Invest Like The Best

I have a special request this week: share this episode with every curious person in your life.  The conversation, with a 26-year old investor named Ali Hamed, serves as an example of what’s possible when you think creatively.  Ali views the world with a fresh set of eyes, and has already become an expert at identifying new investment opportunities where others have not. As the second prodigy 26 year old in as many weeks on the podcast, these young guns are making me feel like an ancient 32 year old.  We talk a lot about “alpha” in our world, earning returns better than the market. But the key word in that last sentence isn’t alpha, it’s earning. Hopefully you, like me, will use this conversation as a reminder of what it takes to earn differentiated returns. It’s not just the hard work, but also the mindset. We explore many examples of how to create new investment opportunities, from rolling up Instagram accounts, to financing perishable fruit like watermelons, to heavy machinery software.  Please enjoy th

My guest this week is Sheel Tyle, who at just 26 years old has already had a successful career in venture capital. His most recent stint was as the co-head of the seed investing business at NEA, the largest venture capital firm in the world, where Sheel was also a partner. Now, Sheel has set off on his own, setting up his own firm called Amplo and having recently raised a $100M venture fund where he is the sole general partner. He aims to invest with young, mission driven entrepreneurs with a global focus. As you can tell from this resume, which also includes a degree from Stanford and a law degree from Harvard, this is one ambitious guy.  There are several aspects of this conversation that will really stick with me, specifically his points on networking and the smartest decision that he’s seen entrepreneurs make. I also loved our discussion of some of the same trends we explored last week with Chris Dixon—topics like drones, automated cars, and blockchain, where Sheel often has a different take than the con

My guest this week is Chris Dixon, who has written some of my favorite essays on technology and venture investing. Chris is a prolific investor and thinker, having been an entrepreneur, angel investor, and now partner at the well-known venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz. Our conversation focuses on major trends in technology, including cryptocurrencies and the future of autonomous vehicles and drones. Chris has a rule of thumb for technology trends: find out what smart people are working on during the weekend, and you’ll know what other will be doing years in the future. After surveying his old essays, it’s clear you use Chris’s writings as a similar litmus test. Hash Power is presented by Fidelity Investments Please enjoy this great conversation with Chris Dixon on the future of tech. For more episodes go to InvestorFieldGuide.com/podcast. Sign up for the book club, where you’ll get a full investor curriculum and then 3-4 suggestions every month at InvestorFieldGuide.com/bookclub. Follow Patrick on Twi

So far I’ve spent no time in the podcast discussing real estate, so I was excited to get the chance to talk to the team at Sorin Capital, a billion dollar hedge fund which specializes in commercial real estate, REITs, and commercial mortgage backed securities. Sorin is lead by Jim Higgins, who founded the firm, and Tom Digan, who coincidentally was a college classmate of mine at Notre Dame. You’ve probably heard me joke that this podcast should be called “This is who you are up against,” and this episode is a good example. I always enjoy exploring a niche part of the market, and this conversation on real estate is a perfect example of the type of work that firms do on behalf of their clients. Please enjoy my conversation with the team from Sorin Capital. Show Notes 2:43 - (First Question) –Outline the Real Estate Investment Trust world and what the assets and total value look like 6:10 – What does the profile of investors in the space look like compared to investors in the broader debt markets 9:43 – What ar

My guest this week is Franklin Foer, the author the recently published book “World Without Mind.” The topic of our conversation is one that I’ve been thinking through often this past year: the impact that large technology companies have on our minds and behavior. This conversation is only indirectly related to markets, but given that the companies we discuss are now several of the largest by market cap in the global stock market, what happens to them likely impacts all of our portfolios whether we own them or not. Given that these companies compete for our attention and dollars, they also affect our businesses. As an example, My friend Brent Beshore and his team at Adventures wrote a long and incredibly thoughtful piece on how they think about Amazon as a force in the market, and how they plan on navigating around such a fierce competitor. Franklin’s book, especially the early history, is very thought-provoking, so it was no surprise that our conversation was too. Please enjoy our talk on the tech giants.

My guest this week is Adam Ludwin, the founder and CEO of Chain, a blockchain technology company targeted at large enterprises. Before shifting his career to focus solely on crypto, Adam was a venture capitalist focused on FinTech, which is how he came across the Bitcoin whitepaper earlier than most. I called this episode “a Sober View on Crypto” because Adam’s take is so balanced. He is certainly long crypto, both in his portfolio and career, but he is very skeptical of much of what is happening in the ecosystem today. For example, he offers the best reason I’ve heard for not launching an ICO or investing in them.  If you haven’t read Adam’s widely shared open letter to Jamie Dimon, it has become a must-read piece for crypto-enthusiasts. Read it as soon as you can. I edited out an earlier chunk of our conversation as it was largely introductory. If you need a broader introduction to cryptocurrencies, I suggest starting with episode one of Hash Power and working your way forward. One key insight from Adam i

My guest today is Joanne Wilson, a New York City based angel investor, writer, podcaster, trend spotter, and self-described “woman around town.” Joanne has had a multifaceted and winding career, and began angel investing a decade ago when she put money into NYC-based media company Curbed media which we discuss in detail. Since then, she’s invested in more than 90 companies and been pitched by countless more. She is an instantly likeable person, you can literally tell in 10 seconds you are going to have a great conversation, so it’s no surprise that part of what makes her unique among angels is a very close relationship with many of the founders she backs. We cover a lot of ground. We talk about the personality traits of entrepreneurs, Joanne’s evolving investment style, her focus on female founders, fashion, business models, restaurants and a lot more. Please my conversation with the Gotham Gal, Joanne Wilson.   For more episodes go to InvestorFieldGuide.com/podcast. To get involved with Project Frontier,

This week’s conversation is an ode to old school, fundamental public market investing. My conversation is with IMC’s Connor Leonard, who spends most waking hours thinking and reading about markets. His mandate is to invest purely as if it was his own money, with no pressure to hug a benchmark, and no pressure to do much of anything other than earn strong long-term returns. The portfolio that results from this approach is highly concentrated and unique. Connor’s strategy is to sort companies into four categories based on their type of sustainable competitive advantage. As you’ll hear, the vast majority fall into the first category, which means they don’t have such an advantage and therefore should be largely set aside. We spend the majority of our conversation talking about the other three categories: 1) companies with a legacy moat, 2) companies with a re-investment moat, and 3) an interesting category Connor calls “capital light compounders,” which we explore in detail. When you step back and think about

My guest this week is unique. As you will hear early and often, he is programmed to go his own way, to, as he says, go one way when everyone else is going another. His name is Dhani Jones, a name I knew as a Notre Dame football fan, because he won a championship with our arch-rivals, the University of Michigan, in the late 90’s. Dhani went on to a long and successful career in the NFL, but even more interesting has been his many pursuits in business and investing outside of football. Like my conversation with Tim Urban, I’ll remember this conversation as a reminder to use a first principles mindset. Dhani seems to have this fresh mindset baked into his character, and as you’ll hear this has led to many a great adventure. Please enjoy my conversation with athlete, businessman, investor, philanthropist, movie buff, and bowtie wearer, Dhani Jones.                                                For more episodes go to InvestorFieldGuide.com/podcast. To get involved with Project Frontier, head to InvestorField

This episode is a continuation of the Hash Power series. It is the first of what we will call a Hash Power single—a series of conversations each with a single guest on a specific topic. In this case my guest is Chris Burniske, and the topic is cryptoasset valuation. This conversation is loaded with information, I think you are going to love it. Chris recently released book called Cryptoassets, which is a must read for those interested in this field. Chris was at one point the only tradintional buy side analyst covering bitcoin, and is now a partner at a new crypto firm called Placeholder. Chris has developed new frameworks for evaluating and valuing cryptocurrencies, marrying techniques and ways of thinking for several different asset classes to assess the newest asset class. Chris prefers the term cryptoassets because as you’ll hear, several of these tokens aren’t really currencies at all. We discuss the differences between cryptocurrencies, cryptocommodities, and cryptotokens. We begin our conversation wit

My guest this week is Brad Katsuyama, the founder of the IEX exchange and protagonist of Michael Lewis’s famous book Flash Boys, which chronicled the role of high frequency trading in markets. This conversation was yet another reminder of how complicated markets can be, and that very few participants know all aspects of the process well. Brad and I get deep into the history behind his company, and the ways in which markets and exchanges have evolved, better or worse.  One of my favorite parts of this conversation was our exploration of entrepreneurship. Brad’s whole story is one that entrepreneurs will appreciate, and is full of lessons for those aspiring to start their own business. Please enjoy my conversation with Brad Katsuyama   For more episodes go to InvestorFieldGuide.com/podcast. To get involved with Project Frontier, head to InvestorFieldGuide.com/frontier. Sign up for the book club, where you’ll get a full investor curriculum and then 3-4 suggestions every month at InvestorFieldGuide.com/boo

This week’s episode is part of an experiment and so requires a longer than normal introduction. I’ve come to view this podcast as a learning tool, a means to understand a new topic in a short window of time. One of those areas is venture capital and startups—an area that one year ago was completely foreign to me. I think the best way to learn is aggressive immersion in a topic along with some consequences, what we often call some skin in the game. Accordingly, this is a conversation with the founder of a startup in which I am an investor. The founder is Brett Maloley and his company is called Ladder. Ladder represents an overlap of many topics we’ve explore together over the last year. We’ve talked about venture capital, health and wellbeing, the difficultly of fundraising and power law outcomes in startups. We also spent an entire episode, with Alex Moazed, talking about the business model that Ladder is pursing: what Alex calls platform business model and what my favorite technology writer Ben Thompson call

This week’s conversation is about artificial intelligence and interplanetary travel. Its about content creation, thinking from first principles, and death progress units. Its about brain machine interfaces and why it is crucial that you be a chef and not a cook.  My guest is Tim Urban, along with his business partner Andrew Finn. Tim is the most entertaining writer I’ve come across in years, who explains complicated and interesting topics to his millions of dedicated readers on the website “Wait, But Why.” As an example, Tim’s last post on Elon Musk’s neurlink venture is 40,000 words long, roughly the length of a short book. It explains almost all of human progress and our potential future using drawings and cartoons. Its impossible to stop reading. While this conversation is wildly entertaining, it is also chock full of metaphors and lessons that will be useful to anyone doing creative work or building a company. I hope this leaves you as energized as it left me. I called this episode Grand Theft Life beca

In episodes one and two of Hash Power, we explored blockchain technology and cryptocurrency investing. In this episode, we discuss the current and potential future states of the crypto world. We cover new forms of cooperation, regulation, security and storage, and why blockchains allow systems to evolve at such a rapid pace.  Be sure to listen until the end, where we close with some advice about conducting ourselves in a new world where creativity reigns and repetitive jobs disappear—a trend that may only accelerate thanks to blockchain technology and cryptocurrencies. Hash Power is presented by Fidelity Investments   For comprehensive show notes on this episode go to http://investorfieldguide.com/hashpower For more episodes go to InvestorFieldGuide.com/podcast. To get involved with Project Frontier, head to InvestorFieldGuide.com/frontier. Sign up for the book club, where you’ll get a full investor curriculum and then 3-4 suggestions every month at InvestorFieldGuide.com/bookclub. Follow Patrick on T

In episode 1 of Hash Power, we explored blockchains as a technology—how they work, why tokens (also known as cryptocurrencies) are an integral part of any blockchain, and how these new networks might change the world. In episode two, we spend time with the leading investors in the field. Like any frenzied asset class, there are countless cryptocurrency hedge funds popping up everywhere. But founders from three of the original firms—Polychain, Metastable, and Blocktower Capital—are our primary guides this week. As I speak, the total market cap of cryptocurrencies is $136B. There are hundreds of tokens currently available, but bitcoin and Ethereum represent 75% of the total market cap. $136B sounds like a big number, but its tiny relative to any other asset class—and I use that term with hesitation. To put it in perspective, that’s exactly the same size as the market cap of IBM. But IBM had more than $10B of earnings in 2016. Tokens have none. As you will hear, valuing tokens is a very hard exercise. In such a

Welcome to the first episode of Hash Power, an audio documentary that explores the world of blockchain and cryptocurrencies with leaders in the field like Naval Ravikant, Olaf Carlson-Wee, Fred Ehrsam, & Ari Paul. Hash Power is meant to be an introduction, but really, it is an invitation to explore this emerging world on your own.  In the coming weeks, we will cover the technology, the power of decentralization, bitcoin, Ethereum, ICOs, cryptography and hashing. We will spend time with the leading active hedge fund managers in the field, and with outside investors who are both optimistic and skeptical. Episode one covers the big picture, and answers the question: what is blockchain and why might it significantly affect our world? If you enjoy what follows, you’ll still be very early in understanding this field. Most don’t. So help me spread it like wildfire, because the more people that understand blockchain, the better its impact might become. Please enjoy episode one, and stay tuned next week for episode 2,

My guest this week is David Tisch, who was instrumental in building and fostering venture capital investing in New York City. If you liked my conversation with Jerry Neumann--who, incidentally, introduced me to David--you are going to love this one.  David was a co-founder at tech stars, New York's answer to Silicon Valley’s famous tech incubator Y Combinator. He now runs the Box Group, a prominent seed stage venture capital firm, which has looked at thousands of startups and invested in more than 200.  We explore tech investing outside of Silicon Valley, the tech accelerator model, the evolution of early stage investing, and why the best companies may start coming out of non-traditional venture hubs.  David does a great job of explaining how things have changed for technology startups and why certain strategies--especially those for acquiring customers--won't work nearly as well in the future.  I learned a lot during this hour, and I think you will too. Please enjoy.    For comprehensive show notes on

The investment strategy discussed in this week's episode is diametrically opposed to my own value tendencies, but it still one that has done exceptionally well.   My guest is David Gardner, co-founder of the Motley Fool. He is unique in that he is both a pure investor--a true stock junkie--and an entrepreneur. His energy is remarkable. His positive vibes are something to behold. You'll hear it over audio, but it's ever more palpable in person.  Our conversation is about finding companies which are breaking rules in the right way and reshaping industries. David's goal is to find these companies early in and hold them forever.  If you love investing, you are going to love this regardless of your prior beliefs. Please enjoy my conversation with David Gardner on rule breakers. For comprehensive show notes on this episode go to http://investorfieldguide.com/gardner For more episodes go to InvestorFieldGuide.com/podcast. To get involved with Project Frontier, head to InvestorFieldGuide.com/frontier. Sign up for the

My guest this week is Meb Faber, who started a podcast similar to this one right before mine and was a big reason I was open to the idea in the first place. Meb is a quantitative researcher whose firm Cambria has been behind many interesting investment strategies that break the Wall Street mold. We talk investing factors, dividends, angel investing, podcasts and more. This was a fun catch up with a close friend in the industry who has been in a leader in using data to explore the best active strategies in a variety of asset classes. Please enjoy our conversation, which begins with a factor draft.   For comprehensive show notes on this episode go to http://investorfieldguide.com/meb For more episodes go to InvestorFieldGuide.com/podcast. To get involved with Project Frontier, head to InvestorFieldGuide.com/frontier. Sign up for the book club, where you’ll get a full investor curriculum and then 3-4 suggestions every month at InvestorFieldGuide.com/bookclub. Follow Patrick on Twitter at @patrick_oshag  

My guests this week don't need to be introduced. In celebration of the one year anniversary of invest like the best, I asked Josh Brown, Mike Batnick, and Barry Ritholtz to join me for a hour, during which I spent more time laughing than asking questions. I chose this team because they are the pioneers of mold breaking honesty and personality in our industry. They all figured out that just being themselves yields incredible results. This is a strategy that everyone should try, but very few do. Honesty and transparency require vulnerability, which is hard for most of us. I still struggle with it. But the evidence is in. The Ritholtz team has grown as fast as almost any RIA. Listen to this and tell me you wouldn't want to spend your career working with people this friendly, funny and open. Hell, I want to give them some money just so I have an excuse to drop by more often.  Thanks to everyone who has listened in the past year. We are past 1.25mm listens, and growing fast. You own this thing as much as I do, b