Graham Weaver: How to Achieve Your Goals, Manage Your Time, and Live Purposefully | E140

Summary

In Search of Excellence: Graham Weaver on Achieving Goals, Managing Time, and Living Purposefully | Episode E140

Release Date: December 3, 2024

Introduction

In this compelling episode of In Search of Excellence, host Randall Kaplan sits down with Graham Weaver, the founder and CEO of Alpine Investors, renowned for leading one of the highest-performing and fastest-growing private equity firms globally. Weaver, a distinguished Stanford Business School alumnus and recipient of the 2024 Distinguished Teacher Award, shares his journey from a determined youth in Ohio to a successful leader in the business world. This in-depth conversation delves into Weaver’s insights on leadership, goal-setting, resilience, and the dynamics of building a thriving company culture.

Early Life and Parental Influence

Graham Weaver's foundational years were significantly shaped by his parents' dedication and work ethic. Growing up in Perrysburg, Ohio, Weaver observed his father, a veterinarian, building his business from scratch. Weaver recalls:

“I think I absorbed more of that [father’s intensity] than I really realized. Just the intensity that he threw into his job... his drive was pretty insatiable.”
[03:17]

Despite his father's demanding schedule, Weaver's mother provided unwavering support and encouragement, fostering an environment where he felt loved and believed in his potential.

Pivotal Moments in Adolescence

At the age of 13, Weaver began mowing lawns to earn money, a decision influenced by his entrepreneurial spirit. This early venture taught him the value of hard work and financial independence. The introduction of the Sony Walkman brought another transformative experience. Weaver discovered self-help programs like Napoleon Hill’s "Think and Grow Rich" and Brian Tracy’s "Universal Laws of Success," which ignited his passion for goal-setting and personal development.

“Listening to this stuff... it was like an awakening of some kind.”
[07:55]

These programs emphasized the importance of internal programming, attitude, and setting clear, written goals, principles that Weaver has carried throughout his life.

Leadership Insights and Personal Growth

Weaver discusses his natural inclination towards leadership, which emerged organically through leading by example rather than through charismatic speeches. He emphasizes that leadership can be taught and cultivated, highlighting the diversity of leadership styles within his portfolio companies.

“I think there's 100% you can teach leadership... People are going to follow someone who's authentically in the path of the thing they should be doing as well.”
[25:16]

According to Weaver, the three most critical attributes he seeks in leaders are the will to win, grit and persistence, and self-awareness. These traits, he argues, are more indicative of future success than any specific experience.

“Number one attribute by far is the will to win... Number two would be probably grit persistence... and then three would probably be just like self-awareness.”
[27:12]

Navigating the Professional World: Private Equity and Beyond

Weaver’s professional journey began at Morgan Stanley Capital Markets, where he experienced firsthand the demanding culture of investment banking. His time there was marked by intense work hours and high-pressure environments, which ultimately led him to question his career choices.

“Morgan Stanley wasn't going to become more like Graham. Graham was going to become Morgan Stanley...”
[56:02]

After leaving Morgan Stanley, Weaver joined American Securities, where he gained invaluable experience in private equity. His tenure involved intricate deal-making and mentorship from seasoned investors, setting the stage for his entrepreneurial ambitions.

Starting Alpine Investors: Fundraising and Early Challenges

At Stanford Business School, Weaver decided to launch his own private equity fund despite having no initial track record. This bold move involved persistent efforts to secure investment, exemplified by his relentless pursuit of Tom Steyer, eventually leading to critical early investments from influential partners.

“I thought I was the right partner for Tom Steyer... I called him 11 times before he agreed to meet me.”
[73:03]

Despite early setbacks, including initial losses, Weaver demonstrated the importance of persistence and conviction in the face of adversity. These experiences underscored his belief in sticking to one's long-term goals rather than succumbing to short-term pressures or trends.

Cultivating a Balanced Company Culture

One of Weaver’s core philosophies at Alpine Investors is fostering a work environment that allows for personal life and family balance. Contrary to the grueling hours seen in traditional private equity firms, Weaver aims to create a supportive culture where employees can thrive both professionally and personally.

“I wanted people to be able to come to Alpine and not have to pull all-nighters... People are thrilled to cover for their colleagues when they have something important.”
[60:35]

This approach not only enhances employee satisfaction but also attracts diverse and talented individuals who align with the firm's values.

Dealing with Quitting and Resilience

The conversation delves into the complex topic of quitting, distinguishing between failure to persist and making strategic exits. Weaver shares his high school wrestling experience, where dropping out after a significant loss left a lasting impact on his internal scorecard, teaching him the profound effects of perceived failures.

“If I had had that visualization, I would have realized... that I wasn't quitting because I didn't want to wrestle. I was quitting because I was scared of losing.”
[15:57]

Weaver advises individuals to align their short-term decisions with long-term goals, emphasizing the importance of staying committed to one’s personal path rather than being swayed by external comparisons or trends.

“If you're going out of college, you have to stay in your first job for two years no matter what... Make sure that you're working backwards from that path.”
[22:11]

Navigating FOMO and Investment Trends

Addressing the fear of missing out (FOMO) prevalent in both career choices and investment decisions, Weaver cautions against chasing trends without a clear understanding of one’s long-term objectives. He critiques the "greater fool theory" behind speculative investments like NFTs and crypto, advocating for investing based on intrinsic value and sustainable growth.

“The only reason that something has value is that you think that someone else is going to pay you more for that in the future.”
[47:37]

This rational approach helps investors avoid volatile and speculative markets, promoting more stable and informed investment strategies.

Persistence in Securing Opportunities

Weaver underscores the importance of relentless pursuit in achieving professional goals, illustrated by his numerous attempts to secure a meeting with Tom Steyer. This persistence, coupled with genuine conviction in his vision, ultimately led to the successful establishment of his fund.

“Selling is the first person you need to convince is yourself... If you have the conviction, then do it as many times as it takes.”
[76:51]

Personal Setbacks and Lessons Learned

Tragedy struck Weaver with the untimely death of his close friend Monty Razor in a plane crash. This profound loss prompted a deep personal reflection, leading to significant life changes, including ending an unfulfilling job and committing to his entrepreneurial aspirations.

“If he saw what I was doing with mine, he'd be so disappointed. I landed... I quit my job and started my own company.”
[56:13]

This pivotal moment reinforced Weaver's commitment to living purposefully and aligned his actions with his core values.

Conclusion

Graham Weaver's journey, as shared in this episode, offers a wealth of insights into achieving excellence through unwavering perseverance, authentic leadership, and strategic goal-setting. His experiences highlight the importance of internal motivation over external validation, the necessity of balancing professional ambitions with personal well-being, and the value of resilience in overcoming setbacks. Weaver’s story serves as an inspiring guide for aspiring leaders and entrepreneurs striving to create meaningful and impactful lives.

Notable Quotes with Timestamps

• Will to Win:
  “Number one attribute by far is the will to win... someone who is just going to put the company or the project or whatever on their shoulders and run through the burning building with it and come out the other side one way or another.”
  [27:12]

• Self-Awareness in Leadership:
  “There’s a lot of things captured under that [self-awareness], probably humility and emotional intelligence...”
  [27:12]

• Internal vs. External Scorecard:
  “Your internal scorecard... you were doing the work, you’re going to the gym in the morning... winning on your internal scorecard is what's going to be most important.”
  [43:18]

• Persistence in Fundraising:
  “I thought I was the right partner for Tom Steyer... I called him 11 times before he agreed to meet me.”
  [73:03]

• Greater Fool Theory:
  “The only reason that something has value is that you think that someone else is going to pay you more for that in the future.”
  [47:37]

• Conviction in Selling:
  “Selling is the first person you need to convince is yourself... If you have the conviction, then do it as many times as it takes.”
  [76:51]

Final Thoughts

Graham Weaver's narrative is a testament to the power of determination, strategic thinking, and maintaining alignment with one's personal values. His approach to leadership and business provides valuable lessons for anyone aspiring to achieve excellence in their professional and personal lives.

Transcript

[Randall Kaplan]

What are the three most important things that you find in a leader?

[Graham Weaver]

Number one attribute by far is the will to win. This is someone who is just going to put the company or the project or whatever on their shoulders and run through the burning building with it and come out the other side one way or another. Number two would be probably persistence because you're going to, at least in almost anything, you're going to get kicked in the teeth a number of times. And then three would probably be just like self awareness. And there's a lot of things captured under that, probably humility and emotional intelligence and things like that are all kind of like sub bullets of self awareness.

[Randall Kaplan]

Welcome to In Search of Excellence, where we meet entrepreneurs, CEOs, entertainers, athletes, motivational speakers, and trailblazers of excellence with incredible stories from all walks of life. My name is Randall Kaplan. I'm a serial entrepreneur, venture capitalist, and the host of In Search of Excellence, which I started to motivate and inspire us to achieve excellence in all areas of our lives. My guest today is Graham Weaver. Graham is the founder and CEO of Alpine Investors, one of the highest performing and fastest growing private equity firms in the world. Graham also teaches one of the most popular classes at Stanford Business School and won the 2024 Distinguished Teacher Award there. Graham, thanks for being here. Welcome to In Search of Excellence.

[Graham Weaver]

Thanks so much for having me. I'm thrilled to be here, Randall.

[Randall Kaplan]

All right, let's start at the beginning. You were born in Perrysburg, Ohio. Your mom was a fundraiser for University of Toledo, and your dad was a veterinarian, which he started a business right around the time you were born. Talk to us about the influence your parents made. In particular, your dad getting calls in the middle of the night as you're growing up. Yeah, yeah.

[Graham Weaver]

Obviously you've done a lot of research, which I really appreciate. Really. That means a lot. So, yeah, as you say, my dad started a business almost around exactly the time I was born. And he had, he started basically from scratch. So he, the only way he would get clients is he would sign up to get emergency calls in the middle of the night. So he had this beeper that he wore. We didn't have cell phones back then. And at any time, his beeper could go off any night. Doesn't matter what he did that night. His beeper would go off and he would get up and he'd, you know, drive to the office and, you know, fix a dog's leg or something. And then he'd, then he'd go, you know, come back and Then he'd go in the office sometimes and see clients. But he did that as long as I can remember. And I talked to him later and he said that he gave him, for his 50th birthday present to himself was to stop taking emergency calls. So he started his practice at like the age of 32 or something. So for 18 years, in the middle of night, he got up every time that the phone rang. And that was how he built this practice, kind of brick by brick. And I watched that and I think I absorbed more of that than I really realized. Just the intensity that he threw into his job. I mean, he, to this day probably worked harder than anyone I've ever met. And his drive was pretty insatiable. So definitely, I definitely absorbed that through osmosis, I guess.

[Randall Kaplan]

And then.

[Graham Weaver]

What about your mom? So my mom. So my dad wasn't around much because he was building his company, you know, so he didn't go to my sporting events or parent teacher conferences. He actually, a lot of times wasn't home for dinner. So my mom really kind of filled in. She stayed at home and was just like the perfect mom. I mean, she, her lifelong dream was to be a mom. She was a great mom. She was the angel in my ear, believing in me, taking my side on things, telling me that I could do anything and giving me unconditional love. She was the person at every single sporting event and conference and clipped out all the things in the newspaper and still has all those things and so just wonderful. I couldn't have written a script for a better mom, I don't think so.

[Randall Kaplan]

We're going to talk about all the momentous events in your life, really from 13 on, which is really where the crux of all of your self development and self help got going. But what were you like before that, say from 5 to 12 years old?

[Graham Weaver]

I'd say like I was a pretty normal kid. I was, I was, I was, I was a kid. You know, my, my, my parents had created an environment that allowed me to, you know, enjoy being a kid for, for that time. And so I didn't really give much thought. I didn't, I didn't like set goals or anything like that. I kind of, I kind of just was myself. I had good friends and my siblings and I got along well. And so I'd say I was pretty normal, maybe even average for that time. And I wasn't upset about that or anything. I never really, I don't know if I even had ambition to be different. But yeah, pretty normal. Childhood, growing up in the Midwest, we talked about Midwest.

[Randall Kaplan]

I had a lot of menial jobs in the Midwest. I pick weeds. I'd knock door to door to pay people's driveway. Never got a single job, by the way, but I like the cold calling. I learned a lot about that that summer. Two seminal things happened one summer for you. I want to take them one by one. So let's talk about mowing lawns all day long. And then those Sony Walkmans, which people don't even remember what they are. What were you listening to? And how did that change your life?

[Graham Weaver]

So I started mowing lawns to make money. And as a kid, I think minimum wage, three bucks an hour, something like that, but you can make 10 bucks an hour mowing lawn. So that's a pretty big difference.

[Randall Kaplan]

Cash.

[Graham Weaver]

Yeah, exactly. So I'd go. Exactly. There was no withholding or anything, so. Or taxes, but I would. I would. So I would go get local jobs and in the neighborhood and take my little mower over and mow. And it was, you know, it's a pretty monotonous job. I mean, you walk into line and turn around and walk back. It's hot, sticky, and. Yeah, when the Sony Walkman came out, it was. It was like, amazing. I mean, I couldn't believe that you could carry around something like that. And let's.

[Randall Kaplan]

Let's tell people what that is, actually, because I think probably half or three quarters of people don't even know what a Sony Walkman.

[Graham Weaver]

Well, the first Sony Walkman that came out didn't have a cassette player, just had a radio. So you'd listen to the radio.

[Randall Kaplan]

This thing you clip on your belt?

[Graham Weaver]

Yeah, this little thing you clip on your belt. It had wired headphones that one of them never worked. You know, only one of them worked. And then you would. And then it gobbled batteries like crazy, right? Because it was actually mechanical. And then they came out with one of the cassettes so you could play, you know, you could play tapes, which, again, people probably even know what those are. But. And so first I started just listening to music and stuff, and I didn't. It was. It passed the time a little bit better. But then one time I went to the library and I was returning my music, you know, maybe the Beatles or something. And there was this program that said, think and Grow Rich, you know, by Napoleon Hill, which is a famous program. And then there was another program probably that even influenced me more by Brian Tracy. That was like the Universal laws of Success and achievement or something like that. I probably listened to That, I mean, and when I say that it would be like six cassettes, double sided and I probably listened to the whole program 10 times and it was just like, I felt like someone was giving me like the answer key to life. Like it was things I'd never even thought of before about, you know, deciding what you wanted in life, about setting goals, about writing them down, about working backwards. And all these stories of people that had, you know, brought things into their lives they never imagined. I just thought like, oh my gosh, it like, it was like, it was like an awakening of some kind. When I started listening to this stuff.

[Randall Kaplan]

I think Napoleon Hill's Think and Grow Rich is sort of a rite of passage and I think students should still read that book. But when I read that book, I said, okay, I want to be rich. Was that the motivation? I mean, what did you take out of that book?

[Graham Weaver]

It wasn't that so much, I don't know that that was really the motivation. I mean that was probably what the title is, probably what got me to check it out of the library. But it was more about how the internal, your internal programming was really so important and how you had so much control over that. So it was like your attitude about the way you talk to yourself, what you were setting your mind upon, how you were spending your time. And it never really just occurred to me just how much you had this internal locus of control. That's the geeky word for it. And I just found that unbelievably freeing and I thought it was just incredibly powerful.

[Randall Kaplan]

So you're 13 or 14 years old. It's very unusual for you to find this in the library yourself. As a parent, do you advise your friends or parents? And what's your advice to parents? Should you be telling your kids to read Napoleon Hill, Tony Robbins, Dale Carnegie?

[Graham Weaver]

Well, yeah, we're jumping a little bit ahead, but if you're okay, want me to go there? So like I, I'm, I'm on social media now and it's, it's completely different. So my kids, you know, they, this, the content that they consume is in 30 and 40 and 60 second bites, right? That's what's out there. And the quote, self help content is, it's awful. It's not only not good, it's actually destructive. You know, it's the kind of thing of like if you haven't, you know, it's going to be, I'm not going to name any names, but imagine a guy standing in front of a Ferrari, you know, saying if you don't have a Ferrari. You know you have a Ferrari.

[Randall Kaplan]

No, I would never have one. It's too showy. Although I, Yeah. Think about having one.

[Graham Weaver]

No, that's.

[Randall Kaplan]

No, no. We know someone who fits this profile. Probably the same guy I have.

[Graham Weaver]

I have nothing against Ferraris or people that own Ferraris. But. But you imagine a guy standing in front of a red Ferrari saying, you know, if you, if you are not making $20,000 a month or whatever, then you're, you know, you're, you're worthless. And, you know, you shouldn't call yourself a man. A man. And things like that. Literally, that's what they're saying. And. And then, of course, there's a link to buy their, you know, insert program, real estate, crypto trading option trading, you know, whatever that they're selling. And, you know, if you're 12 years old or 13 years old, you don't know the difference. You don't know that that's not actually the path. And so Anyway, so, yes, 100%, I would encourage the young generation to read Napoleon Hill, but understanding that their attention span and the content that they're consuming is so different from that now, it's really kind of scary.

[Randall Kaplan]

As part of the books you read this summer, that summer you talked about a book about genies. Let's talk about that for a second and then we'll go in later on to where that fit in later.

[Graham Weaver]

Yeah. So I think. I don't. I'm like 90% sure it was Brian Tracy who had this exercise. And I can still remember where I was when I heard it. And he said, okay, imagine that you're going about your day and you see this magic lamp, and you walk over and you pick it up and you rub this lamp and this genie comes out. And the genie says to you, I'm not a full powerful genie. I can't give you three wishes. But what I can give you is whatever you throw yourself into with your career and your life and the journey that you undertake, it's going to go great. It's going to be amazing. You know, what would you wish for? And I remember doing that as a kid thinking, oh, gosh, you know, I think I'd start a business. And, you know, this is what I'd want to do. And then, and then, and then he, the author goes on to say, that's what you should do with your life. That's your answer. Like, if you actually want to know what to do, that's it. And I remember thinking, it's not that easy like that. That's not right, you know, And. And then. But he goes on to say, because that's your answer. Absent fear of failure, that's what your heart really wants to do. And believe it or not, my heart didn't pick, I'm going to be in the NBA or something like that. Because there's a lot of factors that are exogenous that go into that. So I'd say people. Whenever I say that exercise, people are like, oh, well, I'm going to go win the World Series. And I'd say, okay, well, yeah, but take out some really crazy exogenous factors like that. And, you know, so there's a little bit of realism, but not. Not much. And that exercise that I did when I was 13 years old, I have pretty much almost throughout my entire life done that exercise, answered that question, and then gone and done that thing. And that's a big thing of what I try to bring to my students at Stanford or people at Alpine or, you know, the people on social media.

[Randall Kaplan]

We all have certain movies when we're young kids that are influential in our lives. I'm gonna bring up Beverly Hills Cop. Yeah.

[Graham Weaver]

For me, Detroit.

[Randall Kaplan]

Detroit. Eddie Murphy plays this cop.

[Graham Weaver]

Phenomenal movie.

[Randall Kaplan]

Great, great movie. But what I learned from that movie, among many others, I mean, it's funny, but he would walk in to places, say things in an authoritative manner, and people would respond, yeah, you know, park my car up front. You know, this shit all happened the last. He's driving an old beater car. Let's talk about when you were seventh grade, you got into wrestling. And the second big event that summer was you watching Vision Quest. Can you talk about that and how that changed your life?

[Graham Weaver]

Yeah. So for those of you who don't, for those people who haven't seen Vision Quest, which I imagine is almost everybody who's listening to this, including me, I.

[Randall Kaplan]

Have to be honest.

[Graham Weaver]

Okay, no problem, no problem. I mean, yeah, I've realized this is. This is kind of a very niche movie. So. So it's basically Rocky for wrestling. Okay. And the movie's about this high school wrestler named Loudon Swain who's kind of a little dorky. And at one point in his senior year, he's in a class learning about, I think, philosophy or something, and he kind of realizes he's going to die. Like, it kind of really dawns on him. He's in high school, but he realizes this isn't going to go on forever, and so he decides he's going to go on this Vision Quest. And he's going to do something that he just, he's just going to go for it. And so he drops down, he's a very good wrestler and he drops down two weight classes to from anyway, I think to 168. And he wants to wrestle the best wrestler in the state, this guy Brian Shute. Of course you know the ending before it even starts, last second, he wins, gets the girl, the whole thing. But as a wrestler I was a media, I was above average wrestler. But this was like my anthem, this movie. I mean I can say every line of the whole movie and I've watched it so many times. It was so inspirational, the music and everything. And so that influenced me a lot in wrestling. And I ended up going on my own little vision question, which you can talk more about. But that was that kind of combination of the self help tapes about setting goals and being really clear what you want on your goals. Plus then that was my goal now was to drop down, make the varsity and you know, be part of this really, really good wrestling team. I put those things together and that ended up being probably the, probably the biggest turning point in my life.

[Randall Kaplan]

At some point you weren't a good wrestler and then you ended up being the number one wrestler, maybe even in the state. Talk to us about dropping 25 pounds, not eating the pizza. Yeah. Not winning the match against the number two person. And what's, what's the lesson about quitting? Yeah, we quit. Or shouldn't we quit when we have unsuccessful results?

[Graham Weaver]

So what happened is my sophomore year I got bumped off the varsity. I wasn't good enough to make it, just to be candid. I was 150 pounds. I was about six feet tall and I, and, and the really, the only real opening that I had to make the varsity given like who was seniors and all those kinds of things was at 125. So I had to drop 25 pounds at 6ft tall. At 6ft tall, rail thin, like I'm 6:1 now and I weigh 185. So this is 60 pounds less than I weigh now. And, and it, and it was the hardest, to this day, the hardest thing I've ever done. I mean I was eating 900 calories a day. I was working out three times a day. I was running in the morning, doing wrestling practice and then getting on exercise bike at night. I was hungry all the time. On the day of weigh ins, I was also thirsty because you couldn't drink. And I just, I just like, I found, I found that this limit that I thought was there, wasn't there. And so I put myself through hell and I realized I was still standing and I was able to do it. And I actually hit the goal, I hit the weight. And I wasn't. I was the number one wrestler in the league, not in the state. And then I'm fast forwarding a bit in the story, but my junior year, the biggest match of my life, I was number one. I was wrestling the number two wrestler in the league. And we would have this big matte light that would come down. The whole gym was packed. It was a sport our high school was the best at. And I lost. And it was just crushing. I also wasn't really completely rational because I've been cutting so much weight. So it felt like a much bigger thing. And that's the last match ever. I was a junior, so that. And that was the last match I ever wrestled. Like, I ended up quitting. And that really haunted me. It just haunted me. And the next, like, year and a half, I just sat with that. And, you know, it's interesting because if you looked at my high school resume and, you know, the grades I got, I was president of the class, I did really well in tennis and, And I started in plays and I got into Princeton out of a small school in the middle of the Midwest. Like, you'd be like, oh, that was great. But that's what I would say was like the external scorecard, my internal scorecard was I quit wrestling. Like, when I graduated, I was like, oh, you know, that, that, that's actually how I felt about myself. I was like, that's how, like, devastating that was for me. Like, I was like, oh, I'm a. And I just remember thinking that will never happen again in my life. And it hasn't.

[Randall Kaplan]

Why didn't, why at the time, why didn't you just. If you're feeling so bad, why didn't you. Why don't you go back? My daughter was a cheerleader. They had a new cheer coach. Cheer coach was abusing the kids, making them weird things that they were uncomfortably physically wearing. This was just crazy stuff. And she'd come home crying every night, as would half the team. And around a third of the team quit because of this guy. And she'd come home and 11 o'clock at night, she'd be crying and she's miserable. And this was her thing, had a great coach she year before who left to go to another school, and here she is. And I said, you know, Bianca, it's. This is not healthy. And she went to a very tough school academically, tons of pressure, so that was busy by itself. And then she had this. She said, you know, dad, I'm thinking about quitting, and what do you think I should do? And I said, well, this isn't a straight line, black and white. You know, you make a tough call like this and there's pluses and minuses, but it's not that easy.

[Graham Weaver]

Right.

[Randall Kaplan]

So ultimately, she was so worn down, so tired, she quit. And then she was more miserable than she thought, and she asked to get back on the team. She had to work her way back on the team. So what's your advice to people as you know, you. You quit. You didn't go back? She quit. She went back. She was glad she did. She still suffered at the hands of this coach who was just the biggest jerk you could ever think of. What's your advice here?

[Graham Weaver]

Well, you know, in. In terms of. I. I think. Going back to what? Like, I. I don't know that I have enough context to give advice to your daughter. I don't.

[Randall Kaplan]

I'm not talking about my daughter.

[Graham Weaver]

Okay. Yeah.

[Randall Kaplan]

You know, just people. Either parents who have young kids.

[Graham Weaver]

Yeah.

[Randall Kaplan]

Or young professionals who are coming out into the work world.

[Graham Weaver]

Well, I. I think that there's. Because I've had the same thing with my kids as well, where they are doing something and they've wanted to quit. And, like, I had a. I had one with my son, and he was playing lacrosse, and he had a. His coach was really tough, and it was the hardest thing he ever did. And I just did kind of a coaching thing with him. And we sort of visualized him going through high school and quitting, and then he. Okay, what would that open up? And what would be. What would that feel like? And how would you feel at the end of that? And, you know, your friends are playing still and, you know, you're doing this other thing. And we kind of, like, really went there, almost like in a. In a real deep kind of visualization. And then we did it the other way. Okay. You're going to stick it out. It's going to be tough. You know, you're going to have to get up in the morning and train. You're going to have to do this. Let's go through that. And like, in each case, we got to the end of high school and we. And we look back and he was like, I gotta. I gotta stay. You know, Like, I mean, I have to do this. I know. And he was realizing, like, he was scared, you know, it was hard. It was tough. It was. But he realized, like, that's why he was quitting. Now, it could be the other. It could have been the opposite of that, where he had other things that were more exciting to him. And that visualization might have helped him otherwise. But I think for me, I was kind of scared. I was like. It was hard. It was the hardest thing I've ever done. And I was exhausted. I hadn't eaten for, at this point, three years, and it was consuming me, and I was just exhausted. And I was also scared. I had never thrown myself into something like that, not even close. And I felt like I was failing at it. And I think I was. If I. If I had had that visualization, I would have realized, like, that, that I wasn't quitting because I didn't want to wrestle. I was quitting because I was scared of losing, and I was scared of throwing my entire soul into something and failing.

[Randall Kaplan]

Let's talk about the concept of quitting in the real world, in the professional world.

[Graham Weaver]

Yeah.

[Randall Kaplan]

So many students that I coach and I know people you coach and young professionals, they're unhappy in their job, their boss is an asshole. They hate going to work.

[Graham Weaver]

Yeah.

[Randall Kaplan]

I tell young professionals, when you get out of college, you have to stay in your first job for two years no matter what. I don't care how unpleasant it is, because if you can't work in that environment, you can't be successful. Right. Work is not perfect. And a lot of people say work is work. And I think very few people who just bounce out of bed every day, you're really lucky if you do. You're in a very small percentage say, like, this is the best thing that I've done. What's your advice to people? Either that people in your company or people in your portfolio, companies who are unhappy is. Should they quit if they're that, what's the threshold? And is the grass always greener?

[Graham Weaver]

This is the advice that I give, and I give this advice a lot because a lot of people who come to business school are trying to figure out what they want to do with their lives. They're like the people I probably talk about the most of this exact thing. And what I kind of talk about is. So I'll give you a real example. Let's say I'm having a coaching conversation with a student. It's pretty much the same conversation every time. They're saying, okay, I could do X and I could do Y. And let's just take a student who's an alumni so they're actually exactly the situation. You're saying they're in a job that they don't like. Let's use that as an example. So I talked to them for a little while and they have a couple different paths. They could do three or four at some point. I ask them enough questions, I can tell what their heart wants to do, what their genie goal is, what their real soul, so to speak. Not to be too woo woo, but what's really tugging at them. If you ask enough questions and get them in a place where they can get out of their head, you can see here's what they really want. And then my advice is the same advice that Brian Tracy gave me when I was 13. That's where you're gonna go. Okay, like let's be clear, you want to spend your life in pursuit of that. And then now all we're talking about is tactics. We're talking about the path to get there. So yes, you're in this job right now. Should you quit tomorrow? I can't answer that, like on a blanket basis for everyone in the world, because everyone's situation is different. Maybe you need to accumulate some savings, maybe some skills, whatever. But let's make no mistake, you're doing that in service of the path that you're going to go down and spend your life on. And let's make sure that we're back. We're working backwards from that path starting today where you are. So should you quit tomorrow again, everyone's situation is a little different. But irrespective of where you're starting, I want to map a path to get you on the path. Because that's the path where you're going to feel like you're in flow, you're going to stay with it for longer and you only get one life, so why not?

[Randall Kaplan]

We talked about high school. You said you were the captain of your team in high school and then you were captain of the rowing team in college. We'll get to that in a few minutes. But you said you were a normal kid, but obviously you had leadership skills. So when did you learn that you had them? And can you teach someone to be a natural born. Can you teach someone to be a leader if they're not a natural born leader?

[Graham Weaver]

Yeah, I mean, I think you can. In terms of when I would say I first realized that, it was kind of surprising to me. You know, it was surprising to me that, that younger people, either tennis or wrestling or rowing, that they looked up to me, I didn't almost feel that about myself, but I think I just, it was more like the way that I was conducting myself. They responded to that. It was not me giving rah rah speeches. It was like, hey, I'm going to be at the gym tomorrow at 5am you know, who wants to come? It was more like leading by example. Leading by example, exactly. I wasn't giving big speeches or anything, but when. So that was probably how I first started to become a leader was I was just, I was doing things that other people wanted to be a part of and they wanted to follow that path. In terms of can you teach leadership? I'd like to think so. I try to do that at Stanford and our CEO and training program. I mean, I don't think it's one of these things that you're born or you're made a leader. I think, I think there's 100% you can teach leadership. And I also, if you look across our portfolio of leaders, I mean, we have leaders who are quiet and they're introverts and they never give these rah rah speeches and people will follow them to the end of the earth. We have leaders who are military veterans, ballerinas, investment bankers, you know, everything in between. So I definitely don't think there's one profile. I don't think it's a gene. I think it's a. I think, I think probably people more than anything are going to follow someone who's authentically in the path of the thing they should be doing as well.

[Randall Kaplan]

So what are the three most important things that you find in a leader?

[Graham Weaver]

We interview people for attributes versus experience. We learned this a while ago that who someone is at their core is way more correlated to success than what they've done on their resume. And that's a really freeing thing because that opens your pool up dramatically. And also, you know, has, has some really powerful positive things for diversity and gender and things like that where you're not requiring someone to have done something for 20 years where that battle was won or lost. 20 years. So anyway, we were very focused on attributes. It's been way more highly correlated. Number one attribute by far is the will to win. So, and you can interview for that. And this is someone who is just going to put the company or the project or whatever on their shoulders and run through the burning building with it and come out the other side one way or another. And we can't teach that. So you said, could you teach leadership? We can teach. We cannot teach the will to win. So we have to hire people that already have that. And they. And like I said, you could have that as a ballerina or a military veteran or any. Anything that's number one by far. Number two would be probably grit persistence, because you're gonna. In at least in almost anything, you're gonna get kicked in the teeth a number of times. And then three would probably be just like self awareness. And there's a lot of things captured under that. Probably humility and emotional intelligence and things like that are all kind of like sub bullets of self awareness. So those would be the three you talk about.

[Randall Kaplan]

Will the wind. When I interview a CEO who's looking for funding, I look for a lot of things as well. And I look for the killer instinct and the survival instinct. So one of the things I used to think about before I became successful was someone dropped me off the middle of the Pacific Ocean. And I'm terribly afraid of sharks, by the way. So I just can't even probably not make it just on the fear of being eaten by a shark that I would find land. And those are somehow some way I was going to survive and find land. So I don't call it the will to win, but now I am going to call it the will survival instinct.

[Graham Weaver]

And the word it sounds like a very similar criteria. Yeah.

[Randall Kaplan]

Where do sales skills fit into this? Because not only good, sorry, you need. I mean, people talk about sales where you're selling a product, but it's way more than that. Everything we do is related to sales. You got to sell people. I mean, I had to sell you to be on my show. Yeah, right. I had to sell Matt Hickerson to come work with me. Right. I have to sell my team that I can lead the team and be successful. Anything that we do is about sales. So where. I didn't hear you say sales skills.

[Graham Weaver]

So where does that fit into the rubricon 100%. I think one of the most important things as a leader is ability to hire and build a team. Ability to sell, ability to prioritize. I think are probably. And move quickly. Those are probably the four things. So sales is on the list of being a great leader. You only gave me three.

[Randall Kaplan]

Okay.

[Graham Weaver]

And I was.

[Randall Kaplan]

I should have said five. I should have said 10.

[Graham Weaver]

Actually, you gave me three. And, and sales is probably something that has. You have a little bit more of an opportunity that can be learned versus the things I mentioned I feel like are a lot harder to teach. So if you gave me five, sales would have actually been in the top five. But, but, but, but it is a Little bit more. A tiny bit more teachable than will to win or grit, which are just. I can't do anything with someone who doesn't have those things.

[Randall Kaplan]

So let's go back to high school. So you're a great student. You apply to Princeton, you get in. Bachelor's of science in engineering.

[Graham Weaver]

That's right.

[Randall Kaplan]

Let's talk about when you got there. Let's go back to the genie. So tell us your experience with the genie and these crazy goals you set for yourself when you got on campus.

[Graham Weaver]

Well, so when I got to college, it was like the shackles just came off. And, I mean, my. At the time, my parents were divorced, so I was spending kind of, you know, certain time here, a certain time there. I was, you know, an athlete. I was a student. You know, your time is very structured. All of a sudden, I got to college. It was literally like almost like the Forrest Gump scene where, like, the braces come off when he's running it. It was just like, wow, I've got no constraints. I have all this free time. You know, what do I want to do? And I set three goals. I actually wrote them down. My genie goals. I was going to be valedictorian. I was going to be the best rower in the country, and I was going to start a business that was going to pay for school. Those are my three goals, and those are pretty much the three activities I did at college. There wasn't a lot in the four years. I mean, I made toward the end when things loosened up and I kind of had the academics down and my rowing was coming along. Then I started to introduce social. You know. But in the first few years, I just. I just went hard at those three things.

[Randall Kaplan]

So when people write goals down, I write goals down. After doing some research on you, I'm going to change my goals and how I write them down so most people will be. I want to be the number one rower. You would write down, I am the number one rower. So talk about the difference between those two and why one is more effective than the other.

[Graham Weaver]

Well, it was something I learned in those motivational tapes that I listened to about writing your goal as though you've already achieved it in the present tense. And, like, I'll give you just an example. I am the number one rower in the United States. I literally had this green notebook that. And I. Several green notebooks that I wrote that down every single day. I was in college, and something happens where I think when you write it down, I don't know if you have to say it exactly the way I said it. But when you write down something like that every day, I think a part of you assumes the identity of someone who's already achieved the goal. So I'm the number one rower in the United States. My alarm goes off at 4:45 and I have a choice about turning it off and going back to sleep or getting dressed, going down to the boathouse and rowing on the rowing machine, the erg, for an hour before class. It's dark, there's no one there. No one's going to know if I did it or not. But hey, part of me is already behaving like the number one rower even when I'm a 135 pound novice from Toledo that didn't even know the boats go backwards. You know, like you had never rode before? I'd never rode before. I'd never been in a boat before.

[Randall Kaplan]

So you never rode before and your goal is to be the number one rower in the world?

[Graham Weaver]

I took on, I took the genie goal very seriously. Literally. Yeah, so I wrote, I literally took it literally.

[Randall Kaplan]

But you didn't achieve those goals, were you? Which, what'd you learn from the lessons of not achieving the goal?

[Graham Weaver]

Yeah, I didn't achieve any of them. So the business I started didn't. I mean, I made money in the business, but it didn't pay for college. I was not valedictorian. I did very well in school. Like it was Phi Beta Kappa, but I was not valid. I was not valedictorian.

[Randall Kaplan]

My daughter just made five Beta gap.

[Graham Weaver]

Oh, that's great.

[Randall Kaplan]

Wisconsin.

[Graham Weaver]

That's awesome.

[Randall Kaplan]

Yeah. And I was also five Beta Gappa.

[Graham Weaver]

Yeah, I said like you. Yeah, yeah, I know that. Yeah, that's great. I, so I did really well academically and I did really well rowing. I was captain of a team that ended up winning the national championship. But so I, but I was definitely not the best. I was probably the, one of the worst rowers in the boat. Um, and I, I was the strongest rower on the rowing machine, but I was technically probably the worst rower in the team. Um, so I didn't hit any of the goals. But I, I. Going back to what I was saying about your internal and your external scorecard, like my internal scorecard. I, I was good. I had done everything I wanted to do. I left it on the field and I felt really, really good about how I spent those years. So it really wasn't as much about the goals as about having three things I was excited about enough to throw my entire soul into Them. And then I realized just how gratifying that was. And I've tried to basically do that since then, too.

[Randall Kaplan]

I think a lot of successful people I know start businesses in college and we learned financial lessons doing that. I sold T shirts, I went door to door, cost me five bucks. I sold them for 12, long sleeve cost six, sold them for 18. So I learned about margin and all kinds of things. And also that was a cash business. Tell us about negative cost of goods sold and your New York Times experience and the lessons you learned from that.

[Graham Weaver]

So we had a business where we delivered newspapers to college kids. And yeah, the New York Times actually paid us to get subscribers. Like usually one would have to buy the paper and then sell it at a margin. They paid us to because they thought Princeton people should read the New York Times. And so it was incredible. And then the Daily Princetonian was the paper and they. The thing I learned there is we said, okay, we're only going to charge you. I don't remember what it was. $0.09 per paper per day. That's it. I mean, that's not much. And they're like, yeah, that sounds great. But you multiply that by 2,000 papers times seven days a week, times the whole year, it was unbelievably profitable. So the hard part about that business was I had to get 15 college kids up seven days a week. One of them had to get up at 4am to drive the van to drop off all the papers of the sites. The other ones had to all get up at 5:30 or 6am the amount of stuff that went wrong in that was almost infinite. There was, you know, you could imagine what that was like. So that was, that was tough. But, but it was, it was a great experience. It was really. It was a really great experience.

[Randall Kaplan]

So let's go back to the rowing team for a second. You're a freshman, you never got in the boat, so you had this goal. And tell us about your coaches, John Parker and Mike Teddy.

[Graham Weaver]

Yeah.

[Randall Kaplan]

And what you actually did. You went from nowhere to essentially having the best erg time of anybody in the country.

[Graham Weaver]

It was crazy. My first year.

[Randall Kaplan]

That's a crazy story.

[Graham Weaver]

It is. Thank you. Yeah. Well, my freshman year, John Parker and Mike Tady were both. So it was kind of a cool timing for me because the olympics were in 1992 and I started Princeton in 1990. So all the Olympians were rowing out of the Princeton boathouse. That's where the training, the main training camp was, including John and Mike, who rode in the 1992, eight, you know, in the Olympics. So my coach and Mike, who was the heavyweight coach. So it was just like unbelievable. I mean, when I say I would go down to the boathouse by myself, which I did at 5, 6 in the morning, I mean, usually I would be the only one there. But Mike, Mike Tady, probably half the time was, was there training right next to. He had no idea who I was for the first, you know, maybe month. And then after a while, after he, I think his curiosity just got the better of him because there's this 135 pound kid with a mullet who's coming down to the boathouse.

[Randall Kaplan]

You had a mullet back?

[Graham Weaver]

I had a mullet, yeah. Because I was from Ohio, you know. I mean, you probably had one in Michigan.

[Randall Kaplan]

Yeah. Even Seagal was a big actor at the time. And I was trying to grow a little ponytail. It didn't really work. But I thought he was cool.

[Graham Weaver]

Yeah, exactly. That was the, that was the cool look back then. So I'm this 135 kid pound kid with a mullet and I think. And I'd run into Mike and he just ignored me. And then one day we're taking a shower at the same time, he's just like, what are you doing? Who are you and what are you doing? And I was like, I'm going to be the number one rower in the United States. And he's just like, well, your form's terrible. And he started helping me a little bit with my form and also just telling me what workouts to do and really, really simple thing which was, and I don't want to geek out too much on this, but duration over intensity. So like you could train. I could train seven days a week if I keep my heart rate at basically 85%. If I start doing what everyone else does, come down and do these hard pieces and you know, 10, you know, one minute on, one minute off and go as hard as they can, you're going to build up lactic acid. The next day you're not going to be able to train as hard. So Mike was like, hey, you know, row at 85% just slightly harder than conversational pace and just do as much volume as you can. And that was like life changing. I mean that I could train an infinite number of, literally infinite number of hours and not, you know, have any, any soreness or anything. So he gave me that, that and also just kind of like being in the boathouse with, with Mike and John. It was just, it was, it was awesome. I mean, it was, it was just Mike Tady went on, by the way, to be the U.S. olympic coach, won a gold medal, is just an absolute legend. And I mean to be able to have had that experience with him at that age was just, it was really cool.

[Randall Kaplan]

So many athletes I know and professionals will do things no one else has done. And there's so many on the list. One of the things they do is get there before anybody else. When it's quiet, you're the only one in the gym. Cliff Kingsbury is a professional football coach. He's a good friend. He was on my show. He gets to the gym as a head coach of the Cardinals before any of the players do, which is actually shocking. You wouldn't think leading by example in my professional world, some of my coaching is first in, last out. Philo is what I call it. I teach that, I preach it. How important is it in the private equity business to outwork everybody? And one of the things that I teach my mentees is you really don't understand what it's like to outwork everybody else. You have. I have. That means getting. I'd get to the law library at 3 o'clock every day. I'd leave at 11 o'clock when there was no one there. There were like three of us in the whole law library. So how important is it in your success and in your business? Do people in the private equity business who work the most, who get there before no one else does, do the best?

[Graham Weaver]

So it's a great question. Like, I think that, I think that's a big part of it. You know, it's maybe necessary but not sufficient in the early years. So I think using myself an example like I did, I was at. I took that same rowing algorithm to work and worked outworked everyone. I would like to think as I started to get up the curve and learn more and become skilled, I actually started to try to figure out a model where I didn't have to do that because I wanted to have a family. I know you and I share trying to be home with them. And I actually wanted people to be able to come to Alpine and not have to pull all nighters and not have to make a decision between whether they could have a career or have a family. Because when I came out of school and did an analyst grind on Wall street and I looked at the associates and the senior associates and the vice presidents and the principals and the partners, none of them had lives, you know, And I didn't, I didn't want to Be them. And so I think it's interesting because the people who are young at Alpine, it doesn't matter what we tell them about the hours, they're going to just, they're going to work 16 hours a day because that's who they are and they're learning who they are and they don't have a family at that time. And that's the kind of people we hire. And no matter what we tell them, that's just what they do. But I think I want to provide a path where as people do have families, that we've built a model that has intellectual property that allows us to be really successful without the, you know, without the like 16 hour days.

[Randall Kaplan]

We're hard on ourselves. We compare ourselves to different people. But you said that's not the right way to think about comparing ourselves. You said we should compare ourselves to what we did yesterday. Yeah, I think that's counterintuitive to most people. So can you explain that?

[Graham Weaver]

Yeah, it's kind of, it's kind of what I was saying before about like your internal scorecard and your external one. Like I think if you're winning on your internal scorecard like that, that's ultimately what's going to be most important. And you're the only one who's going to know, you know, you're the only one who's going to know if you're, if you're getting better, if you're doing the work, if you're going to the gym in the morning. I mean, you're really the only one. And you're actually the only customer too. You're really the only one you're trying to impress. If you think about the external scorecard. Why do you want an external scorecard? Ultimately, so you feel better. But like you could just start with what's your real scorecard? So, yeah, sorry, I lost track of the. Did I answer your question?

[Randall Kaplan]

Yeah, it was more of the advice you give is counter to what people are saying, comparing yourself to where you were yesterday. Because I don't write down my goals where I was yesterday. I start to think about, okay, if I want to be the best, here's the bar that different people set.

[Graham Weaver]

So, yeah, I mean, so for example, we're in a crazy competitive industry in private equity. There's 5,500 funds there. It's unbelievably competitive. Really smart people go into the field. You've had some on your show. And we do compete for dollars with all those folks. So we have to have some kind of idea of what the benchmarks are. And we derive a lot of our mission off of being several standard deviations better than those benchmarks. And that is inspiring to the team. So it wouldn't be fair to say, like, hey, we're playing a competitive game and we're not even going to know what the score is. So I wouldn't say that. But in terms of when you go home and are you sleeping well at night, a lot of that's going to come down. More to like, are you winning on your own scorecard?

[Randall Kaplan]

So you do well at Princeton?

[Graham Weaver]

Yeah.

[Randall Kaplan]

You've got some choices to make. You have Morgan Stanley, private equity or McKinsey, and I'm sure you probably had more. And I want to talk about the importance of being wine and dine, how we can be kind of hoodwinked into that. We can talk about sending a black car to take it from Princeton to New York City. And I also want to talk about the importance and craziness of fomo. We'll get into actually what happened at Morgan Stanley in a minute. But so many students that I mentor, it's like, oh, I want to go into investment banking, I want to work at Goldman Sachs. And we have lots of conversation. A group of 32 say, you know what? Half of you who think you want to do it are not qualified to do it, frankly. And two, you couldn't handle what happens there. It's wrong for you, but, oh my God, I can do it. Everyone else is doing it. They're making so much money. So talk about the advice and FOMO and not only how it applies to students, but investors as well. And we could talk about the crypto, the dot com, all that stuff.

[Graham Weaver]

It comes back to what I was saying before, which is like, how clear are you on what you really want long term? And then is that part of that path to get you on that, you know, on that journey? So let's say that you had an idea that you wanted to be in private equity long term and taking that banking job was your best path to ultimately getting to that goal. Then I'd say it's directly in path and you're going to have to probably suck up a couple of years. That isn't going to be very fun. I hope you could find another alternative path, but maybe that is the best option. So I think it's like making the short term decisions is to me in service of that longer term career trajectory that your soul wants to go on.

[Randall Kaplan]

And then what about in the investing world? We've seen this with all the trends, NFT is the latest one. And I mean, someone bought a painting, which wasn't even painting for Sky Beeple, who was a graphic designer in North Carolina for $69 million. And everyone was, I mean, Mark Cuban, everyone was in on this. You got the crypto craze, you have the dot com craze. I mean, I mean you look at historical cash flows, right? I mean, you can look at these businesses, see the growth rates and margins and all kinds of things, but you're also around this world.

[Graham Weaver]

Yeah, absolutely.

[Randall Kaplan]

Everyone wants to get rich, everyone jumping on the bandwagon.

[Graham Weaver]

I mean the thing that I say, that's really the simple way I think about it is there. The term greater fool theory means that the only reason that something has value is that you think that someone else is going to pay you more for that in the future. That's the only value that it has. Not that it's sending you dividends. Not that it's a house you're going to live in or a car you're going to, you know, but it's the only value it has is that the greater fool is going to think it's worth more in the future. That's a painting. That's crypto, you know, that's NFTs. They all fall. It's even gold, you know, they all fall into that bucket. A lot of people don't agree with that. A lot of people talk about all kinds of different reasons why that doesn't apply. But if you really break it down, the only value they have is you think someone is going to pay you more. That's just a very, very dangerous game to play because you're, as you would imagine, you're relying on some external factors that you have no control over. And you're, and you're, and you're, you're, you're relying on someone being a greater fool. And I think if you had the algorithm of avoid 100% of those games, you would be way better off.

[Randall Kaplan]

It.

[Graham Weaver]

You wouldn't get lucky to buy, you know, Bitcoin at whatever price you bought it, you know, so you're going to have to give up on that. But I think on the whole, the whole world would be way better off if they avoided all those games.

[Randall Kaplan]

There's a lot of people watching the show who are not sophisticated. They go to Stanford, they just don't have a background in finance. How fast should people run for the exits when they hear that someone has a hot stock dip?

[Graham Weaver]

You stay in bolt or they should Run. I mean, the very, very best investors are not giving away stock tips, typically. And I can tell you that if you had an algorithm like Jim Simons, probably the best quantitative trader the world has ever seen, was the most secretive person in the world about his. I mean, he wouldn't ever give interviews. He wouldn't let his employees give interviews. He wouldn't tell investors what he was doing because he actually had the magic formula. I can promise you, if someone's selling it to you on TikTok for, you know, 19.99amonth, they don't have the formula or they wouldn't be sharing it. So hot tips, you know, option trading program, real estate flipping. If someone knew how to do that, really, they wouldn't be selling it.

[Randall Kaplan]

So.

[Graham Weaver]

So run.

[Randall Kaplan]

So run.

[Graham Weaver]

Yeah.

[Randall Kaplan]

Okay, so you have a little bit of fomo, you're graduating, your friends are going to private equity. Maybe I should go into private equity. You're at Morgan Stanley Capital Markets. Tell us about the pig farm.

[Graham Weaver]

Yeah.

[Randall Kaplan]

Tell us about what it was like when you were actually working there. Tell us about your mom being single, divorced. And this goes to just demands on the work. Right. And so many of us take. Take jobs right out of college, especially the bankers. Right. Investment bankers, despite all the. That we're softer right now. I mean, you read in the newspaper about young junior bankers dying because, you know, they work so much. Yeah, but in the investment banks, despite what they say, I mean, I have a lot of former students and friends work there. It's still pretty much the same. So you're at Morgan Stanley Capital Markets. You're sent to this pig firm, you're excited. A billion dollar investment there, and then your mom at some point comes to visit you. She plans all these things skating at Rock Center. And then tell us about the phone call that you got about your friend Monty one day and how that changed your life.

[Graham Weaver]

Yeah, well, taking those one at a time. So the first assignment that I had in the. In the pig farm was, or first assignment at Morgan Stanley was to go out to actually, ironically, Princeton, Missouri, and work on this pig farm. And I was like, I didn't. So Morgan Stanley had put $1 billion into a pig farm. Like a green field. Like there's, There's. There's grass and there's nothing there. And they built from scratch this hog farm. And people are like, they're either brilliant or really stupid.

[Randall Kaplan]

What's the purpose? What's the revenue model? I mean, is this like a bacon plan?

[Graham Weaver]

Yeah. The idea is that as the emerging economies Evolve, they would want to consume more meat. And pork was a cheaper version because a cow can have one calf, but a pig can have 20 sow, or a sow could have 20 piglets or whatever. So the math was like just better using pigs than cows for that simple reason. So Morgan Stanley was going to greenfield this and take it straight from a farm all the way through the processing plant and put it on your shelf. That was the kind of thesis, the problem was that they built their model on the historical pig prices of $47, 100 weight, which was, it turns out, the last hundred years average and it was the next hundred years average. But, but you know, it's the kind of common thing. How does a, how does a five foot man drown in a six or how does a six foot man drown in a river that's average is five feet deep? You know, because it gets deeper at certain points of the river. And, and so hog prices promptly dropped to $18 and the business made zero EBITDA and had, I don't know, half a billion of debt. So the banks took the business. Two years later, hog prices went up to 80 and the business went from making 0 of EBITDA to 250 million of EBITDA with zero changes except hog prices. So Morgan Stanley just really didn't think through the implications of leveraging a highly commoditized product. But for me as a young analyst, I mean, it was a blast. I mean it was crazy. I lived in the CFO's basement and we built models and we were, I mean, we're trying to get this thing refinanced. I was watching, it was like watching a car crash in slow motion because I was building the financial model, just saying there's a hundred percent chance we're going to run out of money. And I was trying to communicate that to, I communicated that the cfo, he communicated it to the person on the deal. The guy who was on the deal didn't want to talk about it, didn't want to deal with it because it was his deal and it was going to make him look bad. So we were like, all right, I guess we're just going to watch this thing crash. Which we did. And it was a wild experience. It was, it was totally wild. But then the story about my mom was, you know, I was in, I was in, you know, in Manhattan. My mom had lived there for a little bit in her life. She's single, you know, she worked an hourly job, didn't, you know, didn't have a ton of Money and saved up her money and was going to. She drove from Ohio out to New York. She made tickets to see two shows and we're going to go skating in Rockefeller Center. She had this whole agenda all planned out for the two of us. And my mom and I were really close. And she comes and the associate who's 18 months older than me, wants to stay in the office all day. And I got to stay and it was Friday and so I didn't see her. That happened Saturday. We were working on something stupid. By the way, I was there for two years, worked 100 hour weeks left, you know, had zero weekends off and closed zero deals. So nothing I worked on mattered. But it was just like this associate wanted to look a tiny bit better for the vice president, so he stayed in the office all weekend, which meant I had to stay in the office all weekend. I think I saw my mom for a total of like three or four hours that whole time. She was really bummed, obviously. But the worst part about it was I remember thinking, mom, I don't understand why you don't understand why I can't come see you. Like, I can't. Like it's my boss. Well, just tell your boss your mom's in town. I remember thinking, yeah, that's not really how it works. But in a very short period of time, I had almost become that culture, you know, where I was like, I didn't even think it was that crazy that I didn't get to see her. I mean, I was disappointed, don't get me wrong. But I didn't think it was that crazy until a number of years later where I look back and I was just embarrassed and. But I think it's a real big lesson, which is like, you do become the people you spend time with. You become the environment you're in. Morgan Stanley wasn't going to become more like Graham. Graham was going to become Morgan Stanley, which I did in a short period of time. So I only realized that until once I got out of that environment and then.

[Randall Kaplan]

Tell us about your nickname, the Dream, and what the final end point was at M. Morgan Stanley when your friend passed away.

[Graham Weaver]

Yeah. So what happened is I had this really close friend of mine who was on the rowing team named Monty Razor. It was a great guy. And he was. I was a sophomore, he was a senior. He gave me this nickname, Dreamweaver, on my last name. And he would just call me Dream. And he was like, he kind of looked out for me. And just one of these amazing people lights up the room. When he's in the room makes everyone feel like the most important person, like when he's talking to you. And so, yeah, like, right around the time I'm trying, I don't remember exactly what year it was, but I'm sitting down. I was in Washington, D.C. living for the summer, and my phone rings, and my buddy says, hey, Graham, you might want to sit down. He says, hey, Monty's gone. And I was like, what do you mean, Monty's gone? He said, well, he died in a plane crash two nights ago. And, I mean, I think I was 20. I mean, he was like, 23, 22 or 23 at the time. And I just remember thinking, like, that's not. Like, that's just not even possible, you know, like, how's that? You know, he had his whole life in front of him, and he was going on a fishing trip or something and took a small plane and crashed. And that really didn't sink in. I don't know that I really processed it until a number of years later. I'd now gone through business school, and I'm jumping a little ahead, but I'd taken a corporate job that I was supposed to take, and I was probably in a relationship that wasn't that great, and I was kind of doing all the things I advised my students not to do back then. And then I went to New York with a number of friends, and we started talking about. All of us were kind of process talking about Monty and telling stories and stuff. I got on the plane ride home and just started bawling and just was thinking to myself, like, Monty would be so disappointed in me. Like, he. He had. He called me Dreamweaver. And he had, like, this incredible thing, way he thought of me. And I remember thinking, like, you know, he died. He didn't have a chance to live his life, but, like, if he saw what I was doing with mine, he'd be so disappointed. And I literally landed. I ended a relationship. A few days later, I quit my job and, you know, started my own company. So I. That. That was really impactful for me.

[Randall Kaplan]

Right. Okay, so let's go back for a second to. To something that we talked about before. There's a spectrum of harshness. I think in the working world, investment banking is a kind of the far end. Right. You have so much busy work there. Right. Like you said. I mean, I know a lot of investment bankers. A lot of my former interns and mentees say the same thing. I'm creating these crazy financial models for all these deals that Never happen. And then you've got plans, right? Every working person I know has plans. I can't tell you how many phone calls I've had, even for my own kids, and said, hey, I just got tickets to this game or my parents are coming in town. Yeah. Do you tell your boss and say, hey, I've got plans. What's the right way to handle these issues without your boss saying, gosh, you're weak. I mean, or the firm's not important to you.

[Graham Weaver]

You know, I mean, I'll just say what's actually true at my firm, which is, I mean, the number of times that someone has said, my mom's in town, and we've said, oh, too bad you have to work. I mean, zero. You know, we like that people fill in people, you know, have people's back. I mean, whether you're going to a wedding, going to a funeral, you know. You know, we have. People have real life things where they're, you know, one of. One of our close principals, you know, his mom recently passed away. He took, you know, literally months where he was spending a lot of time down there. And like, of course, that's way more important. And so I have tried to design a firm where, you know, you're a real person and, like, for a short period of time, people can cover for you. And, like, people are thrilled to do that when they realize you're doing something that's important for you. And the kinds of people we hire, they're not taking advantage of the system. They're not, you know, they're not trying to pull one over on you or anything. I mean, they're. They want to do really great at work. And you give them that benefit of the doubt that they're going to. They're going to cover for that other friend when that, you know, when that friend has something. So I. It's hard for me to give that advice, you know, because I really, I just really tried to almost go the other direction as we were building, you know, building our company. So I do recognize the harshness of it. I do recognize that. But I probably wouldn't advise someone to go be part of a culture that. Where they don't admire the values of that place because they will become that place over time.

[Randall Kaplan]

But what if they are there? So you're an investor. A lot of people listening to the show are investment bankers. I guess this show has gone viral among the investment bank. From what I get a lot of feedback. Do you go and tell your boss, my mom's in town or Someone just gave me tickets to the World Series tonight. Is that career suicide?

[Graham Weaver]

You know, it's just hard to say in a vacuum what the context of that would be. I would like to think that. I would like to think that if your mom's in town, you would be able to have a conversation with your boss to say, hey, look, two Fridays from now, my mom's coming into town. You know, it's really important for me. Let's. Let's kind of map out the work I've got. I will work, you know, one and a half times as much as until then, but from this time to this time, I'd really like to try to have that time off. And I'm willing to put in the time before, the time after. By the way, you know, my colleague Haley's going to cover for me during that time if you need me right at that time. But, like, you know, I think you. I would hope you could have that conversation.

[Randall Kaplan]

Be a good communicator.

[Graham Weaver]

Yeah, be proactive. Be proactive. Be a good communicator. Put yourself in your boss's situation. What do they want? Do they want you to. Not to see your mom? No, they want the work to get done. They want to know that there's someone they could call if it's urgent, during that time. So that's where your friend covers for you. So you can be proactive about that. I would say if you're getting pushback on that consistently, you're at the wrong place. And that now all we're talking about is how long you're going to stay there until you are in the path of the job that you want.

[Randall Kaplan]

When I was a lawyer, miserable lawyer working for miserable bosses, horrible culture, I. My mom came to town from Detroit, and she was here for two nights or staying in Beverly Hills. My step sister had organized this dinner. So it was a family dinner. I remember a Chinese restaurant, and I was in Costa Mesa, and I was driving every day back and forth to Costa Mesa, three hours a day minimum, on the 405 Freeway, which is just hell. And we were doing a public offering. And basically what happens? And today, I don't know how it works, but back then you'd go to the printer, and at the printer there's a firm called Boun, and you're there looking at documents the whole night. I mean, you're pulling all nighters, you're sleeping there. You're not going home. And I remember thinking, oh, and I left bound. And I didn't tell people where I went. And I drove all the way back to Beverly Hills. I was bitching the whole way to myself, telling me how miserable I am, and I knew I wasn't going to be. I hated law school as a means to an end. And then I remember driving to Beverly Hills took almost two hours. And then I remember eating dinner, how unpleasant it was for me because I had to drive all the way back to Costa Mesa again and then not sleep all days. And you know what? I didn't. I didn't say anything to my boss because it would have been very difficult. It was unforgiving environment. I mean, I was already going to leave. But I remember thinking, gosh, this is the most miserable I've ever been in my career, except when I lost my job.

[Graham Weaver]

Yeah. No, that's. I mean, it's brutal. It's brutal. There are. Yeah. I mean, to have a situation like that where you. You have to make a choice between two things that are valuable to you like that, it's. It's tough, and there's not a simple answer. Just what I was saying before. But it's not always that easy. Like, in your situation that I don't know what the right answer. I think you probably did it.

[Randall Kaplan]

Yeah. I mean, you do what you had to. I had to pay my rent. And so it was not something I could just leave and say, okay, I need to find something better. We skipped ahead a few minutes ago to starting your own firm. But I really want to go back to your second job. You worked at American Securities. There's only three people at the time. You did do deals there. You learned private equity there.

[Graham Weaver]

Yeah.

[Randall Kaplan]

At some point you were a vp, and then you had this closing dinner in Napa. Tell us about this woman who was talking about the Hamptons 13 or 14 times during your dinner. And the Fish. And then I found it very interesting about you hiding out in the bathroom and going out on this run. And then tell us more of the details about the drive to Steamboat springs in your 1986 Volvo and what you were doing on that trip, because it's. You just said, oh, I started my own firm. But it was really more than that.

[Graham Weaver]

Yeah. So I'll just kind of go chronologically. So, yeah, I worked at American securities at the time. The firm had no fund. They were a fundless sponsor. They wouldn't have said that, but they didn't have a fund.

[Randall Kaplan]

So tell people what that is.

[Graham Weaver]

So that's basically two guys at the time, Mike Fish and David Horing, who are very, very good investors. And in 1995, I think it was. They. They were. They'd been in private equity for, like, 10 years, which almost no one had back then. So they knew what they were doing, but they had spun off and done their own thing, and they didn't really have a. They didn't have a raise, committed capital. So they'd go find a deal and then they would. They'd sign the deal up, and then they'd go raise debt, and then they'd go raise equity with the deal. But they'd have to, like, do a bunch of tap dancing to make that happen. So the first six deals I think that we did were all in that model. And I learned a ton because, I mean, there were only three of us, and so it was great. David Horing and I would sit in the office and we'd go through a conversation with a seller and we'd hang up the phone, and then he would say, okay, do you know why I said that? And do you know why I said that? And then we would. And then, you know, we'd be negotiating a legal document and he would, you know, we'd get done. And he'd walk me through what networking capital adjustments, you know, meant and how that was working. And it was just. It was great, great mentorship. It was like just drinking from a fire hose. I feel like I got 20 years of experience in, like, two years. I left there to go to business school. And. And then while I was in business school, I remember this. I'm sitting in the very first quarter. I'm sitting in the strategy class at Stanford Business School, and this professor is a TA. He's probably 25 years old, and he's teaching this class out of a textbook. He's never worked a day in his life. And I'm thinking, oh, my God, what did I do? What did I do? I didn't even. I can't believe I left this job to be here. So I said, I'm going to start buying companies. And just like American Securities, I had no money, no fun. I'd seen this playbook that they had where they could put together a deal first and then go raise money. So I started doing that. And I bought three companies while I was 25 years old. When I bought my first label printing company in business school, I would take a flight to. I would take a red eye flight out on Tuesday night because we didn't have school on Wednesday. My companies were in the Midwest and the East Coast. And then I would do my bank meetings and whatever all day. And then I'D take a flight home and be at class the next day. And I did that for two years and it was absolutely the most fun thing I ever did. And it was exhausting and it was terrifying and everything else. And they didn't go well. You know, you think the end of the story is like, oh, it was amazing. And made every single mistake you could imagine.

[Randall Kaplan]

But so, but I want to go back to. Well, okay, let's talk about starting a business out of your dorm room.

[Graham Weaver]

Yeah.

[Randall Kaplan]

And let's talk about using credit cards. Yeah. To finance a business. How in the world can you buy a company and finance a business on your credit card? What are you charging?

[Graham Weaver]

Yeah. What happened was back then in the. This is like 1997. So first off, the vast majority, let's say there was a. I'll use a real example. I bought a business for $5 million. The seller took back 2.3 million in a seller notes. Now he only had to come up with 2.7. Then I got bank financing for another portion. Then I had asset backed financing for another portion. Then I got sub debt. So all this is debt. The whole structure is debt. But the sub debt lender needed there to be a little bit of equity, like a couple hundred thousand dollars, which I also, of course, didn't have. So at the time Capital One was launching and there was this kind of credit card intense competition between the credit card companies. And I would get this thing in my mail that would say, write yourself a check for $50,000 and pay no interest for a year. And then you would get one that would say, roll over your balance and pay no interest for a year. So I had this spreadsheet of the credit cards and when they were actually going to say I was going to have to start paying interest, it was the dumbest thing ever. I did not. This is like recommending you what not to do. But this was my only source of funds that I had at the time because I was in debt from business school and, you know, it hadn't saved up a month.

[Randall Kaplan]

You paid for your own business?

[Graham Weaver]

I paid for my own business school. Yeah. So. So that, that was how I financed some of these early deals. And it was, I was tight, you know, doing walking on a tightrope.

[Randall Kaplan]

But, but we say you, you finance them. Are you getting cash advances from these credit cards?

[Graham Weaver]

Yes. Yeah, that's exactly right. You write yourself. Yeah, write yourself a check for $50,000, pay no interest for, you know, 12 months. That's what the offer was. And I read through the fine Print. And that was $50,000.

[Randall Kaplan]

50.

[Graham Weaver]

Well, probably 30 and then 20 and, you know, but yeah, you would get. You would get those in the.

[Randall Kaplan]

In the.

[Graham Weaver]

In the mail.

[Randall Kaplan]

Okay, so then tell us about you dumped the girlfriend. You drove to Steamboat Springs.

[Graham Weaver]

Yeah.

[Randall Kaplan]

And for somebody you knew, you knew before. So I. What I want you to talk about. Cause it's. It's. We all have these seminal moments, right? Like, I am done. I am done. This is it. I'm rethinking everything. So, yeah, tell us about the drive, and then tell us about the boombox and the cassette tapes again.

[Graham Weaver]

Yeah, I love all the research you did. So just one part of the story to get to that is when I graduated. If you'd asked me any time during the two years at school, what was I going to do? I said, I'm going to keep buying these companies. I was loving it, having a great time. And then I said, all right, you know, that's what I was going to do. But then all my classmates started getting jobs, and I started getting fomo. So I took a job, and I took a job at a great private equity firm. It was a good firm, a good job, but it wasn't what I wanted to do. I wanted to do my own thing. And so that was when I had that plane flight that I mentioned to you before. So I fly home, I land on that plane flight. I'm in this job I don't want to be in. And that's when I quit my job, you know, ended things with my then girlfriend, and then packed up this 1986 Volvo and drove across the country to Steamboat, where my high school girlfriend was living at the time.

[Randall Kaplan]

Was thinking about her this whole time?

[Graham Weaver]

Pretty much, yeah. I pretty much was. I mean, more or less. And so, yeah, I had. Going back to the tapes, I had like, a boombox, which, for people don't know, it's like a portable cassette player. I had a whole slew of D batteries, and I had all of Tony Robbins. I think it was personal power. Unlimited power. One of those two, maybe both. And I listened to like, 18 hours of Tony Robbins on the drive out there, and I was just, like, putting together my life plan. And by the time I arrived in Steamboat, I was like, I'm going to start my own private equity fund. That's what I'm going to do. So that was how that started.

[Randall Kaplan]

So you're 28 years old and you say, I want to go start this first fund. It's super hard to do. Most sophisticated investors want to see A track record which you didn't have. And the advice I give to people, and I know you do, too, is you start with friends and family. Right. 10 classmates invest in this fund. It took a long time to raise the fund, and then you got. I wouldn't call it lucky, but you had people who believed in you.

[Graham Weaver]

Yeah.

[Randall Kaplan]

Talk to us about those two people. And how did you do that?

[Graham Weaver]

So when I was at the firm, right before I started, it was called Oak Hill, and we did a deal with the firm called the Stevens Family. I was the lead on that deal. And I won't get into all the details, but the Stevens family had this kind of asset that they were trying to dump into this company and get, like, shares of the bigger thing for contributing it. So I went down to. I think it was like, Jacksonville, Florida, or something, and I spent three days analyzing this thing they were trying to sell to us. And our team thought it was the coolest thing in the world. I spent three days, and I was like, this is the worst thing in the world. Stevens knew that. And so I kind of, like, said, hey, very politely, like, we're not interested. And I showed them all the analysis. They were really. They were angry, but they were also super impressed because I'd seen through their ruse, so to speak. So anyway, we go through this thing, and we ended up partnering with the Stevens family. They were fantastic to work with. We maybe gave them less money for the combination. It's a complicated story. But anyway, we ended up exiting this thing. Everyone made money. So when I started raising my funds, I was talking to the lead guy, this guy, Doug Martin, who's an incredible guy. And he was kind of trying to hire me to work at Stevens. And I said, well, I'm interested in starting my own thing. And so he agreed to potentially invest. And he wanted me to talk to his business school classmate, this guy, Tom Steyer, who was a hedge fund, a guy who ran Farallon, ran for president a number of years ago. Also an incredible guy. I probably did seven or eight meetings. The actual story about Tom is I would call Tom's assistant and try to get on his calendar, and she would blow me off. And I called him, I think, 11 times. And finally his assistant said, tom will see you on April 30th at this time for 15 minutes. You know, stop calling. And I think it was the 11th time I called him. And she didn't say, are you in town that day? Could you? Do you have time that day? She just gave me that. And so, anyway, I Had the meeting, and Tom and I spent more and more time together. And then Tom and Doug together were basically the bulk of our first fund. As my business school classmates, my parents, you know, everybody I knew, I was calling on all my favors and then lost money on that fund. So I like, oh, I'd spent this entire, you know, energy doing all this work to try to finally get this thing off the ground. And then, like, we made every mistake. We lost money, and it was. It was absolutely devastating.

[Randall Kaplan]

There's a couple of things that you mentioned in the story. Then we're going to come back to what happened after you lost her money. But one thing noteworthy about your story is that you called someone 11 times before they actually took the meeting. I've done that so many times, and I get this question all the time. Well, I called one time. They didn't call me back. They're not interested. And this is a huge one for people, by the way. I've had people call, call me 15 times. Sarah Zapp, if you're listening to me right now, I mean, she hounded me on LinkedIn for a gazillion, I don't know, 14 times, 15 times, and I want to come in for a meeting. And finally I just got stopped. Same thing, 20 minutes. And the 20 minutes turned into one hour. Because if someone's doing a good job, I mean, you know, you're going to give them the time. So looking at the camera on this one, I mean, everybody I. 99.99. You know, my own kids, and we've talked about our kids, you know, not listening to you. What's the advice? Should people. How many times should people call when they don't call you back? And what's the point where you're being an annoyance versus not an annoyance?

[Graham Weaver]

And I mean, I think, like, my advice in general in. I'll look in the camera. My advice in general is selling is the first person you need to convince is yourself. And you have to have conviction in what you're selling. Once you have conviction in what you're selling, then I actually want everyone to buy it, you know, and so I want. I thought I was the right partner for Tom Steyer. Like, I believe that in my soul. And so I would have called him 35 times. You know, I mean, it was just. It wasn't. It wasn't like, you know, I wasn't taking it personally. I was like, well, Tom hasn't heard my story yet. I mean, he's not saying no yet. He doesn't even know what I'm pitching. So it was just, I felt like I had the conviction and I wanted to just convey that conviction to him. So my answer is yeah, as many times as it takes.

[Randall Kaplan]

When I was writing letters to CEOs asking for informational meetings, I was a miserable lawyer. And that's how I got my big break. Eli Broad, who. That's a longer story as well, but I called Stephen Bolenbach, who at that point was the senior executive vice president. Crazy title at Disney. Well, then he became CEO of Marriott.

[Graham Weaver]

Yeah, yeah, Marriott.

[Randall Kaplan]

And I called him. His, his assistant's name was Ereza. And it was. I called every week for something like 20 weeks in a row at the same time. Randy. Yes, I'll put a message. Thank you. Goodbye. And finally she called me one day and they were on the East Coast, I think, at some point. And I was in my office, it was 6:30 in the morning and said, you're in the office. Yes. Okay. Don't go anywhere. Mr. Bullenbach is going to call you back right now. And it was, by the way, it was like a four minute phone call. But at least it taught me the lesson of keep going.

[Graham Weaver]

Yeah.

[Randall Kaplan]

You're listening to part one of my amazing interview with Graham Weaver, the founder and CEO of Alpine Investors, one of the fastest growing and most successful private equity firms in the world. Be sure to tune in next week to part two of my incredible episode with Graham.