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- [00:00]
A
Hello everyone and welcome to Investing by the Books, a podcast by Radhey. I'm your host Eddie Palmigan and today we're excited to have Andrew Hollingworth on the show. Andrew is an experienced investor based in the UK where he is the founder and portfolio manager of Holland Advisors. For this episode he has selected the book 1929 written by Andrew Ross Sorkin. We think the book is a fantastic read as it's vividly describing the most significant financial disaster in modern history and we highly recommend investors and non investors to read it. 1929 was published in October 2025 and we're thrilled to discuss it on the show today. Here comes our conversation with Andrew Hollingworth. Hello Andrew and welcome to Investing by the Books podcast.
- [00:51]
B
Thank you so much for having me.
- [00:53]
A
Where are we reaching you?
- [00:56]
B
Oh, I'm in France currently actually I'm having a bit of, a bit of time to sort of doing a little bit of skiing and a little bit of time to do a bit of thinking actually. So I'm mostly based in the uk but now and again it's quite nice to get away.
- [01:08]
A
Great. And to begin, can you tell our listeners about your path to becoming a professional investor?
- [01:16]
B
Past professional investor I was non traditional I suppose is the way you do it in the sense that I didn't go to college. I joined the industry when I was 18 years old. I did sort of various clerical sort of back office jobs, took my analyst exams and then just gradually worked my way through various sort of junior jobs to become a stockbroker, to become a fund manager. But yeah, I just sort of self taught along the way, worked with some good people, got a few lucky breaks. But I started before the crash in 1987 so that may or may not become relevant to the discussion we're about to have next.
- [01:51]
A
And what are you doing today otherwise?
- [01:55]
B
Today just doing some reading and just sort of, you know, researching a few companies. So yeah, just sort of normal, a normal day.
- [02:03]
A
Wonderful. And for this episode we will speak about the book 1929. Can you briefly tell us what is it about?
- [02:12]
B
1929 is obviously about the crash of 1929 and I certainly have, and maybe some of your listeners will have researched this sort of period of time before and read other books on the subject. This is quite an interesting book because it's not about the economics, it's not about the stock market per se and the workings of the stock market, it's about the people and about the different players in the sort of game. If you want to call it that the politicians, the bankers that all the various sort of regulators and it tells their story of sort of hubris and overconfidence and all the rest of it. So, so, you know, it's a really interesting account because it feels like it's, you're reading it real time, not 100 years later.
- [02:55]
A
And for those who haven't read it, how is it structured?
- [03:01]
B
It is structured by a succession of stories and following different people's lives. So there may be. So for example, Winston Churchill. You wouldn't expect it necessarily, but Winston Churchill's in the book and Winston Churchill features sort of four or five times throughout the book telling his sort of real life experiences of what happened to him during that period of time. And obviously Roosevelt's in the book, as you'd expect and there are lots and lots of other bankers and brokers, but you're told what they did in 1927 and 1929 and 1931. So you're following their life story through the period, as I say, not reflecting on what it was like sort of six, 70 years later from an academic perspective.
- [03:42]
A
The author of the book is Andrew Ross Sorkin. Who is he?
- [03:48]
B
So he's one of the sort of main anchors on cnbc. So if you turn on your investing television and you're watching a US cnbc, he's one of the main anchors. He's on CNBC pretty much every day. And so I wouldn't necessarily have him down as sort of a great authority on sort of these sorts of chapters in history because he's a commentator on today, he's not a study of history. But he also wrote the book Too Big to Fail, which was a really excellent book and made into an, I'm sure you've seen, it's an excellent film. And I think that sort of gave him the sort of the breadth, if you like, to go back and study this period of time. And he's, you know, this is not a, this is not a commentary by a TV commentator. This is a detailed, long, long, long study of many, many people's participants in this period of time. So to say he's an anchor doesn't perhaps do the book any justice.
- [04:44]
A
But there are multiple books of the crash and the following depression, of course. Why do you think this one is worth reading?
- [04:54]
B
I think this is about the site. I mean, I'm a big fan of sort of market cycles. I'm a big fan of Howard Marks. I'm a big fan of the sort of psychology of investing and how it isn't really about numbers. It's about stories and it's about people and it's about, you know, the madness of crowds and the crazy things that we collectively do when we think we're all being logical, if you like. And so I mean you're reading books about Tulip Mania and all the rest of it and I think this is exactly what this is. But it's not necessarily, as I say about the economics. It's about watching in theory, quite bright or no, very bright, very well connected, very wealthy, influential people basically do a succession of incredibly dumb things. And that's sort of fascinating from a sort of internal reflection perspective maybe.
- [05:51]
A
And were there any surprises for you when you read the book?
- [05:55]
B
The amount of greed in the re. In the, in the run up to this period of time was absolutely enormous. And it was everywhere in society. It was, and everybody wanted a part of it. It was, you know, whether it be influential celebrities of the day, whether it be sportsmen, whether it be politicians, whether it be, you know, the general public, everybody wanted to play the game and to be part of the greed game if you like. And the population were just like addicted to get rich quick schemes. And sadly as we saw in 2008 firsthand ourselves, Wall street was happy to sell these schemes in as bigger quantities as anybody wanted to buy them. And so this sort of game just spiraled on and spiraled on. So there are real echoes in 2008 of this period of time. But then there are obviously some differences as well. And I think the one thing I would say I'd really call out is I think how just self serving everybody was. I mean it's amazing, you think oh well there's these regulators and these politicians and they're all going to try and do the right thing and it's only the bankers that are greedy. And actually that isn't how it came across at all that a lot of the politicians were pretty self serving as well and not very few people were trying to do what was right for the greater good.
- [07:14]
A
And why do you think this happened in the 1920s and in the US?
- [07:18]
B
I don't really know actually. I think like all these sort of cycles they sort of have a life of their own and they sort of build up and I haven't really studied the period sort of in the 1910s or whatever else and there's obviously the First World War and all the stuff that came from that and you could read from that. I haven't really studied all that and I think you know, what if is relevant or more sort of appropriate, I think, is the fact that we didn't really have the Federal Reserve in a proper structure like it is today. We didn't have the sort of deposit insurance scheme like it is in the structure today. And so I think if those institutions were in place then I think this would have been a sort of 2008 type event. But because those institutions weren't in place, this became like a sort of epoch event that sort of changed the whole banking sector. And so I think that, that. I think what became before was just probably another ridiculous boom like we saw in 2005-2008. But it was how it was handled that made it such a sort of defining period.
- [08:22]
A
Good point. And I think when you read the run up to the 1929 that is also described in the book, it's clear that credit played a fundamental role in this. And people started buying cars and they borrowed a lot of money for that. And what one quote that was in the book is that stocks were no different than a vacuum cleaner or a dishwasher. They were all products that improved your life. I think that was quite telling.
- [08:47]
B
I think that's right. And I think there's always products to improve all of our lives. But I think maybe this was the first period of time that credit was widely available. And the flip side of credit, in the sense that it can ruin you, just perhaps wasn't really understood. And so credit was. I mean, the bit that struck me in the book is that, you know, you get unsophisticated people that have borrowed a bit of money to invest on margin. Well, that's always happened and it's happening today. And there's always unfortunate people who don't really understand the rules of the game and they get themselves into terrible trouble because of that. What's really notable about this book is that, you know, you had sort of really senior bankers. People are already being paid millions of pounds, millions of dollars a year, whatever else, who are then investing on margin. And you're like, well, why on earth would you, if you're already one of the wealthiest people in America, would you invest on margin? But everybody did. And lots and lots of people who are already very rich, which is phenomenally greedy, and then got ruined because of the greed. And that's the bit that really struck me as being unusual because that's, that's a bit like, you know, Jamie Dimon borrowing five times his salary to go and invest in other stocks in the stock market. You just don't see that in most periods of time that we've covered.
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A
And were there any stories or examples of this greed that stood out for you that you remember from the book?
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B
I can't remember the individual names because it was about a month ago that I read the book. But yeah, I mean, there was one particular banker who was profiled in the book, and he was sort of like the head of six group at the time type individual. And ultimately he seemed to be sort of the face of Wall street. And people hadn't really realized that, know, while he was being sort of the person that was encouraging the general public and everyone to invest in Wall street and was doing the right things behind the scenes. He was. Finances were falling apart and was borrowing money from JP Morgan and other people to hold his. Hold his life together, if you like. So it was just. It was a sort of poster child of populist investing, but ultimately was falling apart financially behind the scenes. And that only came out sort of in 1934, 1935, when his leveraging and the fact that he had to go to J.P. morgan to get financing himself became apparent. So. So, yeah, that's the sort of. It's a sort of gradual unpeeling of an onion to realize that the center of it was actually rotten.
- [11:02]
A
Yeah. Charles Mitchell was his name, or he was called then.
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B
You are quite right. Thank you. You've read it more recently than me. I read it back in October time or November time. Charles Mitchell, you're quite right.
- [11:13]
A
Yeah. And Sunshine Charlie was his nickname because he was such an optimist. But he managed to bring National City bank to one of the biggest, or it was about to be the largest bank in the world, actually, at the peak of everything.
- [11:27]
B
You're right. And he is one of the characters throughout the book. And you see his sort of how incredibly important he was and influential he was to both the population and towards the politicians. And then gradually how, as I say, that onion gets unpeeled and he falls apart. And it's remarkable, really.
- [11:44]
A
Yeah. And I don't want to spoil all of the golden nuggets for you listeners who haven't read the book yet, but one example of this exuberance that existed was the astrologist Evangeline Adams. Do you remember her from the book?
- [12:00]
B
I'm afraid I don't. You're going to have to recount me, as I said, my wife will joke, actually, because I love the messages that I get from books and stories that I get from books. But you obviously have a better recall than I do. I mean, I read it as I say about six weeks, six or eight weeks ago now. So please recount that if you want.
- [12:16]
A
Yeah, I mean the funny thing is that you have an astrologist who becomes so influential on Wall street and she gives stock pick advice based on your zodiac sign. So as an investor you can go to her and get to know which stock should I buy. And she had 100,000 subscribers to her newsletter. And this was in 1929. In September she moved to her office to Carnegie hall. And she said that the Dow Jones could climb to heaven, but clearly she had a good understanding of human nature and could extract some value from that.
- [12:48]
B
Exactly right, exactly right. Now there were so many stories were quite right. It's very interesting.
- [12:53]
A
But are there any other highlights from the book that you would like to mention? Some lessons?
- [12:57]
B
Yeah, I mean there's some other things I would say I think, I mean I mentioned it earlier on. I think in the sense that the fact that the institutions that we have today didn't exist or didn't exist in the current form, so we didn't have deposit protection insurance was really, really crucial. And I think that's something that I think we should be very grateful to the participants sort of on the top bailouts in 2008 and what they did with the institutions that were available. So that was a real noticeable difference for me. The other highlights I would say is that I thought the Roosevelt Hoover situation was fascinating in the sense that Roosevelt's gone down in history as being this great president and Hoover as being sort of, you know, a bit sort of Trumpeskian if you like. And actually I didn't read it that way at all. I read it that Hoover was trying very hard during the handover to Roosevelt to try to get to Roosevelt to step in and to sort of address the banking crisis. Roosevelt was having none of it. He was basically like, well, it's your problem, I don't, I don't care. And I'm going to sort of sort it out when I get inaugurated in eight weeks time. And in that eight week period the banking sector literally collapsed. And I think, you know, it's really interesting and if you look at the context of history, how these people are perceived and the other thing is I haven't got the credit in front of me. And maybe you have. And I did put it in my write up of it is I. There was a quote by Churchill in the, of Churchill in the book. And literally it was like the week after or three weeks after the stock market crash, whatever it was. And he basically had A quote along the lines of just how despite the fact that there were people, you know, the person that threw themselves out of the hotel window above him and how he was talking about how society was sort of falling apart, you know, behind, in front of his very eyes, his, he said, but anybody, any European or UK skeptic of the American financial model needs to realize that they'll rise again and the American dream is not dead and the capitalism will endure. That's not the quote, but that's the essence of what he said. And that to me was absolutely amazing and prescient. Bearing in mind this is on the eve of the end of capitalism as some people would see it. And yet ultimately what he said was absolutely correct in the context of the history we can now see.
- [15:05]
A
Yeah, and on that theme I think it's a good lesson as well that there is always hope and hope refused to die. I mean we saw so many examples during the following years because this book is called 1929 but it covers a few more years after that as well. And there were a number of rallies in the stock market and a lot of optimism, at least in the markets.
- [15:29]
B
Yeah, I think that's true, I think that's true. But I, I mean I suppose the other thing that I really, really realized and, and I think we saw this again after 2008 and I think it's very interesting today actually. So we're not going to get into today's politics but I think it's interesting that we waited a very long time before we've eased the banking regulation in, in, in the world now and we're like 20 years after 2008 before we've done so. And the study of 1929 is the same there a lot of the regulations, Glass, Steagall and all the rest of it and all the unwinding of Charles Mitchell's, you know, the court cases that followed on from that didn't take six months or a year, they took five or six years to take place. So the knock on unwind, the knock on investigations, the knock on new regulations were 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10 years incoming. And I think that's why these periods of time have such long effects is because the knee jerk reaction of what went wrong is still being done in 1935. What went wrong in 1928.
- [16:30]
A
Basically at the core of it it's about trust I think, because that's, if you don't have trust then the system doesn't work. What's your view on that?
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B
Of course, of course. And I think. But at the end of the day, most of the participants in this, most investors don't think that hard about it. They just, they just want to make money. And if they make money tomorrow, they've got confidence for the day after and so on. But if they lose a lot of money and they permanently lose a lot of money and they feel they've been deceived, well then their trust in the system evaporates and the suspicion and the finger pointing, you know, becomes worse and worse and worse. And I think that's, you know, the politicians and the regulatory knock on effect 5, 10 years down the line are mostly because the, you know, the, the elected, the, the electorate is asking them, pushing them to do that because it wants revenge or payback for what it sees as the misdemeanors of the past. And we saw a lot of that post the banking crisis. And I don't think it was any different, you know, post 1929.
- [17:38]
A
Anything else that you would like to mention from the book?
- [17:45]
B
I don't think so. I think that's mostly it. I think the self serving nature of people and the fact that greed was everywhere and leverage was everywhere came through. But yeah, it's just a great story of the psychology of markets, I think.
- [17:58]
A
And is there something that you think could have made the book even better?
- [18:05]
B
Hard to think that when you think you spread a real cracker. I don't think so actually. I mean it was a little long maybe, but I think, you know, that's. I actually listened to it as an audiobook. I didn't read it so I had like two long plane journals and I listened to it literally the length. But, but I, but I couldn't turn it off. It was absolutely addictive in terms of these characters and I was living these characters lives. So no, I thought it was brilliant. I couldn't fault it.
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A
Great. And if we go over to your professional life, you are the founder of Holland Advisors that you set up in 2008. Can you tell us a bit about the firm?
- [18:38]
B
Yeah, I mean, 2008 I set up the business on my own. We very much were trying to produce investment research for professional investors along the lines of what Buffett and Munger would approach. And that was my job for quite a long period of time as an independent researcher. And then in 2011 we set up our own fund and that's the fund that we run today. We just run one fund, it's a global fund, it's a long only fund for Europeans. It's a UCIT structure but you know, it's a sort of U.S. mutual fund, you know, style in the way that it works. Yeah. And it's my hobby and it's my job and I love it.
- [19:18]
A
And how do you differentiate from other
- [19:20]
B
investors as the years have gone on? I mean I started in this industry in 1987 and I didn't, I wasn't given a guidebook about how to do the job. I'd just gone on this sort of self educated course. And that's vastly been about Munger Sleep, Ben Graham, Templeton and studying all these various people. And I think as time goes on you just learn certain things. And I realize now that there were certain traits that I believe you have to follow to get great compounding. And I didn't really realize until we went marketing our fund two or three years ago to the wider population how different those perhaps those traits are from a standard fund run by European money manager if you like. So yeah, I'm very, very passionate about global, very passionate about going anywhere about an open mind, but particularly about businesses having powerful sustainable competitive advantages and having brilliant owner managers. And if those two things aren't pretty obvious pretty quickly, I'm just not that interested because there's just so many other people looking at so many other bits of undervaluation or thematic approaches. And that's not my game. My game is I want to find brilliant businesses that are run by exceptional owner managers and invest at times when everyone else thinks I'm wrong.
- [20:45]
A
And how do you go about figuring out if they are brilliant, the businesses and the people?
- [20:52]
B
I think working out whether businesses are brilliant or not does take a lot of preparation. So you know, my, I've been to Omaha, I don't know, seven or eight times now. You know, I've listened to Buffett talk about moats and I've done what everyone else has done and I've looked at branded businesses and all the rest of it. And I think the reality of that is, is that these days is pretty table stakes is pretty sort of everyone's doing that. I think you need to really understand what makes businesses powerful. And if your readers or listeners have never watched it already, I would read Seven Powers by Hamilton Helmer. And it's a book that basically talks about sustainable competitive advantages and talks about things like network effects and scale economy shared and all the rest of it. And those then are business models that are equally powerful to say moats, but the stock market hasn't fully understood them. And then you're into the interesting realms. If you can see A business model that's powerful, that maybe the rest of the stock market can't see as powerful and therefore you're getting value at the point of investment. And that is you can't just have one lever that says I want a moat and it's a brand because that's just the one lever. You need lots and lots and lots of different levers to go, right, well, I'm going to pull that one today and that one tomorrow. And so I think it takes a long time to get that whole spectrum. It's a bit like playing bridge or cards. You need to have seven or eight or 10 ways to play a hand. And that I think is what takes a long time to develop.
- [22:22]
A
Is that influencing how concentrated you are in the portfolio?
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B
A little bit in the sense that, I mean, we own about 30 stocks, 25 to 30 or so, which is about as few as we can earn in our structure. So we have to have a certain amount of diversification to run the long rating structure we've got. But in all truth, if you asked me to own a portfolio of 50 stocks, I think I'd struggle to find them. And I'm looking globally and I'm looking across all sectors. So yeah, I've got a pretty open remit to be able to buy anything within reason, but I can only find 25 or 30 or 35 at any one point in time. So either I'm just not working very hard, which I think I am, or I'm being very, very selective, which is, I think is what we are doing. And that's pretty consistent with how the other great investors in the past have done this job. They haven't owned 50, 100 stocks, they've owned five or 10 or 20. And they've searched high and low and been very selective in choosing those.
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A
You mentioned that you want to buy these companies at a great valuation. How long do you typically want to hold them
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B
in a perfect world?
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A
Forever.
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B
I mean, I'm in the Charlie Munger camp that the investment return you're going to earn from a business, the longer you own it, is going to be closer to the return on capital it actually makes as a business in terms of the marginal capital it can deploy. So, I mean, we've got a couple of investments in the fund which are unwise and new holdings. And those businesses have got long run rates of growth and make high returns on capital on the money they deploy today. Now if that's the case and if you can find a business like, or businesses like that, well, yeah, you Want to make sure you're not outrageously overpaying from the time that you purchase them, but otherwise you want to wear them for a very long time. Now, there are other companies in the fund that were perhaps so. And then we bought Meta. We had about 5% of the fund invested in Meta at about $150. Now an assessment of Meta at $150 is quite different to an assessment of it at $600. I still own it in the fund, but you are slightly more opportunistic in terms of the recovery of a business like that has taken place and maybe how long you might own that size of that position for. So it does slightly different differ on the quality of the business and the longevity and its growth and how much of the upside that you saw when you bought the business was in its long term compounding and how much of it was in its cheapest.
- [25:02]
A
And what's your view on trimming holdings?
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B
On trimming them? Ultimately all I'm doing is just trying to metaphorically I've got £100 worth of capital to deploy all the time and so I don't have target prices. I don't make myself sell something just because it's gone up. But I have to redeploy capital. If I find a new idea. I've got to find the capital from the existing portfolio effectively to invest in that new idea. And so, you know, effectively a good idea earns its own place in the portfolio. And that's the main reason why we're trimming, if you like. I mean, obviously selling is perhaps a different decision and that's a. It's just gone up so much that you just can't see the upside anymore or you've made a mistake. But from a trimming perspective, I don't really do it. I want to run our best positions and I want to be sort of in that buy right, sit tight sort of company.
- [26:02]
A
You mentioned in the beginning that you started in 1987 and you obviously experienced a number of crises since then. And now we're talking about the 1929 book as well. So I have to ask you how you're dealing with this type of market distress situations.
- [26:19]
B
I really enjoy actually now I think the first couple of cycles you go through are slightly terrifying and you either lose your job or you lose your money or you make terrible mistakes because I don't know, you've borrowed money or whatever you do and then maybe the second cycle you go through isn't financially maybe quite so awful for you,
- [26:41]
A
but
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B
Maybe you've realized all the clever spreadsheets you've built for forecasting companies, forecasts are nonsense. So you learn a bit of hubris from that. And then the third cycle you go through, I think you might start to make some money because you actually start to know that these things come along and so you've got capital to deploy. Or you sell a business that's gone down 20% and you put it in a business that's gone down 80%. And I think as you get older and you see more of these cycles, you can see them for what they are and you realize that they come along in the course of time. And so now I don't look forward to them. But as Buffett I think famously said, it's not that we like bear markets per se, but we like the prices they bring. And that's how I feel about it now. And I think there's a big difference between the sort of political cycle and an economic cycle and the market cycle. And everyone talks about the political cycle and economic cycles all the time, but the market cycle can be completely different. And that's the one that really investors, we need to understand a bit better and just be aware that they take place and we need to manage our way through them. So I don't upset me anymore now. I'm just sort of used to them now.
- [27:51]
A
Interesting. And are you actively managing a cash position based on this?
- [27:56]
B
No, not really. Not really. In the fund I'm pretty much fully invested. We run maybe a 2 to 5 or 6% cash position most of the time. What's interesting actually is in market downturns I tend to have a good look at the portfolio, as you'd expect from a risk perspective. But because I've got a lot of owner managers and entrepreneurs, 90% of my fund is invested in entrepreneurial businesses. Most of those businesses don't come with leverage. Most of them come with cash on the balance sheet. So actually by investing alongside entrepreneurs who take a very long term view, you've often got a much better balance sheet you might have in non entrepreneurial companies. So I'm not actively managing cycles, but often those entrepreneurs are helping me have dry powder when they come along, let's say. So yeah, there are different ways to navigate them and I don't necessarily think trying to call them is a good idea. Just accepting that they take place is more healthy.
- [28:53]
A
So the risk would rather be that some of your investors would pull out some money at the worst of times.
- [29:00]
B
Yeah, I'm delighted to say that that hasn't happened so far in the sense that the downturns we have had seen almost no redemptions whatsoever in the funds. And I think everyone has their own decisions to make. And I think as an investment manager, your job is to communicate as openly and as candidly and honestly as you can. And if you do that, then hopefully people realize what you're trying to do and that they don't redeem from your fund equally. I think at the point at which people invest in your fund, you need to be candid about what you can and can't do. So we had a brilliant year, sort of 2023, 2024, but we had a pretty poor year, 2022, because I own consumer stocks, I didn't own defense, I didn't own oil, I didn't own utilities. And so I owned all the things that went down and none of the things that went up. But that's just an output of looking at entrepreneurial led businesses. They're not in those utility type sectors, but I'm very open with people about that and I think they know that that's what they're getting. And I think that's, that's part of the game, I think, is to be very clear and not to pretend that you can, you know, somehow avoid cycles both for yourself or for the investors whose capital you're looking after.
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A
Sounds like you have earned the investors trust.
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B
Well, I don't know
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A
if we look ahead five or 10 years. What are your ambitions and is there anything that you like to have learned by then?
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B
Gosh, I don't know really. I mean, I'm really lucky in terms of where I am now already in the sense that, you know, what do you really want? You want to be able to run capital the way that, the way that you think it should be run, not in a mandate that's dictated to you. And you want to be open, to be able to keep learning the whole time. And that's sort of where I am. And okay, there's some, there's difficulties about running your own business and there's complexities and there's regulation and all the stuff that, you know, it makes life less pleasant. But for the vast majority of the time I'm being able to do the job in exactly the way I want to do it. And that's great. That's sort of, there's a little bit of me that sort of won the lottery already. So I just want to do more of that and I just want to keep learning in the sense that I think you know, I'm 56 years old. There's a bit of me that feels when I look at the Buffetts and the Mungers and the expertise that they had, that I'm really only just beginning. So yeah, I think there's a lot to learn still and books like 1929 are fascinating from that because you go back and learn a whole period of time that you thought you understood and you didn't really. So yeah, there's always a lot to learn.
- [31:32]
A
I'm somewhat biased running Investing by the Books podcast, but books are definitely a good way to learn and this book that you highlighted today is a good example. What do you think our listeners should read otherwise? Besides, for example, 1929,
- [31:51]
B
there's a few books, I mean I'm sure other people have recommended ones before, but mine would be, I think I mentioned it earlier on Seven Powers I think is a great book. It's all about sustainable best advantages. It's a bit management consulting S so it's not a sort of turn page turner. But in terms of the structure of how to think about powerful businesses, I think that's an absolute must. I think Zero to One by Peter Thiel is really, really good. It's really short, it's really succinct and it's really good on capturing what young dynamic businesses should look like, outsiders and influence. I'm sure other people have mentioned to you before, but one left field, one I would have is I really like Titan. Titan's the story of rockefeller. It's around that 29, sort of 1890-2000-1890-1900 period. And the first half's about how he built his business empire and the second half is about how he basically gave all the money away. It's absolutely brilliant and I really recommend it.
- [32:48]
A
Do you read anything besides business and investing literature?
- [32:52]
B
Yeah, I read a bit of fiction. I think there's always a fiction book by my dad because my brain sort of travels at a sort of speed that isn't probably very healthy for relaxing. So I think it's good to have a sort of fiction book to sort of turn your brain off and take you somewhere else. But a fiction book might take me six months to read because I read 10 pages a night and then fall asleep and then read 10 pages the next night. So I think fiction's it is underestimated in that and it creates all sorts of other parts of your brain and sort of parts of relaxation that I think are really important.
- [33:25]
A
Do you have any favorites there that you would like to mention?
- [33:28]
B
None that come to mind for the time being, if I'm honest with you. I've thought about the non fiction books but not the fiction ones I'm afraid. Still Life actually Still Life's a very nice fiction book.
- [33:37]
A
Oh, what is it about?
- [33:39]
B
Oh, it's a while ago since I read it but it's all. It's basically about. It's basically about people's lives and it's about living in, I think it was Florence so the combination of people moving backwards and forth between London and Florence but it's a. It's a very beautiful book about people and people's relationships rather than money and finance and economics.
- [33:57]
A
Still Life by Sarah Winman could be.
- [34:01]
B
Yeah, that sounds right.
- [34:02]
A
2021 set in London, England, Florence, Italy. Yeah, that's it.
- [34:06]
B
Absolutely the one. Very well, very quickly researched.
- [34:10]
A
Would you like to write a book yourself?
- [34:14]
B
That's a very interesting question. I probably would actually if I'm honest. I mean I've written a lot of stock research and a lot of macro research over the years and pretty much all that is on our website and I write. I'm sure people think they're far too long investment letters that go on for seven or eight pages but I actually really enjoy that process of communicating what's in my head onto the page so that people can get a good feel for that. So there's a bit of me in the sort of AI wonder world that we're now living in wondering whether or not I can find a clever individual who can use an AI system to direct it. At all of my past writings and I can give it some chapters like Market Cycles or Sustainable Competitive Advantages and then it can sort of produce this massive draft for me that I can then go away and edit. If any of your sort of watchers or listeners have that skill set and fancy a challenge, then maybe, maybe, maybe we'll do it one day.
- [35:09]
A
Exciting. We'll keep our eyes open for that. Andrew Ross Orkin was writing that writing a book often feels like swimming in the ocean by yourself. It's a tough job so it's definitely good to have someone with you on the journey.
- [35:23]
B
It's funny you should mention that actually because whenever I write a long piece of research or even an investment letter, I love it when I start doing it and then in the middle of it you just sort of full of information and at the end of it you're sort of thinking oh yeah, that's sort of fair enough and you sort of want it gone because it's just become all encompassing for a period of a week or two in your life. And I'd imagine writing a book is probably all encompassing for years of your life. So I can, I can see why people do it, but I'm, I've got a day job as well.
- [35:54]
A
Andrew Hollingworth, thank you so much for coming on Investing by the Books podcast to talk about 1929 and yourself. Do you have something more you want to add here before we finish up?
- [36:03]
B
No, not really. I mean, if any people are interested in the writings that I've done, then they can look on our website and have a look at all that. And I post a little bit on LinkedIn. But yeah, no, it's been really interesting to chat to you. Thank you. And it was a book I loved and so it's quite fun to sort of get to do a bit of a profile of it and to share it. So thank you for asking me to do it.
- [36:22]
A
Perfect. We'll put the contacts for you in the show notes and we look forward to seeing you in Stockholm in March for Red Eye Serial Aquarius Conference.
- [36:29]
B
I look forward to it very much.
- [36:31]
A
Thank you so much, Andrew.
- [36:33]
B
Thanks.
- [36:35]
A
Thank you for listening to Investing by the Books, a podcast by Red Eye. Follow us on Twitter ibradi and email us at ib Podcast to improve. We'd love to hear your feedback, so please rate and review us. Notice that the content in this podcast is not and shall not be construed as investment advice. This information is meant to be informative and for general purposes only. For full disclaimer, visit Redeye Se. I'm your host, Eddie Panmian, and until next time, I sincerely wish you the best of luck on your journey through life and investing.