This Week I Learned #93
“Go to bed smarter than when you woke up”
2020-03-09
“I’m not a further, faster person—the further, faster I go, the crazier I get. The slower, closer I am to my real life, and grocery shopping, and unloading the dishwasher, and loving on people, the better I am. I’m a slower, closer person.” – Brené Brown; An evolution from her old mindset of scaling her business ASAP to now focusing on the quality… Many around me have advocated that I will not succeed without taking on the further/faster approach. But many people I admire have embraced the slower/closer approach. Some can argue that they can do that because they are already successful but I do not believe I can’t achieve my own version of success by going down the slower/closer approach earlier in life.
2020-03-10
An examination on Mastercard’s intrinsic value on The Investor’s Podcast. It’s by no means an extensively detailed view but I felt it covered many important facets of the business. Solid overview of an asset-light compounder. A business that requires minimal reinvestment to grow the operation. It is also a valuable look into network effects and how the payment industry is set up and how new entrants have chosen to build on top of the MasterCard network instead of disrupt it because of how difficult it is to displace the network that MasterCard and Visa already have. There is also the specific view on how MasterCard seems to have taken a directed approach to investing in relationships with new technology companies and opportunities in Africa and other emerging markets.
2020-03-11
Learnings on Askeladden Capital’s Samir Patel’s story on the Focused Compounding podcast. A fascinating story of a 25 year old who started his own public equity fund that focuses on a concentrated, micro/small-cap, value-oriented investment style. It now has AUM of $50M. The interesting and inspiring part resides on Samir’s story as a home-schooled kid who questioned conventional wisdom early and graduated university with a MBA by the time he was 21…. Worked for a hedge fund while in school and started a fund catered on his own definition of success and the type of life he wanted to live. It’s inspired me to get more creative with my own ventures and has served as an inspiration.
2020-03-12
Generation Wealth documentary on Amazon Prime Video. An excellent documentary that explores 25 years of wealth through the eyes of various people from hedge fund managers, porn star, teenage rapper, strip club owner, VIP hostess in Vegas and teen/child stars and more people tied into the world of wealth. Awesome perspective into the world of excess and the fundamental mental model of those who seek short term wins… those who want it now in the fastest way and believe money is the answer… and how it turns out for them and how such a mistake allows them to awaken to what actually matters. Like all things in life.. you need to experience it before you realize what truth is.
2020-03-13
Re-listened to Mohnish Pabrai’s early podcast interview on The Investor’s Podcast. This is the 3rd time I’m listening to this interview and I still came away from it with valuable learnings. Didn't know that Mohnish had a big mistake of investing $4M in startups ($2.2M being his own money) in 1999 with the belief that he would be able to ride the trend up. This was prior to starting his currently successful Pabrai Funds and this experience was very painful but taught him so much as an investor. He also spoke about his $100< mistake with Horsehead Holdings. The company went bankrupt and this was a company I had invested in as well. This was a business that followed the similar Ben Graham pattern of deep value investments and I think this experience probably contributed to his thesis evolving into investing in growing pies instead of filling up pies that don't grow (i.e. Phil Fisher’s Growth+Quality+Moat vs. Graham’s Net-Net).
https://www.theinvestorspodcast.com/episodes/tip121-pabrai-funds/