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Jake Taylor Joins Us to Discuss Value Investing and the Importance of Journaling

Jake Taylor Joins Us to Discuss Value Investing and the Importance of Journaling

Released Monday, 3rd October 2022
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Jake Taylor Joins Us to Discuss Value Investing and the Importance of Journaling

Jake Taylor Joins Us to Discuss Value Investing and the Importance of Journaling

Jake Taylor Joins Us to Discuss Value Investing and the Importance of Journaling

Jake Taylor Joins Us to Discuss Value Investing and the Importance of Journaling

Monday, 3rd October 2022
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1:41

Alright, folks. Welcome to investing

1:43

for beginners podcast. Today, we have a very

1:45

special guest with us joining us all the way from

1:47

California very early in the morning. We

1:49

have Jake Taylor is the CEO of

1:51

Fardom Street Investments. He is also

1:53

one of the cohosts of one of my favorite podcast

1:56

value after hours with Tobias Carlisle

1:58

and Bill Brewster. And, Jake, also

1:59

wrote one of my favorite books, The Rebelallocator.

2:02

Jake, thank

2:03

you very much for joining us today. We really appreciate

2:05

it. And I guess, could you kind of give a

2:07

brief synopsis? Like, how did you get into investing?

2:10

What started you down this path? Sure. Pleasure

2:12

being here. Thanks, gents, for having me on. my

2:14

background was I got an undergrad degree in

2:16

economics, and I graduated

2:18

in two thousand three. If you remember back then,

2:20

there actually were not that many jobs available

2:22

for people with no experience. which was

2:24

mean. And so I

2:26

happened to very fortunately get

2:28

this an operator and training program

2:31

at the California ISO and I they

2:33

taught me basically in a year an electrical

2:35

engineering degree and how to run the power

2:37

grid. So

2:38

I went through that program, got a job

2:40

running the power grid, and actually did that for

2:42

twelve years. But while I was

2:45

in working for the power grid, I

2:47

Not sure exactly what I wanna

2:49

do when I grow up even at that point, even though that was

2:51

a pretty good career. I went back to get my

2:53

MBA in a working professional program at

2:55

UC Davis. and so, like, nights and weekends.

2:58

And the first year that I was there at

3:00

Davis, I happened to win this lottery to go

3:02

back to Oman and have lunch with Warren Buffett. and

3:04

one of those, you know, like, where the classes come and

3:07

visit him. And, of course, it was amazing as you would expect.

3:09

I mean, he's so good. And when I

3:11

started digging in more about Buffet.

3:13

I learned that, wait, he's just trying

3:15

to find a deal on things. He just wants to

3:17

pay less than what something is worth. I felt

3:19

like I'd been doing that my whole life, you know, buying

3:21

something on Craigslist and then sell it on eBay

3:23

in an arbitrage and, you know, always

3:25

looking to find a deal never paying retail.

3:27

And when you take that concept and apply it

3:30

to the purchase and ownership of

3:32

publicly traded companies, you know, little slices

3:34

of a business They call it value investing,

3:36

and it made perfect sense to me. And so

3:38

I realized that that was what my calling

3:40

was. And so I started working towards

3:43

you know, starting Farnham Street investments. Actually,

3:45

with my boss at the time at the energy place,

3:47

my mentor, he was also really into Buffet,

3:49

and so we started a fun together And

3:51

but I did both for more than

3:54

five years both the and

3:56

working as a kind of a as a power system operator.

3:58

So And eventually, I was able to make

4:01

the transition to full time, like, my passion.

4:03

And and since then, I've just been trying to tinker

4:05

around with projects that I think are interesting and

4:07

kinda like keep me moving forward and making progress

4:09

and that included writing a book

4:11

and, you know, writing quarterly letters

4:13

and doing podcasts and and

4:16

lots of other projects. Yeah. That's

4:18

awesome. So you have definitely gone

4:20

a path that I would think that most people

4:22

probably have not followed. So, you know,

4:24

how did you feel about going from energy

4:27

to investing? Was that a hard

4:29

transition once you kinda stepped away from

4:31

that? You know, it is a little difficult in

4:33

that you don't know what you don't know if

4:35

you're just an outsider. You know, if if I'd

4:37

come up, you know, and I'd worked at Goldman Sachs

4:39

or something and then, like, I would had a much

4:41

better lay of the land probably, but then I

4:43

also on flip side would have probably

4:45

learned a lot of things that were maybe

4:47

led me into some blind alleys as well

4:49

and made you think like everyone else thinks.

4:52

So to actually I think it's in in the

4:54

end of the day, it's actually an advantage to be have

4:56

that outsider kind of mindset as long as you

4:58

kind of avoid some of those real obvious big

5:00

mistakes that are kind of easy to make if you are outsider.

5:02

So, I guess, let's talk about those. What

5:04

are some of the big obvious mistakes that

5:06

people could make? Well, I mean, if you're

5:08

trying to be in a professional, I'm almost thinking

5:10

more in the compliance realm, like,

5:12

you come in, you're just like, you don't know

5:14

that you're not allowed to say that or you're

5:16

not allowed to, you know, like,

5:18

things that you would've learned kind of on day one

5:21

at goldman or or even actually a

5:23

big part is getting clients is

5:25

hard if you didn't come from that sort of pedigree.

5:27

Mhmm. You know, if you're coming in from

5:29

an cider. And if you didn't grow up in a,

5:31

you know, kind of a silver spoon environment,

5:33

which I did not, it could be hard to stand up

5:35

a business that is, you know, that is

5:37

functional and has enough assets to

5:39

really, like, make a living from it. So yeah.

5:41

I mean, there's definitely you know, like I said, there's pluses and

5:43

minuses. Yeah. For sure. So

5:45

how long have you been running Farnham Street

5:47

now? Our first

5:49

fun launched in two thousand eight.

5:51

Okay. Nice time. a little while. Yeah.

5:53

Yeah. January January of two thousand

5:55

eight. I'm not even, you know, October. So,

5:58

yeah, we took the first, you know, that

6:00

year on the chain, like, pretty

6:02

much performed with the market down thirty

6:04

seven percent out of the gates. But

6:06

Yeah. I mean, if what the mindset was that we're gonna

6:08

be doing this for a long time. You know, it's it's

6:10

unfortunate, but you just

6:12

keep one foot in front of the other. And we had

6:14

some good years right after that as you would probably

6:16

expect, you know, and value had a pretty good

6:18

run there and especially, you know, two thousand

6:21

nine, ten, eleven ish. So It

6:23

was okay, but it definitely definitely

6:26

not an auspicious start. Yeah.

6:29

For sure. So I guess, kind of thinking

6:31

about that, you've kind of you've gone

6:33

through some different kinds of ups and lows

6:35

and cycles, if you will, of the market. So

6:37

has that affected kind of how you think

6:39

about your investment strategy or

6:41

the way that you look for companies and track

6:43

those kinds of things? Yeah. I would say

6:45

that, like, I think everyone every

6:47

investor is imprinted based

6:50

on whatever market environment they sort

6:52

of cut their teeth on. And so

6:54

if you happen to be, you know, come

6:56

of age in a a very bullish

6:58

time period, you're probably a

7:00

little bit more tuned

7:02

and turned up towards, you know,

7:04

right tail outcomes and, you know,

7:06

big investment results that you're looking for.

7:08

If you came up, you know, in the Great Depression,

7:11

you probably are wired for the downside

7:13

and thinking about and I don't know if it's

7:15

DNA related or if it's

7:17

actually sort of like survivorship bias that,

7:19

like, if you made it through that period, then, you

7:21

know, like, the the period kind of, like, winnowing

7:23

down, you know, who survives, and then,

7:25

therefore, that's the population that's left after

7:27

that time period. whatever the mechanism

7:29

is, I think that whatever you kind of

7:31

cut your teeth in, you tend to carry

7:33

that with you through your entire investment journey.

7:35

And so I am very much kind of a downside

7:38

protection minded guy.

7:40

And I think about, you know, what's the worst case

7:42

scenario? And I try to

7:44

optimize for that. And you

7:46

know, that mindset can serve you well at different

7:48

time periods, but it can hamstring you as well.

7:50

Like, you know, twenty fifteen to

7:52

twenty twenty, I would say, was

7:54

a very difficult time for someone who was thinking

7:57

about the downside because the downsides

7:59

did not really materialize that much. And a

8:01

lot of the upsides that came about

8:03

that would might have been a little bit

8:05

longer shots than you would have expected, but they

8:07

came true. And you're gonna look like an idiot if

8:09

you were worried about the downside and there's nothing

8:11

but, you know, upsides cashing in.

8:13

So Kelsey. So Yeah,

8:15

too. Is that mean banks are kind of

8:17

out of the equation here? Because

8:20

there was a lot of ugliness

8:23

with the banking sector during that two

8:25

thousand eight, two thousand nine period. I

8:27

actually owned a fair number of the banks in

8:29

two thousand eleven, twelve,

8:31

that thirteen through that time period. And

8:33

it was everything is always in

8:36

relation to price. So there's

8:38

ugly, but if the price is that much,

8:40

you know, more attractive, like it's that

8:42

beat up, then I can maybe get comfortable

8:44

with it. there's no assessment of risk where price

8:46

is not a huge component of that. So the

8:48

banks, I thought, got unduly cheap

8:50

then. We actually did okay in those. pretty

8:52

well. But there were at the time, if you remember

8:54

it was, like, the asset side of this

8:56

is such a question mark. And the liabilities are

8:58

very real always. Right? Where

9:00

are the holes in the balance sheet where this thing

9:02

could explode. And if you can get comfortable

9:05

with that, then, you know, how much are you paying for it?

9:07

And at the time, you know, it it was well

9:09

south of fifty cents on the dollar for a lot of

9:11

them. And we figured out that the assets were

9:13

even if there were some impairments, it wasn't

9:15

going to be half of the bank's balance

9:17

sheet was garbage. And, actually, if

9:19

if anything, the underwriting got really strong around

9:21

that time period because there had been so many problems

9:24

before, especially on, like, residential real

9:26

estate. So ironically, it was actually a

9:28

great time for them to because they had

9:30

actually tightened up so much from and

9:32

like Basel rules, we're also, you know,

9:34

pushing them into a lot more conservative

9:36

positioning. So Anyway, like, it was it

9:38

actually wasn't that hard of a trigger to pull at that time

9:40

based on the price. So I know this you keep

9:42

going back to price. How does

9:44

your holding period strategy

9:46

factor into price?

9:48

Do you ascribe more to the idea

9:50

of buy until it's fairly

9:52

priced and then get out? Or are

9:54

you kind of on the other

9:56

more, like, buffet side of letting them

9:58

run. Yeah. So, I mean, I think the right way to

10:00

think about it is that over shorter

10:02

periods of time, changes

10:04

in multiple or the

10:06

sentiment of that company are going to

10:08

drive results a lot more. And over

10:10

long periods of time, the difference in

10:12

multiple fades and the return

10:14

on the business, the return on equity or

10:16

assets or however you want to measure with invested

10:18

capital is what will dominate how

10:20

things out for you as an investor. So

10:22

when I first started out, I was a lot

10:24

more short term focused in

10:26

that I was looking for a multiple rerate

10:28

of things that were super cheap, whether

10:30

it was you know, really low price to

10:32

book or even net nets if I could find them.

10:34

But what kind of happened is that that those

10:37

super cheap things really dried

10:39

up around that time period. And so you

10:41

just couldn't fill up an entire portfolio of

10:43

them. So now what do you do? So you have to start

10:45

worrying a little bit more about business quality.

10:47

You're trying not to reach too much and

10:49

overpay for things. But when you can't

10:51

find these, like, no brainer, you know,

10:53

things trading for less than cash on the balance sheet,

10:55

you have to find some new tools to get

10:57

to work. And so was part of my own,

10:59

you know, a forcing mechanism to

11:01

become a better investor. Like, I needed that.

11:04

Otherwise, I would have just probably hit out in net

11:06

nets. And so Now I tend to

11:08

be more of a value buyer and a

11:10

little bit of a growth holder if it

11:12

converts into that. And I try to look

11:14

through a little bit deeper into

11:16

you know, a few years from my ownership, what

11:18

might the business look like, and

11:20

how cheap is it relative today to

11:22

what it could look like in a few years? and

11:24

trying to be real conservative with my assumptions,

11:26

but, you know, I wouldn't wanna sell just

11:28

because it ran up, you

11:30

know, a little bit more than I was comfortable

11:32

with before when there was still plenty of

11:34

kind of IRR baked into where it was where

11:36

the puck was going. Basically,

11:38

IRR for beginners

11:40

who not familiar with the term internal

11:42

rate of return, basically the upside

11:44

potential that the business can continue to

11:46

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13:39

And

13:42

really, like, my assessment

13:44

of what the company is worth and how

13:46

close are we to that assessment? Ideally,

13:48

actually, like, I would love to find

13:50

situations where the multiple

13:52

doesn't change at all. I buy

13:54

it at a ten times earnings and

13:56

I hold it for a decade and I earn

13:58

a a fifteen percent return on

14:00

equity that the company is generating

14:02

internally, and I'll just ride that

14:04

same multiple all the way through. But

14:06

mister Market can kind of force your hand sometimes

14:08

by, you know, if the price was to go

14:10

up and I went from a ten times

14:13

multiple to, let's say, a twenty, Well, now all of a

14:15

sudden, like, my prospective return that I

14:17

could expect starts to come down,

14:19

and therefore, I'm starting to look for places to

14:21

trade up potentially. But again, it

14:23

always is this balance of factors

14:25

of what do I know this

14:27

company very well versus the new thing that

14:29

I'm buying, maybe I don't know it as well,

14:31

and that's can be a very dangerous place. And then what is

14:33

the kind of risk reward and how

14:35

certain am I as the business results that I'm

14:37

hanging my hat on? And in a world now

14:39

where there's a lot more disruption

14:41

from technology. Like, it starts to get it's

14:43

kinda difficult to really and I

14:45

think you really saw this with COVID

14:47

where twenty twenty was an

14:49

insane year for, you know, like, the

14:51

economy just stopping. Who would've thought

14:53

airlines with literally zero revenue?

14:55

Like who was underwriting that in their

14:57

analysis. And then back to twenty twenty

14:59

one where you had just things like

15:01

rocketing and, like, all over the place work

15:03

from home completely changing how we

15:05

do everything, and just a huge round

15:07

trip in a lot of these companies that have

15:09

kinda come back down to their trend lines where

15:11

they were from twenty nine team.

15:13

Like, normalizing any business

15:15

today is incredibly difficult based on the

15:17

last few years of numbers. Like, it's a really

15:19

hard task right now. Like, probably harder than at any

15:21

point. I I think I've seen in my career.

15:23

That's a great insight. And I guess one

15:25

of the things that, I guess, I'm curious

15:27

about when you're talking about some of

15:29

the price issues and some of the things that

15:31

how do you think about projecting some of those

15:33

things forward? Is that something that you

15:35

study the past and kind of

15:37

project that forward? Or is it based on your

15:39

experience by reading through all

15:41

these companies and kind of understanding the

15:43

businesses and where you think they're

15:45

gonna go how certain you feel, you know,

15:47

when you make a bet on a company that this

15:49

is gonna come to pass? Usually not

15:51

very certain. But, I mean,

15:53

ideally, you The

15:55

right way to do this is to think in base rates.

15:57

And so a base rate is if we

15:59

looked at an entire population of

16:02

businesses like this, And the closer that we

16:04

can get describing this

16:06

particular business that we're trying to project, if

16:08

we can find a lot of companies that

16:10

look like that business the more

16:12

that we can kinda hang our hat on the base

16:14

rate. If we're just using very general

16:16

terms, you know, it starts to

16:18

decrease the chances that the base rate that we're

16:20

using actually applies to this

16:22

individual business. So the base

16:24

rate can be for a lot of things, whether

16:26

it's you know, how much are the revenues of this company

16:28

gonna grow over the next few years? And so

16:30

if we looked at, you know, companies that are

16:32

like this, and the base rate

16:34

said that companies this size in

16:36

this industry with this particular

16:38

niche that they're operating in

16:41

have historically grown

16:43

at ten percent, let's say.

16:45

That would be my base operating assumption.

16:47

And now I have to have some kind of special

16:49

insight into how the world works.

16:51

to wanna deviate off of what that base

16:53

rate is telling me. And so that's

16:55

the ideal way to do it. Now

16:58

the execution of that is like

17:00

where the art is. in this. That's

17:02

scientifically the right way to think about it, but to

17:04

actually do it well requires, you

17:06

know, the more experience that you have,

17:08

I think, really helps a lot in And is where

17:10

Buffet, you know, is still so good as a ninety,

17:12

you know, what is he now? He's ninety

17:14

two. He has been reading newspapers,

17:16

looking at companies, looking at

17:18

the financials for, you know, more than fifty

17:21

years. And he's been building these base rates in

17:23

his head this entire time. And so he's got a

17:25

very good idea about a lot

17:27

of companies even once he doesn't

17:29

own, what they are likely to do over the next

17:31

five to ten years. And so when

17:33

something dislocates, the price, you know, gets

17:35

away from what he thinks is a pretty obvious

17:37

where this is going. He's ready to act like

17:39

that. That's how he's able to make, you know,

17:41

decisions in less than a day because he has

17:43

a very good idea of what the base rates

17:45

he can kind of effect. And as long as he stays within

17:47

his circle of competence, which basically means,

17:49

like, either I know the base rate or

17:51

I know something special about the world

17:54

that allows me to know why the base rate is not right in this

17:56

particular situation. Then I know that,

17:58

like, that's how I could get comfortable with being

17:59

able to make that kind of decision so

18:02

quickly. That's awesome. So you're just confirming to me that Buffet

18:04

has, you know, a computer in his head, and he's like

18:06

a Michael Jordan as far as his intellect

18:08

goes. You know? So for those of

18:10

us, mere mortals, how do we learn

18:12

about base rates? Like, where is a good resource to learn more

18:15

about those? Yeah.

18:16

Michael Moberson, who is one of

18:19

the best authors and writers and

18:21

researchers in our field has a

18:23

couple different papers on base rates that are

18:25

very handy to have. So

18:27

if you just Google Mobesan.

18:29

I think it's MAUB0USSIN

18:32

He will they'll be these white

18:34

papers on base rate that that they actually give

18:36

you some of the base rates for some industries that's

18:38

kind of helpful. Do you have any favorites

18:40

that you've

18:41

leaned on in the past that you would be

18:44

willing to share? whether it's revenue

18:46

or any other category? Well,

18:48

we could

18:48

talk about mistakes that I've made in

18:51

using base rates if that's -- Sure. -- that's probably

18:53

more instructive I did a

18:55

little post mortem on

18:57

Google in earlier this year.

18:59

And what I was trying to do was figure

19:01

out, like, I'd been to Google headquarters. I

19:03

have a lot of friends that work at Google.

19:05

I recognize that Google was a special

19:07

business a decade ago.

19:09

Why did I not own it?

19:11

over at any point during that, you know,

19:13

twelve years. Why would I pass on it? And what was

19:15

I doing? And how do I not make that same mistake

19:17

again? And so what it came down

19:19

to was actually you know, Google

19:21

was a very big company in twenty fifteen. And

19:24

typically, historically, the

19:26

base rate would tell you that large

19:28

companies don't grow as fast

19:30

because they've already saturated their

19:32

markets. They're already giant. Maybe they've

19:34

already got a lot of the low hanging fruit in

19:36

what they're able to do for a customer. Well,

19:38

That is true. However, I was using a base

19:40

rate for kind of more industrial minded

19:43

companies, which is what we had at the time. Like, I

19:45

didn't have There was

19:47

research that came out after, actually, from

19:49

Mobesan about how certain

19:51

companies in the digital space

19:53

are able really defy the base

19:55

rates of existing historical big

19:57

companies and keep growing at these incredible

19:59

rates even though they're large.

20:01

And so, you know, I had been using the

20:03

wrong base rate. And when I would use that to

20:05

kinda project revenue out and then assume

20:08

some kind of a profit margin and

20:10

give some kind of a, you know, multiple for

20:12

that profit, I kept coming up with,

20:14

like, it seems like Google's fully priced

20:16

this whole time. And yet it just keeps going up

20:18

and up and up. And every time I would run

20:20

kind of an assessment, I'd be like, it seems like it's

20:22

already fully priced, like, the gross already baked

20:24

into this. I don't see how I can win

20:26

from here. But then, you know, if you use

20:28

the newer base rate that's more

20:30

applicable for this particular type of

20:32

animal then

20:34

if I had been using that, I would have seen, like, oh, wait.

20:36

There's actually a lot of cheap growth still here

20:38

if it follows that base rate. And that

20:40

that would be how I would win, and maybe

20:42

even margins are proving some of these

20:44

businesses as they get bigger. And now you

20:46

also have, in fairness, a lot of multiple

20:49

expansion on that, which I would have probably not. That's

20:51

not what I typically tend to underwrite.

20:53

Like, I don't wanna really win most of the

20:55

time because everyone gets crazy

20:57

excited about my businesses. Like, I wanna win because

20:59

the business is doing well and

21:01

serving per as well. Now sometimes, they do get excited

21:03

about it, and that's usually when I get tempted to sell

21:05

a good business, which is actually a very

21:07

frustrating position to be in. But so

21:09

that was where base rates led me astray at

21:11

one point. And, you know, that's hopefully I

21:13

learned from that and that I, you know, just

21:16

keep working on finding the base the next good base rate and

21:18

the one that's most applicable to what it is that

21:20

I'm studying. Why do you think Buffet and Munger

21:22

missed on Google? because I know

21:25

they've admitted that they missed on it. Do you think

21:27

it was kind of the same idea? I really

21:29

have no idea because they actually

21:31

they're more guilty than I am, I would say,

21:33

because they I mean, the meetings, they've talked about how

21:35

they recognized well, one, they knew

21:37

that newspapers, a one town

21:41

one newspaper situation

21:43

is one of the best businesses of all

21:45

time of the twentieth century. They

21:47

absolutely printed money I mean, they made

21:49

all the money that they ever wanted to make,

21:52

basically. And because they had both sides

21:54

captured, they had, you know, the more readership

21:56

that they had, the more valuable was

21:58

to advertisers and the more

21:59

advertisers they

22:00

had, the more pricing that they could

22:02

charge for it. So they were in

22:04

a fantastic situation. And Google is

22:07

basically, like, the one town of the

22:09

world Internet newspaper with

22:11

classifieds and search. I mean,

22:13

it's it's just an incredible business.

22:15

and even to compound their error, even

22:17

more for Buffet Munger, they had been

22:19

paying a ton of money as GEICO

22:22

owners to Google and

22:24

seeing how well it was doing for

22:26

them. So, like, they had an inside,

22:28

you know, like, front row seat to see how

22:30

Google was working for ads and driving

22:32

eyeballs for GEICO, and they

22:34

recognized it, and yet somehow they

22:36

still never pulled the trigger on it. So makes

22:38

me feel a little bit better that I was so stupid

22:40

to not buy it, but I don't know what their

22:43

excuses. I

22:45

say that jokingly because your best ever have

22:47

done it, but Right. Of course. Of course. It

22:49

does help one sleep better at night knowing that

22:51

even the greatest can make, you know, can miss

22:53

and make mistakes. from time to time

22:55

that this game is not easy and still get

22:58

incredible results. That's the other nice thing about this

23:00

is that you do not have to bat you

23:02

know, nine hundred or a thousand in

23:04

this game to still do just fine.

23:06

Why do you think there's this perception that you have

23:08

to be perfect to do well in

23:10

the markets? I don't know. Like, a lot of it

23:12

I mean, the other thing I think that's that goes

23:14

missing a lot in that conversation is that

23:16

it's really more about slugging percentage

23:18

than batting average. So you great individual

23:21

pick. But if you don't put hardly any money

23:23

behind it, I mean, it's almost as if you

23:25

didn't even swing the bat. Whereas, you can

23:27

also, you know, have a

23:29

marginal idea that does not that great,

23:32

but maybe not that bad. But if you put a lot of

23:34

money behind it, the opportunity cost

23:36

of that idea can absolutely eat you alive of

23:38

the things that you didn't invest in because

23:40

you were you had your money tied up

23:42

in this, you know, dog for lack of a

23:45

better term for a long time. So -- Yeah. -- the position sizing is actually

23:47

a completely different

23:49

conversation than the stock picking, and

23:52

it's probably just as important. Or maybe we

23:54

could chat about that a little bit. What's

23:56

the best way to get started

23:58

in the market? Download

23:59

Andrew's e book for free at

24:02

stock market PDF dot

24:04

com. Yeah.

24:06

Do you have opinions on

24:08

maybe somebody like you who does it

24:11

professionally versus somebody who's

24:13

kind of a DIY average investor.

24:15

Do you think there's Do have

24:17

thoughts on either side of that spectrum,

24:19

I guess? Yeah. I mean, I would say I I

24:21

mean, it's the same for everybody. I would say,

24:23

like, Daniel Donovan would tell you that overconfidence

24:26

is the number one killer of behavioral

24:29

biases. And so how do you combat

24:31

overconfidence? Cut your position

24:33

sizes down from what you

24:35

think your gut is telling you and spread your bets around

24:37

a little bit more. I know that that's not a

24:39

very Mongolian kind of approach like

24:41

Mongol would tell you put your, you

24:43

know, the most money in your best idea. And

24:46

if it's better than all your other ideas, like, why

24:48

water it down with your tenth best idea?

24:51

Well, I think the world's a little bit

24:53

more random than that for most of us

24:55

unless you are truly waiting

24:57

for if you're following Mulder's

25:00

approach, which I don't know if you guys know this, but like in running

25:02

Daily Journal's portfolio, he

25:04

sat in treasury bills from,

25:06

like, two thousand five to

25:08

two thousand nine.

25:10

and did nothing. And,

25:12

you know, of course, there's no shot clock for

25:14

him because he's, you know, he's bunker and

25:16

he's running this company and he's a totally in

25:18

charge of it. But if you were a professional

25:20

money manager who's supposed to be picking stocks and you

25:22

had all your clients in treasuries four

25:25

years, you're gonna get fired. I mean, there's

25:27

just no two ways about that. But

25:29

then in two thousand nine comes along and he

25:31

just loads up on a couple different things like

25:33

Bank of America. And so he, like,

25:35

just bet big when he had

25:37

very overwhelmingly obvious smart

25:39

things to do. And then he went back to,

25:41

you know, doing whatever designing

25:43

dorm rooms and catamarans and

25:45

whatever else he's doing, reading

25:47

books. But so that's one style. I just like, you have to

25:49

be I think it's important to

25:51

recognize, like, matching your own

25:53

personality with the style that you're trying to implement. And

25:55

so if you are that kind of person that

25:57

can can be doing other things ignore markets for years

25:59

on end, then you probably can do that. But

26:01

for most people, I think you probably wanna

26:04

stay more fully invested most of the time and balance

26:06

your position sizing out a little bit more because

26:08

it's the world is a little more untamed

26:10

than it seems and there'd

26:12

there'd be dragons more often than you realize. So it's

26:15

better to spread your bets a little bit more and,

26:17

you know, some diversification I

26:19

think is called for. I love those

26:21

examples. You know, when you talk about

26:23

bunker in two thousand five, he had

26:25

been an investor for, like, four or

26:27

five decades. I don't know, probably longer

26:29

than that. So he kinda knows what he's doing

26:31

versus somebody who's maybe trying

26:33

to approach the market for the

26:35

first couple of years thinking they can

26:38

after a couple years of experience, time

26:40

in the market, it's a bit of a

26:42

goes back to that overconfidence idea. I

26:44

think you have to recognize also that

26:47

chances are because of just the way the

26:49

information flows, when you hear

26:51

about and you get excited about

26:53

investing as a new investor, chances

26:55

are you are being sucked into something near

26:57

the top. That's just how otherwise, you

26:59

wouldn't have been hearing about it. Right? If it's down if

27:01

it everyone hates it, you're not hearing

27:03

about it in any kind of news flow. And this actually applies

27:05

to me as a value investor. Like, I got

27:08

into value investing in two

27:10

thousand let's say, six, seven time

27:12

period. Well, guess what value the best thing had

27:14

been doing for the last like six years?

27:17

Absolutely crushing everyone. Right?

27:19

So I was a momentum value

27:21

investor in a way. Like, I got sucked

27:23

into the top of a value sort of run.

27:25

And naturally, because you hear about it and

27:27

like, oh, this just makes a lot of sense. Like, of

27:29

course, this is the right way to do it. And it's

27:31

working. Like, of course, like, I'm a genius. Like, I

27:33

should be doing this. It's easy. This is

27:35

very easy. Right? And I think that applies to all

27:37

investment styles. You get sucked

27:39

in near the top most likely. Like

27:41

statistically, chances are if you hear

27:43

about it and you're new to the

27:45

game, you're getting in near the top. And you

27:47

just have to recognize that and go

27:49

slowly and try to find yourself and

27:51

find your sweet spot where your

27:53

personality matches with the investment

27:55

and recognize that chances are actually

27:57

it's not going to be whatever's happening right

27:59

now is how you're going actually

28:01

do well and just be ready for that. That's a

28:03

very good point. That's a great insight. Think

28:05

about the poor people that have started investing

28:07

in twenty twenty. you know, for the last two years, the

28:09

rollercoast that they've been on, I can't even

28:11

imagine. Yeah. And I mean, it it would be very

28:13

sad if this experience

28:16

disabuse them from ever wanting to be

28:18

owners of businesses via the stock

28:20

market. I mean, that is a huge loss for

28:22

them as a vehicle if they decide

28:24

that, you know, the game is rigged,

28:26

or stocks are for suckers, or

28:28

it's only a gambling instrument. That

28:30

could be true. And and Mungar even talks

28:32

about this, he'll say that sometimes

28:35

stocks are priced like businesses

28:37

and based on cash flow, and sometimes

28:39

they're priced like REM Brands, and it's more

28:41

about just what are someone willing to pay

28:43

for it. So recognizing, you know, are you in an

28:45

investment kind of market? Are you in

28:47

a rembrandt market? And, you know, we've

28:49

been in a rembrandt market for a

28:51

couple years there, you know,

28:53

call the end of twenty twenty. Well,

28:55

let's start at two thousand nine, really,

28:57

to say, you know, the pandemic. And

28:59

then, again, like, even more as,

29:01

you know, kind of ecstatic rembrandt

29:04

market for twenty twenty one.

29:06

It kind of feels like maybe we're at

29:08

the end of that now and we're a little going

29:10

back more towards profits over

29:13

promises, but we'll see. No one really knows the

29:15

answers to those heads. You

29:17

know, where's the market going questions?

29:19

No. None of us do.

29:22

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that's ANGI or download the

29:51

app today. Yeah. It's

29:52

I mean, like you said, it's been a

29:54

very interesting environment since o

29:57

nine. obviously, nobody has

29:59

a crystal ball,

29:59

but how much hope do you have

30:02

for some sort of

30:03

reversion to the mean of, like, how the

30:05

market used to be. There's a lot of ideas going out

30:08

there. Values just taking a new

30:10

form. And I think there's

30:12

some other ideas that maybe it will revert and

30:14

we're starting to see that now.

30:16

do you have any thoughts on either

30:18

of those things, obviously knowing nobody

30:20

knows? You know, I think you have to there's

30:22

lots of different ways to skin the cat. And you so

30:24

you have to like

30:26

I said, do what is matches your personality.

30:29

And I think that there's definitely, like,

30:31

business value, the creation of

30:33

business value. is

30:35

morphs over time as it should. Right? Like,

30:37

you know, a hundred and fifty years

30:40

ago, half of us were farmers and

30:42

that you know, we were subsistence, you

30:44

know, hand to mouth, basically. And

30:46

now, you know, we've specialized enough and

30:48

gotten enough output from, you know, every industry

30:50

to where we can find our little

30:52

niche where we can provide even more value.

30:55

And, you know, that is going to change

30:57

over time. And it should. Otherwise, we're not

30:59

making progress as a species. So

31:02

naturally, the owner of these businesses also

31:04

has to think about how things are changing

31:06

and recognize where things are

31:08

going. with all of that said, I do think that, you know, reversion

31:10

of the mean is still an incredibly powerful

31:12

force in the universe. And I would say

31:14

that it's not I don't think it's

31:16

dead. I think buying cheap

31:19

things. However, you define cheap, you

31:21

know, is will work over time.

31:23

Think that markets mean revert as well, and I

31:25

think we will spend some time below

31:27

the mean at some point, you know, that will

31:29

be when real investors are kinda

31:31

tested. Yeah. And it'll Ben

31:33

Graham has the saying that, like, bear markets

31:35

are when stocks return to their

31:37

rightful owners. And so, you know,

31:39

I think they'll be that time period again and

31:41

a cleansing, and and that's what you need to

31:43

generate good returns. Like, you

31:45

need you'd actually need pain and you need a reset

31:47

of a washout of the exuberance.

31:49

You actually did it to be on the other side

31:51

of it with negativity and, you

31:54

know, people The death of equities was

31:56

a famous article that was written in

31:58

nineteen eighty one. I think it was in

31:59

Forbes, and it was it pretty

32:02

much marked the bottom of seventeen

32:04

year bull market run. So those are the

32:06

kind of things that you have to have at the bottom

32:08

to have a truly epic kind of bull

32:10

run. And the bull run doesn't

32:13

come from I don't think

32:15

from a period like today where

32:17

you have a very high multiple of

32:19

earnings being paid for most businesses,

32:21

you have profit margins through

32:23

the roof compared to, like, nineteen eighty one, profit margins were down

32:25

at, like, two percent and now they're at, like,

32:27

fourteen. Basically, every, like, metric

32:29

that you would look at to

32:31

say, okay, can we, like, go

32:33

in the other direction from here? Like, we're

32:35

kinda pegged out at the upper end already of

32:37

where most of these data sets have lived

32:40

for in some cases, thousands of

32:42

years if you look at, like, interest rates. So

32:44

anyway, long story short, there's still

32:46

always interesting things to work on and learn about

32:48

and there are pockets that will always be

32:50

available and, like, smart things to do. So don't

32:52

I'm not saying, like, don't get out there and work. I'm just

32:55

saying, you know, little more conservative

32:57

and expect that, you know, it might be some

32:59

tough times from here actually, and that you

33:01

actually should be looking forward to that because that's

33:03

when the real investors will

33:05

reassert themselves, and that's when, like, the real you'll start actually

33:07

making, like, the real money that you deserve to make

33:09

and not sort of, like, to the moon as an

33:11

investment thesis. You know, I just

33:14

I don't that was never really sustainable. Yeah. Totally.

33:17

So you are obviously somebody that's spent a

33:19

lot of time studying this, and you spend a

33:21

lot of time looking at the

33:23

companies that you end up buying.

33:25

And so I'm wondering what

33:27

kind of what kind of vehicle do you use

33:29

to kind of keep track of your your

33:31

investment thesis. Like, how do you

33:33

track, you know, hey, I'm gonna buy company

33:35

a. In five years from now, how do you look

33:37

back and see why did I buy this? And

33:39

is that still in play now? Yeah.

33:41

So I had this very problem for a

33:43

long time. And I also knew that

33:45

there were all kinds of little data points

33:47

like what I would call like dark data that were

33:49

going without being captured, that I

33:51

knew were important on the input

33:53

side of the process, that were

33:55

driving results. And

33:57

it kinda drove me nuts that, like, I wasn't capturing

33:59

these things. So for instance, just even, like,

34:01

a very basic example. You know, like, say,

34:03

I'm going through and looking a bunch of

34:05

different businesses. And maybe I spend five or ten minutes on one and just kinda look

34:07

through the financials real quick. And I just

34:10

decide, not for

34:12

me. Okay. Well, passing on that idea is an obvious thing.

34:14

We all do it. But why did

34:16

I pass on it? And as

34:18

a base of all of the times that

34:20

I said, and

34:22

not that into it for this reason. Maybe it was too much

34:24

leverage or it's too expensive or the

34:26

business, like, returns on equity aren't

34:29

good enough for me whatever the reason

34:31

code was that I kinda used internally, how does it go

34:33

on to perform from there? So what really,

34:35

what is the cost of my filtration

34:37

system on the

34:40

front end? and I wasn't keeping track of that. And so how would I know if my

34:42

filtering is getting better or not

34:44

unless I'm measuring these things?

34:46

Mhmm. So little and like a

34:48

million other little things like that that I felt like

34:50

were going unmeasured that I wanted to know about

34:52

myself for my own process and to

34:54

get better. And, really, at the end of the day, it's about closing feedback loops

34:56

because that's what's required to start

34:58

learning and actually build intuition

35:00

about things. You have to have feedback

35:02

loops closed. So

35:04

it was driving me nuts so much and I was like looking around for

35:06

some solutions and I couldn't really find anything

35:08

that was in what I was looking for. And

35:11

so I basically decided to start building something

35:13

myself. And I've teamed up with a couple

35:15

of just amazing cofounders

35:18

that are a joy to work with,

35:20

and we've hired employees. And so I've we've been building this software now for

35:22

almost a couple of years. And

35:24

hopefully, maybe within the next

35:27

maybe by the end of the year, we'll launch, you know, actual

35:29

public launch. And the name of it is is

35:31

called journalidic. And the idea behind that

35:34

is that it's journaling on the front end. So that's kind of your

35:36

interface with, you know, getting your thoughts

35:38

out into this. And

35:40

then analytics on the back end

35:42

to help you understand yourself better,

35:44

understand your decision making, which is

35:46

where the key thing really drives is how do

35:48

we improve your

35:50

decision making? And so closing those feedback loops through analytics and reports

35:52

on the back end that hopefully

35:54

help you understand yourself better that make

35:56

you improve at a

35:58

faster rate. to

35:59

kind of, like,

35:59

illustrate, hey, by the way, here's where you

36:01

missed these base rates, like, three

36:03

times, and it wasn't just a one time

36:05

thing kind of I

36:08

mean, the idea is really like, you know, if you do this diligently, one,

36:10

you learn about yourself,

36:12

but two, like, don't make the same at stake

36:14

twice. if you're doing a good job

36:16

of sort of postmorteming, you know, like, when things

36:18

went wrong, you know, that's how Munger would say, like,

36:20

rub your nose in in your mistakes. And so

36:23

a lot this makes it a lot easier to recognize, like,

36:25

oh, okay. Here's where I'm making the same sort

36:27

of mistake over and over again. And I actually have

36:29

a behavioral bias here that's

36:32

hitting me. I need to be aware of that and get nudged a little

36:34

bit away from that so that I don't keep doing it

36:36

over and over again. Yeah. I like how it's

36:38

kinda focused on the opportunity

36:40

cost side. which kind of fits

36:42

in with what you were talking about with

36:44

Google. I think it could be

36:46

one of those hidden blind

36:48

spots that you

36:49

don't even realize you're doing it because it's just part of

36:51

your everyday filter and that,

36:53

you

36:53

know, there's so many different ways you could

36:56

screw up why not take some time to figure out if your

36:58

systems, like, out of date or need

37:00

some adjustment? I'm glad you brought up

37:02

blind

37:02

spots because that's a

37:05

hundred percent the right way to think about it. In fact, somebody who I know has done

37:07

a lot of studying about human behavior

37:09

and, you know, why do we do what we

37:11

do, says that, like,

37:14

that actually all mistakes come from blind spots because

37:16

otherwise if it wasn't a blind spot that you

37:18

would know and you wouldn't do it. Right?

37:21

And so, like, he's he basically says, like, you could almost, you know, all

37:23

these if you go through, like, Port Charlie's Almanac where he

37:25

goes through, like, I think the twenty five

37:28

behavioral biases that affect

37:30

human psychology, human psychology this

37:32

person would say, like, you don't need twenty five of those. You just need the

37:34

one in its blind spots. And so revealing

37:36

those blind spots is a big part of

37:38

what we're after with the software is

37:41

just help you see where are you making the

37:43

mistakes. Yeah. That's awesome. I wish I would have had

37:45

that thirty years ago. Same here.

37:47

That's that's exactly why

37:49

I was like, shoot. We gotta get building this, I guess, because

37:51

I'm not gonna get better at the rate that I want to

37:54

unless unless I start closing these

37:56

feedback loops. But even, like, we have

37:58

some other kinda cool stuff that's lined up

38:00

there. So

38:02

imagine that you're just sort of journaling about a

38:04

particular idea and you're just dumping your

38:06

thoughts in there. we're actually

38:08

building an API, like,

38:10

where it will do a natural language

38:12

processing of your word choices

38:14

and assign a sentiment score to that

38:16

journal entry and then overlay

38:18

that on the price of what you're,

38:20

you know, as you're journaling about that

38:22

idea, we can see how your sentiment is changing

38:24

over time in show it to you so

38:26

that you can get a sense of what I think most people are going to discover is that price is driving your

38:28

sentiment in a major way, like how

38:30

you feel about the company

38:33

how you interpret that next piece of data that

38:35

comes in from a ten q, wherever,

38:37

is colored by what price has

38:39

been doing recently. which is not the right

38:41

way to be thinking about it. Like, you should be

38:44

recognizing the fundamental numbers regardless

38:46

of what price has been doing. And it's just

38:48

incredibly difficult to do. Like, we're all guilty

38:50

of it. And conversely, you know, if the price has been going down, you're

38:52

like, oh, god. I hate this company sucks. Like, in

38:54

I'm filtering every new piece of data that

38:56

comes in with that sort of

38:58

lens and what our hopefully, our feedback that we're going to give

39:01

you through your sentiment analysis will let you

39:03

step out away from that a little

39:05

bit and take those lasses off

39:07

and be able to look at the real

39:09

data, the real experience without

39:12

being jaded by whatever the

39:14

recent kind sent the recent price has been driving your sentiment. Oh, that

39:16

would be so cool to use and

39:18

see people use.

39:20

Yeah. Yeah. any money. I

39:22

think about when you're in it, like, right

39:24

now, we're in twenty twenty two. So a

39:26

lot of the way we think about the market today

39:28

and whatever opportunities are in the

39:30

market can be influenced by what we hear from CNBC, how we talk to our colleagues

39:32

about the market, all of these things. You know, I

39:34

haven't been doing this forever, but it's funny

39:36

to me to hear the the moaning of

39:38

people talking

39:40

about twenty twenty and how, you know, oh, it should have been so obvious

39:42

that I should have bought this stock or that stock

39:44

is like, no. You don't remember the

39:46

conversations that everybody was having. much

39:50

to do not even with the stock

39:52

market, but where the world was going. And

39:54

we already two years later have

39:57

forgotten so much of that. I mean, our

39:59

memories are

39:59

so fallible. It's unbelievable.

40:02

And that's another big part of wanting to just

40:04

write things down is that when you can go back see

40:06

what you're actually thinking. It's it'll blow your mind. I mean, you

40:08

will literally not recognize what was

40:10

written there, but you know it was you.

40:13

It's crazy. And that I

40:15

think the being able to see that

40:17

about yourself and see how much it changes

40:19

you, I think is just such an advantage

40:21

if you start doing it especially if you're younger

40:23

and a a beginner, it's almost table stakes at this point. Like, if you

40:25

wanna get better, you really have to keep capturing

40:27

these things. And the problem

40:29

is is that If you just rely

40:31

on your own memory, you know, memory works in that it is

40:34

almost like it's not this perfect

40:36

recording of

40:38

what happened. it's a a replay of what you kinda

40:40

think happened. And the more that it sort of

40:42

replays, it tapes over it. And as

40:44

it does that,

40:46

it'll drop data points

40:48

that might threaten your ego actually.

40:50

And so it will wanna just get rid of those

40:52

things that kinda make you question, you know,

40:54

your own self worth. And it's

40:56

just trying to protect you. Like, it's not, you

40:58

know, it's nothing malicious, but it

41:00

means that your connection to what actually

41:02

was happening and what you were thinking at

41:04

the time is a very tenuous connection when you go trying to just

41:06

remember. And so writing it

41:08

down is just such an advantage and

41:09

it's such an obvious good

41:12

idea that I just really couldn't recommend it enough if you're a beginning

41:14

investor. Yeah. I'll also

41:16

put emphasis on that because I'll

41:18

read some of the newsletters

41:20

I wrote four, five years ago, I

41:22

was recommending companies to people and it makes

41:24

my stomach kinda turn

41:26

a little bit to think. And what's

41:28

funny about it is how much

41:30

sometimes you can either

41:32

be wrong or just have a blind spot on something and

41:34

still make money on it, which to me is kind of

41:36

encouraging that you can have a

41:38

lot of thoughts that are really wrong, but

41:40

still do pretty well if you stick to some

41:42

key principles with

41:44

your messaging. Well

41:44

and I think that is you just hit on one of the biggest

41:46

problems that is the investment

41:48

world is that the feedback loops

41:51

are incredibly long and they're very

41:53

noisy, which means it's a very difficult

41:55

learning environment. It's what researchers would call

41:58

a wicked learning environment as

42:00

opposed to mind learning environment. A kind learning environment is

42:02

where feedback is unambiguous.

42:04

It's instantaneous. It's every single

42:07

time it happens. But in the

42:10

investment world, it can take years sometimes to

42:12

figure out if you were right or wrong, and you can a

42:14

hundred percent be right or wrong for the

42:16

wrong reasons. You could be right for the

42:18

wrong So another thing that I recommend that a new

42:20

investor does is to

42:22

actually make

42:24

probabilistic predictions

42:26

about certain company fundamentals. So you could say,

42:28

I believe that Apple's revenue will

42:30

grow at a ten percent clip,

42:32

and I'm seventy percent percent

42:35

sure about that. And I think

42:37

the profit

42:38

margins will be this,

42:40

let's say, twenty percent or greater,

42:42

and I'm eighty percent sure about that.

42:45

And what you're wanting to do is accumulate a bunch

42:47

of data of your

42:50

predictions. And the reason to do

42:52

it probably strictly is that then when you can

42:54

see, okay, when I said seventy percent,

42:56

that should happen seven out of ten

42:58

times as a base case. And

43:01

if it's not, then I'm not calibrated correctly.

43:03

Right? And so that will reveal

43:05

where you're overconfident

43:08

or underconfident. But to have let's say I'm making, like, five

43:10

fundamental predictions every single

43:12

year about a company, whether it's, you know, the the

43:15

revenue growth rate the profit margins, the multiple, the dividend,

43:17

share count, whatever all these things that are sort of

43:20

the natural drivers of returns, you

43:22

can start

43:24

to accumulate five data points for every one price

43:26

data point that you would get over a year. And

43:28

what you'll start to see then is, like, the

43:30

price could go up and you could be way

43:32

off on

43:34

your projection and that's a very dangerous place to be because you

43:36

are actually you're showing a lack

43:38

of skill in your predictions, but

43:40

your price like your return is showing that

43:42

you're doing

43:44

well. and that's when you're gonna get your head cut off on the next time because wildly

43:46

overconfident about how good you are at

43:48

this. Or conversely, you could be

43:50

doing great on your predictions and the market

43:54

is not ring with you at all. Mhmm. And that could just tell you,

43:56

like, okay, I just need to kinda stay the course. I'm

43:58

doing the right thing. I'm gonna end up where I

43:59

need to. Eventually, the market has to agree

44:02

with what's happening spinning

44:04

fundamentally. It's just a time period that's a little bit

44:06

unlucky. So untangling luck

44:08

versus skill, you can do it over twenty

44:10

years of an investment career based

44:12

only on price. but a lot of people wanna

44:14

know that answer sooner. And the way

44:16

to find the answer sooner is to make, you

44:18

know, five predictions to every one

44:20

price data point and start

44:22

accumulating a bigger sample size

44:24

faster so that you can start to get a sense

44:26

of do you have luck or

44:28

skill? Yeah. That's

44:28

interesting. Yeah. It's obvious that you spend

44:30

a lot of time thinking about that it kinda

44:33

shows shines through how you're thinking about how can I make myself

44:35

better, my skills better, knowing that over

44:37

the long term, just gonna make better

44:39

results in the market, It's

44:41

not about what's my portfolio gonna do next year,

44:44

but how can I make better and better

44:46

choices probabilistically?

44:48

And then My chances

44:49

just improve the more you invest. Well, the

44:51

only thing we really have control over is

44:53

our process and our mindset.

44:56

And so focusing on those things. I think it's the only

44:58

smart thing to do. Like, the results are going to

45:00

be what they're gonna be, and you don't have a whole lot

45:02

of control over them.

45:04

The market can do can make you

45:06

feel stupid for long periods of time, very long periods. We'll test

45:08

your resolve. You know, that's probably how it

45:10

should Like, if it was super easy, I

45:12

don't you know, it would get competed away. And

45:14

so the fact that it's difficult just

45:16

means that there's that many less people who

45:18

are likely to be following that same thing

45:21

that you're doing that's usually a good sign for when it's gonna

45:23

start working again is when everyone hates

45:25

it. So at least that's what I tell

45:27

myself to to keep going. But but, yeah, I

45:29

do think that, like, process

45:32

is is the

45:32

only real lever that we have to focus

45:34

on is just try to get a little bit better

45:36

every single day and, you know, go to bed a little

45:38

bit smarter than you woke up as Mulder would say. It's

45:40

a very important framework. I think there's a lot of wisdom and experience

45:43

and knowledge behind it. And I

45:45

highly recommend for people Maybe

45:48

store this download away for the next time you start losing

45:50

faith, remind yourself that maybe

45:52

how you're evaluating yourself might

45:55

have a blind spot. So, Jake,

45:57

we really, really appreciate your time. The time flew by for

45:59

me. I mean, I thought there was so much good

46:01

stuff here. You have a great book, which we didn't even get

46:03

a chance to talk about.

46:06

the rebel allocator. Just real quick, I

46:08

think people should check that out. It was one of my

46:10

favorite reads this summer. It's

46:12

basically a fiction

46:14

book about capital allocation, investing. It's a

46:16

great read for even if somebody who's not

46:18

familiar with the business world

46:20

or investing to

46:22

learn some of the key principles. A lot of it reminded me

46:24

of Buffet. So that was a really

46:26

cool read, and I highly recommend it.

46:29

you have a a software that's gonna

46:32

be coming out that we should be looking out

46:34

for. So remind us again

46:36

what that is and

46:38

then also where people can learn more about you and what you going

46:40

on if they wanna follow what you're doing.

46:42

Sure. Yeah. The software that's

46:43

coming out on decision making is

46:46

called journaling. dot

46:48

com. And so you can go there now and sign up on the waitlist. And

46:50

we've been onboarding people kind of at

46:52

our own pace because we wanna make sure

46:55

that it's a good experience. And really, like, we're

46:57

learning from, you know, each little cohort

46:59

that comes through, you know, how do we do this better

47:01

for the next one? So we're not completely open

47:03

yet, but hopefully, we'll

47:06

be open and, like I said, in the next few months, say, by the end of the year.

47:08

Yeah. I tend to put

47:10

a a lot of public stuff on

47:12

Twitter just as an easy place to

47:14

kind of if we wanna keep

47:16

up what I'm doing, not all the time. Like, I

47:18

try not to spend so much time on there, but it is a

47:20

little bit addicting, to be honest. Mhmm.

47:22

So on Twitter,

47:24

I'm at farnum, FARNAM jake

47:26

one. So that's I don't know. That's where I do a fair amount

47:28

of kind of public dumping of

47:30

sometimes what I'm thinking. Sometimes

47:32

it's just pictures of

47:34

hikes. Sometimes it's research papers that

47:36

I like. Sometimes it's just promoting my

47:38

own stuff. That's Twitter. Yeah. And then the

47:40

book is Rebel Allocator available

47:42

on Amazon and physical

47:44

ebook and got a I had

47:46

a voice actor record the audio version.

47:48

I thought he just did such a great job with it.

47:50

I was very so happy with how that turned out. And

47:52

luckily for all of you, I didn't do it, and

47:54

you didn't have to have my, like, nasally thrown

47:57

pretending key characters.

47:59

So was definitely a big win for

48:01

the audience. He did he did email

48:04

characters very well. Yeah. Yeah. He was

48:06

so good. Like, he had all he

48:08

had the range to get all the different characters in there.

48:11

And I thought he did such a good job.

48:13

Yeah. He did do a great job, but he had great

48:15

material to work with too. So it

48:17

is a great book. I listened to it on a long drive

48:19

back and it actually made me cry. So it was

48:21

very touching and it was very informative and

48:23

I I literally couldn't stop listening to

48:25

it. So you have checked it out, I highly recommend it.

48:27

For whatever level you are, it's it's

48:29

a fantastic book. It's very educational and

48:32

it's very emotional. So for me was.

48:34

So I enjoyed it, touched me.

48:36

So Jake, we really appreciate you taking

48:38

the time out to to come talk to us today. This

48:40

was awesome. There was so much great stuff. You

48:42

weighed on us, and I'm gonna be thinking a lot after we get off of

48:44

the year, so appreciate you doing that. And even though we

48:46

didn't get to share any veggies, we didn't get to talk about

48:49

some of your favorite stuff. So that

48:52

was cool. So, again, everyone check out everything that Jake's doing, the Valley

48:54

After Hours podcast. If you've not listened to

48:56

it, it's a lot of fun. The three of them have a great

48:58

time talking to

49:00

each other. and it really shines through. So it's it's one of my favorite podcasts.

49:02

So let's do it every week. So what I do further

49:04

do, I'll go ahead and sign us off. You guys go out there and

49:06

invest with a margin

49:08

of safety. refuse to sign the safety. Have a great week, and we'll talk to you all next

49:10

week. We hope you enjoyed this

49:12

content. Seven steps to

49:13

understanding the stock market shows

49:16

you press isolating how to

49:18

break down the numbers in an

49:20

engaging and readable way

49:22

with real life examples.

49:25

Get access today. at stockmarket

49:27

pdf dot com. Until next

49:30

time. Have

49:31

a prosperous day. The

49:36

information contained is for general information and educational purposes only.

49:39

It is not intended for a

49:41

substitute for legal, commercial,

49:44

and or financial advice from a licensed review

49:46

our full disclaimer at e investing

49:48

for beginners dot com.

49:52

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