights, gives instant access to critical public financial data through BamSEC, and helps you set up customized expert calls. It’s all done on a single, modern SaaS platform that offers 360-degree insight into any public or private company. I’ve been so impressed by the platform that my firm, Positive Sum, recently made an investment in Tegus. We did so because we feel that Tegus will be the gold standard platform for investing research for decades to come. As a listener, you can take Tegus for a free test drive by visiting tegus.co/patrick.
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Invest Like the Best is a property of Colossus, LLC. For more episodes of Invest Like the Best, visit joincolossus.com/episodes.
Past guests include Tobi Lutke, Kevin Systrom, Mike Krieger, John Collison, Kat Cole, Marc Andreessen, Matthew Ball, Bill Gurley, Anu Hariharan, Ben Thompson, and many more.
Stay up to date on all our podcasts by signing up to Colossus Weekly, our quick dive every Sunday highlighting the top business and investing concepts from our podcasts and the best of what we read that week. Sign up here.
Follow us on Twitter: @patrick_oshag | @JoinColossus
Show Notes
[00:02:25] - [First question] - The amazing story behind Gravity Blanket
[00:08:51] - What he’s learned about positioning relative to product
[00:13:17] - How fundamental truths drive creativity in commerce
[00:16:17] - Real-world examples of magic as he defines it
[00:19:50] - The investability of consumer businesses from his perspective
[00:25:25] - His contrarian thoughts on venture-backed startups
[00:28:00] - How unique personalities create compelling IP and monetize it
[00:38:28] - The fine line between creative power and self-destruction for brand founders
[00:45:13] - The importance of consumer business goals being larger than oneself
[00:48:45] - The story of the Moon Pals weighted stuffed animals
[00:53:15] - How investors undervalue IP and mythology
[00:57:20] - Leveraging uniqueness as a founder to boost your brand power
[01:00:53] - His eye-opening experience working on Justin Bieber’s team
[01:05:20] - How he identifies potential magic-makers and enables them
[01:09:16] - An odd commonality between high-level successful people
[01:12:14] - Whether or not one could map out their own archetype framework
[01:15:23] - The dangers of focusing on one’s own persona and image as the product
[01:18:19] - The kindest thing anyone has ever done for him
My guest today is Amjad Masad. Amjad is the founder and CEO of Replit, whose mission is to bring the next billion software creators online. Replit has built a browser-based coding environment that makes coding more fun, collaborative, and approachable. We discuss how that is possible and why the way most of us interact with computers today is suboptimal. We then go into the effects of AI on software creation and its broader impacts on technology. Please enjoy my conversation with Amjad Masad.
For the full show notes, transcript, and links to mentioned content, check out the episode page here.
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This episode is brought to you by Tegus. Tegus streamlines the investment research process so you can get up to speed and find answers to critical questions on companies faster and more efficiently. The Tegus platform surfaces the hard-to-get qualitative insights, gives instant access to critical public financial data through BamSEC, and helps you set up customized expert calls. It’s all done on a single, modern SaaS platform that offers 360-degree insight into any public or private company. I’ve been so impressed by the platform that my firm, Positive Sum, recently made an investment in Tegus. We did so because we feel that Tegus will be the gold standard platform for investing research for decades to come. As a listener, you can take Tegus for a free test drive by visiting tegus.co/patrick.
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Invest Like the Best is a property of Colossus, LLC. For more episodes of Invest Like the Best, visit joincolossus.com/episodes.
Past guests include Tobi Lutke, Kevin Systrom, Mike Krieger, John Collison, Kat Cole, Marc Andreessen, Matthew Ball, Bill Gurley, Anu Hariharan, Ben Thompson, and many more.
Stay up to date on all our podcasts by signing up to Colossus Weekly, our quick dive every Sunday highlighting the top business and investing concepts from our podcasts and the best of what we read that week. Sign up here.
Follow us on Twitter: @patrick_oshag | @JoinColossus
Show Notes
[00:02:18] - [First question] - The Steve Jobs black-pill
[00:06:02] - Speculation on the near future of programming
[00:09:38] - Potential convergence of simple software and coding tools
[00:11:23] - What an IDE is and how it works
[00:12:44] - The definition of REPL and the role of Replit in the space
[00:14:21] - Decreasing friction in a programming environment using primitives
[00:19:47] - Real-world effects of Replit’s low-friction design
[00:23:27] - His perspective on new coding and AI technologies
[00:30:29] - Promises and limitations of the user-friendly programming movement
[00:33:16] - The dynamic nature of IDE technology and its challenges
[00:39:53] - How he’s priming his team to react to new technologies like the upcoming GPT-4
[00:43:58] - Recommended skills and training for the AI world of the future
[00:47:21] - The impact of IDE and AI tech innovations on existing tech giants
[00:51:56] - His mixed but optimistic views on the trajectory of AI
[00:54:40] - Recommendations for the curious listener without a programming background
[00:56:50] - The role of smartphones in the IDE movement
[00:58:28] - The kindest thing anyone has ever done for him