How Peter Lynch Became The Greatest Fund Manager Of All Time

Summary

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The Compound and Friends

Episode: How Peter Lynch Became The Greatest Fund Manager Of All Time

Date: October 3, 2025
Host: Downtown Josh Brown and Michael Batnick
Guest: Peter Lynch, legendary former manager of Fidelity Magellan Fund

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Episode Overview

This episode is a rare, insightful conversation with Peter Lynch, widely regarded as one of the greatest mutual fund managers in history. Hosted in front of a live audience, the discussion covers Lynch’s extraordinary career, his investment philosophies, legendary quotes, reflections on the evolution of markets, and his thoughts on both past and current investment landscapes. The tone is warm, humorous, practical, and filled with Peter’s signature wisdom and humility.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Leaving on Top: Life and Legacy at Fidelity

• Lynch’s Retirement Decision (03:59):

  • Lynch retired at 46, the same age his father passed away.
  • Main motivation: more time with family after years of intense dedication to his career.
  • He continued supporting Fidelity as Vice Chairman, mentoring young analysts and fund managers.
  • Quote:
    “My father died at 46 and I was 46... I just wanted to spend more time with my wife and three daughters.” — Lynch (03:59)

• Temptation to Return?

  • Lynch received lucrative offers to launch new funds post-retirement but resisted: “The temptation was never great enough, though...I'd still be working those same hours.” — Lynch (05:15)
  • Reflected with pride: “One out of every hundred Americans was a Magellan fund [investor].” (05:19)

2. Withstanding Market Volatility & Responsibility to Investors

• Managed the fund through 10 market declines in 13 years—often dropping more than the market—but survived and thrived due to disciplined principles.
  • Support from investors was critical, especially in tough times (e.g., 1987 crash).

3. Heroes, Mentors, and Corporate Leaders Admired (07:00)

• Mentions: Lee Iacocca (Ford/Chrysler), Bob Walter (Cardinal Health), Ben Camarada (TJ Maxx), Al Namid (Watsco).
• Many admired were not household names; Lynch praised their entrepreneurship and long-term vision.

4. Humble Beginnings and Fidelity Career

• Grew up in a risk-averse environment post-Depression.

• Learned about stocks as a caddy, leading to his first job at Fidelity:
  “I owe it all to being a caddy.” (09:33)

• Paid his dues at Fidelity researching the most neglected ("dreg") sectors before earning trust.

5. Core Investment Lessons (Legendary Lynch Quotes)

a) Know What You Own (12:48)

• Central mantra:
  “If you don’t understand what you own, you’re toast.” (14:03)
• Don’t buy stocks based on hype—should understand the business as clearly as explaining it to an 11-year-old.
• “People spend more time researching a refrigerator they're going to buy than they do a stock." (14:06)

b) Sticking Through Market Downturns

• “The real key to making money in stocks is not to get scared out of them.” (12:48)
• On volatility: “The average [stock's] high/low every year is 100%.” (15:31)
• Educated investors accept periodic losses and setbacks as a fact of market life.
  “You get recessions. You have stock market declines. If you don’t understand that’s going to happen, then you’re not ready.” (19:40)

c) Ignore Market Forecasts (21:54)

• “If you spend more than 13 minutes analyzing economic and market forecasts, you’ve wasted 10 minutes.” (21:54)
• Focus on facts and current data instead of predicting the future. Lynched add that even Fidelity historically never relied on economists.

d) Stock Investing is About Real Companies

• “Behind every stock is a company. Find out what it’s doing.” (24:07)
• Shared 'hands-on' stories, e.g., buying tester pantyhose for Hanes, visiting retailers.

e) Avoiding Complexity & “Playing the Market” (14:39)

• “Play the market is a very dangerous verb. Play the market is not what you do. You buy good companies and some work, and you have to know what they do.” (14:39)

f) Don’t Sell Winners, Hold Them (30:12)

• Famous analogy:
  “Selling your winners and holding your losers is like cutting the flowers and watering the weeds.” (30:12)
• Warren Buffett quoted Lynch, leading to a lasting friendship:
  “If you don’t come to Omaha and see me, your name will be mud in Nebraska.” — Buffett via Lynch (31:30)

6. Empowering the Self-Directed Investor

• Lynch insists individual investors can outperform professionals via discipline and careful research:
  “That’s what’s done well for average investors.” (32:27)
• Shared examples (Apple, early iPod/iPhone transition) illustrating change and opportunity. (29:07)

7. Modern Markets, AI & Current Investing Climate

• Has no direct exposure to AI stocks today; professed minimal technology fluency.
  • “I literally couldn’t pronounce Nvidia until about eight months ago.” (34:05)
• Stressed that great businesses (Amazon, Microsoft, Meta, etc.) are extraordinary, but warns about valuation and overpaying—even for the best. (41:17)
• Reminded listeners that late-stage entry need not mean missed opportunity, citing Walmart and McDonald’s as examples of massive growth after their initial decade(s) public.
  “It went up 80 fold after going up tenfold… People said McDonald’s is done. They just didn’t think it through.” (43:01–44:54)

8. Value Stocks & Fallen Angels

• Still believes success awaits those who seek companies off the beaten path or in turnaround situations (Waste Management, gold stocks, etc.)
• “All the growth in this country is entrepreneurs starting a little shop, starting something else – that's what makes our country great.” (54:41)

9. Concern for Today’s Investor: Valuation and Psychology

• Warns about expensive valuations in large caps (e.g., Costco trading at 55x earnings) but notes great companies can still defy expectations over time. (42:46)

10. Advice on Modern Market Shifts (Semiannual Reporting, Meme Stocks)

• Skeptical yet open on moving to semiannual reporting—believes quarterly intervals are “very short.” (45:53)
• Sees the silver lining in meme stock boom:
  “We got 25 or 30 million people to open their first brokerage account, mostly people under the age of 30.” (46:16)

11. Perspective on Economic Doom, Automation, and the Future

• Dismisses the likelihood of a repeat Great Depression, citing social safety nets and the resilience of the US system.

  • “We’ve had 11 tests, 11 recessions since, and no one's ever got worse than 5, 6% decline in GDP. There’s a lot of cushions now.” (48:41)

• On automation’s impact versus AI:

  • Largest 500 US companies now employ fewer people than 50 years ago; the growth is from small businesses, entrepreneurs (54:41).
  • “America creates, China duplicates, and Europe legislates.” (53:42)

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On sticking with what you know:
  “If you can't explain to an 11 year old in a minute or less why you own it…not the sucker’s going up…then you probably shouldn't own it.” — Lynch (16:48)

• On economic predictions:
  “Economists have predicted 33 of the last 11 recessions.” — Lynch (18:33)

• On holding through downturns:
  “Most stocks you're going to buy, they're probably going to go down. The odds, sometimes they go up… If you can't understand what they do…” — Lynch (15:53)

• On entrepreneurial America:
  “All the growth in this country is entrepreneurs starting a little shop…that's what makes our country great.” — Lynch (54:41)

• On living through crashes:
  “You get recessions. You have stock market declines. If you don’t understand that’s going to happen, then you’re not ready. You won’t do well in markets.” — Lynch (19:40)

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Timestamps for Key Segments

• Opening & Lynch’s Background — 01:17
• Retirement decision & life balance — 03:59
• Market downturns & investor responsibility — 05:37
• Heroes & mentors — 07:00
• Early days, caddying to Fidelity — 08:27
• Core quotes: Know what you own, play the market — 12:48–14:39
• Defending individual investors — 28:16
• "Selling winners" story & Warren Buffett — 30:12–31:30
• Modern tech/AI stocks perspective—34:05
• Value investing, fallen angels — 36:15–40:17
• Discussion on market darlings (e.g., Walmart, McDonald's) — 42:46–44:54
• Quarterly vs. semiannual reporting — 45:53
• Meme stocks, new investors — 46:16
• Perspective on the Great Depression & resilience of US economy — 48:05–49:44
• Parting wisdom for self-directed investors, AI & automation — 50:37–55:32

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Closing Encouragement

Peter Lynch closes by reaffirming the opportunity for self-directed investors in the modern era:
“These people do hard work, they're careful, they're prudent, they buy stocks, they understand what they own. That’s not true of most people…Now you have an IRA, company matches it, you’ve got to decide what you want to do with it.” (50:37–51:08)

His advice: focus on understanding what you own, expect uncertainty, avoid overcomplicating investing, and remember that even in an age of sophisticated tools, disciplined fundamental research, patience, and a willingness to overlook hype in favor of business reality will serve you better than ever.

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End of Summary

Transcript

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[Interviewer / Host]

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[Interviewer / Host]

All right. This is such a. This is such an incredible treat. I was told, I don't know if you heard this. The last people to sit in these chairs was Oprah Winfrey. So if anyone finds a set of keys to a new car under your seat, that's not from us, that's from a prior event. Ladies and gentlemen, this is one of the honors of my career. I've been excited about this for weeks. Peter needs no introduction, of course, in this room, but I'm gonna give him one anyway. He asked me not to do a long introduction so that we don't embarrass him. But I have a couple. I got a couple of things I gotta say.

[Audience Member / Participant]

Is that okay?

[Peter Lynch]

Sure. Please.

[Interviewer / Host]

All right. All right. Peter is vice chairman of Fidelity Management and Research. The investment advisory firm of Fidelity Investments, where he has worked since 1969. He is also president and chairman of the lynch foundation which supports programs that focus on education, code, cultural and historic preservation, healthcare and medical research. From 1974 to 1977, Peter was director of research at Fidelity. And from 1977 until his retirement in 1990, he was manager of the Magellan Fund at Fidelity. During his tenure at the Magellan Fund, Peter averaged a 29.2% annual return consistently. That's right. That's right. Consistently. More than doubling the S&P 500 market index. Making it one of the best perform. The best performing mutual fund in the world and the best 20 year return of any mutual fund ever. During that time, Magellan's assets under management increased from $18 million to $14 million billion. Ladies and gentlemen, Peter Lynch. All right. Anything you want to get off your chest before I start? All right. There are a lot of reasons why you're on the Mount Rushmore of the greatest investors of all time. One of them is obviously your track record. Another is how much wisdom you are willing to share with everyone else via books and interviews, which back then was very rare. But among your greatest achievements is the fact that you went out on top, literally at the height of your popularity and your performance in 1990. That was 35 years ago. You were 46 years old at the time. And I wanted to start by asking you about that decision.

[Peter Lynch]

Well, I love the firm. I still love the firm. It's the best ever put together. And my father died at 46 and I was 46. I remember that number. And I was in the office every Saturday, 7 o'. Clock. We said at finality, we get up a basketball game on Saturday. And in Wellington, they couldn't play double solitaire. So every day I enjoyed it. People are fantastic. I just. We had three daughters and I just wanted to spend more time with my wife and the three daughters, so. And I was lucky enough to feel. I said, just stay on. We'll give you some. A role here working with young analysts and fund managers. So it's been. It's been great, great company. The best.

[Interviewer / Host]

Did you ever think about getting back into the game? Was there ever a moment or a temptation where you said, you know what? I think I want to. I think I could do this better than everyone else out there still, and I want to go for it.

[Peter Lynch]

I had all these offers to do a close end fund.

[Audience Member / Participant]

Okay.

[Peter Lynch]

One billion, two billion, two percent fees. The mark's up 30 fold. 30 fold since I left.

[Audience Member / Participant]

Okay.

[Peter Lynch]

So if I just did average, It'd be a $60 billion fund.

[Audience Member / Participant]

Yeah.

[Interviewer / Host]

The temptation was never great enough, though.

[Peter Lynch]

No, no. I'd have to. I'd still be working those same hours.

[Audience Member / Participant]

Yeah.

[Peter Lynch]

He's one out of every 100Americans was a Magellan fund.

[Interviewer / Host]

Is that right?

[Peter Lynch]

One of every hundred Americans was a Magellan fund.

[Audience Member / Participant]

Okay.

[Peter Lynch]

These are people. That $5,000, $10 was very meaningful.

[Interviewer / Host]

Did the weight of that get to you at all while you were running the fund? The level of responsibility?

[Peter Lynch]

I had a perfect record. I think the market went down 10 times in those 13 years.

[Audience Member / Participant]

Okay.

[Peter Lynch]

I went down more every time than the market. Every time.

[Audience Member / Participant]

Okay.

[Interviewer / Host]

But you somehow managed to get through those moments when you were down?

[Peter Lynch]

Yeah, I did. How did you do that in 87? I got letters from people saying, hang in there, it'll be great. Don't worry about it. Amazing.

[Interviewer / Host]

I wanted to ask you if there were ever moments where you looked at something that was happening in the market, whether it was a bull market or a bear market, and said to yourself, if I were at Magellan, I know exactly what I would be doing right now with this opportunity. Had you had those moments.

[Peter Lynch]

Yeah, I did have that moment. When Pennsylvania pets.com came public.

[Interviewer / Host]

Pets.com?

[Peter Lynch]

I said, this makes no sense at all, and then went up. So I can't short. But there was so many companies of no value. And fortunately, Fidelity didn't own those damn things. So that was a period to say, wow, what's wrong here?

[Audience Member / Participant]

Okay.

[Interviewer / Host]

I wanted to ask you who are the professional investors or the corporate leaders or other people on Wall street that you either admire most today or that you looked at and learned from during your tenure managing the. Who are your heroes or who are your mentors?

[Peter Lynch]

Let's say Lee Iacocca would be really up there. Chrysler, Ford and Chrysler. And then Bob Walter at the.

[Interviewer / Host]

Let's pause. Wiley Iacocca. What was it about him that you admired?

[Peter Lynch]

Well, Thunderbird at the Mustang at Ford, then he brings in the minivan and Jeep at Chrysler.

[Audience Member / Participant]

Yeah.

[Peter Lynch]

Incredible. It's just a wonderful person. And then this Bob Walter, when it was cardinal, supplying supermarkets, had a 37 million value when he came up. It's now 37 billion. This guy Bob Walter, I mean, so good. And I'm trying to think of another fellow I've met. There's so many great entrepreneurs that aren't that well known. I think it's Al Namid. He's at. It's an amazing company in Florida that's up 100 folder. Ben Camarada, TJ Maxx. TJ Maxx is up 100 fold. Yeah, that's Ben Camerata. I mean, those are great people.

[Interviewer / Host]

One of the things that you've talked.

[Peter Lynch]

About is your Watsco is the incidental Madrid.

[Interviewer / Host]

Watsco. Watsco. One of the things you've talked about is your early introduction to Wall Street. There was a lot of disbelief about the stock market in the house you grew up in. But then you got your first job caddying on the golf course, and all you heard was how much money people were making. Tell us a little bit about that time in your life.

[Peter Lynch]

Well, actually, you know, people, you know, if you grew up in the 40s, you heard about the big one, the Depression. Yeah, there's one coming. What you think risk averse. There was risk averse. The borrower of four. And when I was a caddy and people would talk about what Stocks they buy. And I'd look it up a few months later, they were higher. Yeah, this is a pretty good deal. So I didn't have money, but I. In addition to talking about their shots. But it was a great role of a caddy. Be sure, like a advisor to somebody. Just tell them if you miss the screen, don't miss it to the right or don't be short or line up putts. It's incredible. My friends were delivering newspapers at 5am I was making more on Saturdays than making the whole week. The president was. Mr. Johnson was the CEO and D. George Sullivan was the president. And our caddy for him, he said, gee, why don't you interview for a job at Fidelity?

[Interviewer / Host]

How old were you when that offer came?

[Peter Lynch]

21 or, okay, so summer of 66, I was somehow I was the only one caddy for the president. So I got the job. I think there was 75 applicants for three spots, but I got the spot in 66. And so then I had to do one more year award and two years in the Army. Came back in 69. So I owe it all to be in a caddy.

[Interviewer / Host]

What did you have to do at Fidelity to pay your dues to the point where they were willing to give you money to invest for other people?

[Peter Lynch]

I think they forgot all my mistakes because I had the Tesla, the worst groups, the Tesla stocks, the steel stocks, the metal stocks. I don't know how I ever survived that. They weren't many winners there.

[Interviewer / Host]

They gave you the stocks to cover that nobody else cared about.

[Peter Lynch]

Well, everybody had a group. Somebody did retailers, somebody did electron oil. Somebody did truckers, somebody did railroads. I wound up with the dregs.

[Interviewer / Host]

I wanted to ask you what were some of the traits in the investors that you were learning from or the people that you admired in money management? What were some of the qualities in those people or their habits that probably still resonate for investors today?

[Peter Lynch]

When I started with this person, Alan Gray, he went back to South Africa about 10 years later. But he would work hard. He'd research companies, he'd listen to my stories. He was probably the best role model. I remember Alan Gray, okay? But my peers were all great. I mean, all the people around me, everybody in the research was really talented. So we're loaded with skill.

[Interviewer / Host]

It's funny, I interviewed one of your colleagues yesterday. She's a quantitative analyst at Fidelity. And it's so funny to hear you say that because she said the exact same thing. She said, any question I have about markets or the economy, this whole building is filled with talented people who know what's going on. And all I have to do is walk down the hall and get the answer to my question. You still feel that way about the organization today?

[Peter Lynch]

Unbelievable. Steve Weimer, John McDowell, Joel Tillinghast, will Danoff. I mean, you know, just like the Yankees were, you know, in the 1920s. And we're playing the Yankees right now.

[Interviewer / Host]

I won't tell you who I'm rooting for. So I. I thought it would be funny to take some of your legendary quotes and witticisms. They've all been attributed to you. You'll tell me if they're not actually you. But these have been taken from interviews you've given over the years, from the books that you've written, from the things that you've written and published. I thought it'd be fun to share some of these with the audience. And the audience probably can quote some of these by heart and just have you react to them and tell us where it came from or what the lesson is behind the thing that you were trying to get across. I've got a couple of categories for these quotes. I did a little taxonomy. So the first category involves the risk of investing in stocks. You said the real key to making money in stocks is not to get scared out of them. Why is that the key to making money in stocks?

[Peter Lynch]

Well, more important than that is I have this expression, know what you own.

[Interviewer / Host]

I was going to do that one later. I'll cross that.

[Peter Lynch]

But that's the most. That's it. That's the most important lesson, okay? Because you'll get shaken out if the Stock goes from 10 to 8. You don't know what they're doing. What are you gonna do with it? And I was saying, earlier I got a call. I did an ad for Elliot with Lily Tomlin. She's very close to Barbra Streisand. So I'm on vacation, my wife and two other couples, and my secretary Paul Sullivan says, barbra Streisand's called three times. She'd really like to talk to you, and she's very nice. I said, sure. I got some time to settle. So I called him, and she says, I own all these stocks, and I'm getting up at 5am and looking at this stuff. She said, I never did drugs. I never did marijuana. I just can't sleep. What do I do? I says, tell me five things you own. She named five companies. I say, okay, what did they do? She didn't have any idea. He's an incredibly talented Person. She had no idea what those companies did.

[Audience Member / Participant]

Right.

[Peter Lynch]

So what are you going to do if they go down 50%?

[Audience Member / Participant]

Yeah.

[Peter Lynch]

If you don't understand what you own, you're toast.

[Interviewer / Host]

It sounds so obvious to hear you say it, but it's amazing. You talk about. People spend more time researching a refrigerator they're going to buy than they do a stock. They're going to invest part of their life savings.

[Peter Lynch]

People are very careful. They spend hours, get 50 bucks off on an airplane flight. They look at everything, and they put $10,000 in some crazy stock they heard on the bus, and they have no idea what they're doing. And somebody invented this awful term before I got in business called play the market.

[Interviewer / Host]

Play the market. You don't like that term?

[Peter Lynch]

That is a. Sometimes a noun. There's a verb. It's a very dangerous verb. Play the market is not what you do. You buy good companies and some work, and you have to know what they do. There was this farm in western Massachusetts, the two companies, Tampax out there, friendly ice cream. He put $1,000 in a month for 10 years. Brilliant idea. He says, if they stop hiring, I'm going to leave.

[Audience Member / Participant]

Okay.

[Peter Lynch]

He made a million dollars. I mean, people have all these ages. It was people in the steel industry. No, it's getting better before I do. These people have an edge, and they might as well go to a casino and bet on red.

[Interviewer / Host]

So by knowing the companies that you're invested in, there's a higher likelihood that you'll be able to stick with them when other people are scared.

[Peter Lynch]

The average range for a stock on the New York Stock Exchange, the average high, average low every year is 100%. So stock might start at 20, sell at 28, finish at 14, finish at 20. It's 100% move every year.

[Interviewer / Host]

So it's 50% up, 50% down. Ish. And that's how it's 100% swing in the price.

[Peter Lynch]

That's the average stock.

[Interviewer / Host]

Wow.

[Peter Lynch]

And most stocks you're going to buy, they're probably going to go down. The odds, sometimes they go up. If the story is powerful, like Watsco or Chrysler, you might buy it up if you don't know what they do and it goes down. And I've had people say, this Stock's gone from 50 to 1. How much can I lose? And I say, well, wait a second. If somebody put $10,000 in at 50 and you put $50,000 at 1, it goes to zero. Who loses the most? I mean, stocks go to zero. I've had Them, I wasn't buying them on the way to zero. But stocks go down. If you don't understand what they do. They. If you can't explain to an 11 year old in a minute or less why you own it. Not the suckers going up. I've heard that one before. What's the story of this company? They have good business, good balance sheet. They're fine. That's why I own it.

[Interviewer / Host]

You've instructed investors to write a script for the stock they're gonna buy. Write the story down. Why is this stock gonna work? Or why is it undervalued?

[Peter Lynch]

I've told this to people in high school and college saying, make a paper portfolio. Pick 10 stocks and watch them over a year or two and say why you bought them. List the reasons and see what happens. That's what we're about. We do this. We have those, our fund managers, they don't wait for the analysts come in. They're out researching companies. They're on the phone talking to companies. Every fund manager, the highest role is an analyst, fundraiser analyst. We have analysts under that. We have all this information coming in. It's staggering. All the information go back in time. We own a lot of Nike. This store is amazing. Own a lot of Nike. And their inventories were out of whack. Not a good sign. It's before the Internet. We had to go to a library and get their quarterly report. Our library felt we came in, we opened up, inventories went down, we backed up the truck. I mean the concept of, you know, they used to mail it out by mail to the shareholders. Now they have a website. It's. Everybody on the planet knows what they do.

[Audience Member / Participant]

Yeah.

[Peter Lynch]

Information today is unbelievable if you, you can't understand. They have company presentations. It's a lot easier to understand what you own today.

[Interviewer / Host]

So I think you're saying in today's day and age, you have no excuse not to know the companies you own. It's too easy.

[Peter Lynch]

You don't need a Bloomberg. They have websites.

[Interviewer / Host]

Here's another one on Risk. You said far more money has been lost by investors preparing for corrections or trying to anticipate corrections than has been lost in corrections themselves. Talk about that.

[Peter Lynch]

Well, I think people, they're always worried the market's going to round and it does, as I mentioned, and two years ago they were saying 20, 24 was going to be a down year for the economy. 25 is going to be a down year. I mean, every year, I think economists have predicted 33 of the last 11 recessions.

[Audience Member / Participant]

Yes.

[Interviewer / Host]

With great certainty.

[Peter Lynch]

Yeah. Yeah. And I think people are basically, you look dumb in this business. You're terrific in this business. You write six and a half times out of ten. That's a great score. Even if you're right. Five times out of ten if you own Costco or Walmart or I can't pronounce Nvidia. I'm getting close to being able to pronounce it.

[Interviewer / Host]

I think you nailed it just there.

[Peter Lynch]

That offsets your mistakes.

[Audience Member / Participant]

Yeah.

[Peter Lynch]

You have to have these winners offsetting mistakes. And that's what we've done for 70 years, apparently.

[Interviewer / Host]

So you've got two more on this topic. I'll read them both. You said you get recessions. You have stock market declines. If you don't understand that's going to happen, then you're not ready. You won't do well in markets. You also said people who succeed in the stock market also accept periodic losses, setbacks and unexpected occurrences. How important is it for the average. I hate the term average investor, for the typical investor to go into this business understanding there's no way to dance around these things? They're going to take place. You're going to have to live through them. Would you say that's the paramount, one of the paramount things? Because that's what I think.

[Peter Lynch]

Well, the point is, when somebody has three children about to start college in two years, they shouldn't be in the stock market.

[Interviewer / Host]

That's right.

[Peter Lynch]

They should be in the money market fund. But it depends. If you got your house paid down, your mortgage, then you can invest. And it's been a great place to be since year 1900.

[Audience Member / Participant]

Yeah.

[Interviewer / Host]

One of the more timeless things that you've said, and it comes off as sarcastic, but I think the last 15 years have really proven the value of this idea. Coming out of the great financial crisis, the most in vogue style of investing was macroeconomic hedge funds because there were a small handful of people who determined that the housing crisis would ultimately bring about a recession. And those people were revered for a couple of years. You've never really been big on trying to outguess everyone else on the economy. And you said if you spend more than 13 minutes analyzing economic and market forecasts, you've wasted 10 minutes. I still quote you to this day when clients call up and they want to talk about the latest labor report or what the Fed's going to do, tell us, how long did it take you to figure that out? And how much pushback did you get when you said it from people that were economists or focused on the macro.

[Peter Lynch]

Well, I don't remember Philly ever having an economist. So we just buy stocks.

[Interviewer / Host]

She's, she's here tonight.

[Audience Member / Participant]

Okay.

[Peter Lynch]

So I'd love to get next year's Wall Street Journal. Yeah, I pay at least $5 for next year's Wall Street Journal. Know that. And hands off to the people who did the big short. I had no idea how bad the housing market was, how bad people had second mortgages, they had home improvement loans, they were underwater in their house. I had no idea. Hats off to them. Yeah, but, and, but I look at facts like what's happened to debt, credit card debt, what's. You can get that now. What's happened to savings rate, what's happened to employment? I'd love to know what's happened in the future. I've been hoping I could get that in last 81 years. It's not available. So I just deal with what's now, what's happening to used car prices, what's happening, price of oil. And you look at industries that have gone from miserable to getting better, like Chrysler. I mean, I remember people says, gee, you're really good on that show, but how can you possibly recommend Chrysler? It's going bankrupt. Well, they had 2 billion in cash and they, they had enough money for the next three years. They weren't going bankrupt. So I think the best thoughts I had, I think if 100 people did work on it, 99 would say, that's better than I expected. So I use this for one of our great fundamentals. Joel Tillinghast. I wrote a foreword to his book and always said, the person that wins the most, the most rocks, wins the game. And I said, Joel Tillinghast is a great geologist, because if you look at 10 stocks, you probably find one that's mispriced. Look at 20, you'll find two. Look at 40, you'll find four. And that's what we've been doing at Fidelity. We just don't look. We look at everything.

[Audience Member / Participant]

Yeah.

[Interviewer / Host]

So you're not discounting the value of economic data.

[Peter Lynch]

Great.

[Interviewer / Host]

You're saying if it's not from the future, the market already understands this.

[Peter Lynch]

Yeah. I mean, the. I want to know facts right now. Yeah, that's important.

[Interviewer / Host]

You said behind every stock as a company, find out what it's doing. Some of the great stories about your big investment success involve hands on observations that you had been able to make living your real life. Being in a supermarket, being in a shopping mall, looking at what people are doing. I think that over the Years that idea has kind of been mischaracterized as if you use the product, it's automatically a good stock, which is not what you meant at all. Could you explain the difference between those two ideas and why that's so important?

[Peter Lynch]

A lot of people. I met so many nice people earlier tonight and a lot of them had read my book one up on Wall street and I had this story about. I had a great investment. My largest position was in Hanes that had these pantyhose called Legs. They weren't that sheer, they really fit. But most pantyhose are being sold in fancy department stores. This was at the supermarket. And people go to a supermarket once a week. They go to a fancy store once every couple months. My wife went a little more often, but the. And I went with her. So this was an incredible success. Incredible success. But then a larger company called Kaiser Roth put the thing right next to it and it was called no Nonsense Paneos. So I went to two different stores, about 65 different pairs of no Nonsense pantyhose.

[Interviewer / Host]

Now what kind of look did you get from the clerk in the process of that activity?

[Peter Lynch]

Yeah, it was an odd purchase, but I spread it over three stores. But I gave it out to everybody at Fidelity. Give me some feedback on this. They said it's not that good.

[Audience Member / Participant]

Okay.

[Peter Lynch]

It's not that good.

[Audience Member / Participant]

Okay.

[Interviewer / Host]

So.

[Peter Lynch]

And the other one, the other one, the first stock I bought in Magellan was Taco Bell. And I had to say to. I own this myself. Is it ok?

[Interviewer / Host]

Who is clapping for Taco Bell? It's not one of my people. Was it okay?

[Peter Lynch]

And so I said, can I buy some stock that I own myself? I said, sure. You just can't sell it after you buy it. You have to hold on. So that's when we had my Bell and all these Bell companies. And so I called the trade room, I said I wanted to buy Taco Bell. Ned Johnson came down and he says, what is Taco Bell? And I explained what a taco was. They're only in Southern California. They're going to Central California. I didn't get a burrito supreme, but I explained a taco was. He says basically a taco has very little meat, a lot of protein. You can sell a really good meal for a low price. And I get robbed on it because Pepsi Cola bought Pizza Hut and they bought some. Can I get fried chicken? They bought to sell Pepsi. This stock would have gone to 500. Yeah, my largest position was 18. They bought it at 30.

[Audience Member / Participant]

Okay.

[Peter Lynch]

Would have gone to 500, 600. But they bought it to sell Pepsi.

[Interviewer / Host]

When Chipotle came along, did you avail yourself of the opportunity?

[Peter Lynch]

I did, I did. But how? I miss Starbucks. I don't get that. He said I want Dunkin Donuts. How did I miss Starbucks? You missed Starbucks. Brain cramping. I didn't buy it.

[Audience Member / Participant]

Well, okay.

[Interviewer / Host]

You've got some great quotes about portfolio management and here are a few of them. You said in the long run a portfolio of well chosen stocks and or mutual funds can outperform the most sophisticated investment strategy. I think there is a cottage industry today and probably there has been for a long time people selling complexity to investors. It's one of the best sellers on Wall Street. Just that simple statement. I think very much is something that most of us would associate with Fidelity and very much is something that we would associate with you. Why do people need to hear that message today?

[Peter Lynch]

What's funny, earlier on I met maybe 100 people to chat with them and somebody's in the audience. They, they shoveled chicken poop and they used the word rounds would hit. There's a person here with the chicken poop in New Jersey.

[Interviewer / Host]

Waving at the top. You won't be able to see.

[Peter Lynch]

Okay, congrats. But he decided to be a serious investor. Do hard work. He said he's done extremely well.

[Audience Member / Participant]

Yeah.

[Interviewer / Host]

So do you think that that's still possible today? Given how armed to the teeth professional investors are with data and tools and high frequency access, is it still possible to be someone who just on a part time basis when they get home from work, reads about stocks and makes decisions? You still believe in that?

[Peter Lynch]

Well, I'll tell you a story personally. My daughters get me an ipod. This is before the iPhone.

[Audience Member / Participant]

Yep.

[Peter Lynch]

And the, the PC business was terrible. They're selling for 8 or 900 bucks making $20. They had a decent balance sheet. The iPod was $200. They make 150 on it. The ipod financed the iPhone. It just did some work and the company had 300 million in cash.

[Interviewer / Host]

This is Apple in Apple 2001.

[Audience Member / Participant]

Ish.

[Peter Lynch]

I'm not sure.

[Interviewer / Host]

Right.

[Audience Member / Participant]

Okay.

[Peter Lynch]

But things change. Companies are dynamic. Something comes along and things go from terrible or we use a term or appropriate crappy to semi crappy to better to terrific. Something happened at Apple. They were now going to make a lot of money. I had no idea. I have a phone on me, an iPhone, but I had no idea what's falling. But the stock easily was a triple just on that alone.

[Interviewer / Host]

This is one of your more famous Quotes and made famous by being re quoted by Warren Buffett. You said selling your winners and holding your losers is like cutting the flowers and watering the weeds. That's a great one. That's an all time. You were known to hold on to winners for a very long period of time. Yeah. A lot of people were quick to take profits so they could say I won. Tell us the Warren Buffett connection to that quote and why it's meaningful.

[Peter Lynch]

I don't know. I get my landline, but I get this call Annie I think was like seven. Our middle daughter says there's a Warren Buffett on the phone here.

[Interviewer / Host]

What year do you think this is? If you could remember. Well, what era is this?

[Peter Lynch]

I don't.

[Interviewer / Host]

Who knows?

[Peter Lynch]

It was way beyond the dark ages. I don't know. All right. Yeah, but. So I pick up the phone. This is Warren Buffett from Omaha, Nebraska. My Ann report's due in two weeks. I'd love a quote. Can I use it? This is all in about three seconds. He says, what's the quote? He says, getting rid of your winners and holding the losers is like wiring the weeds and cutting the flowers. I said, it's yours. He said, if you don't come to Omaha and see me, your name will be mud in Nebraska.

[Audience Member / Participant]

Did you do it?

[Peter Lynch]

Oh yeah, many times.

[Interviewer / Host]

You built a relationship with Warren, played bridge together?

[Peter Lynch]

He's the best. I mean there's no. Imagine he bought Apple like eight years after that iPod story and made five fold.

[Audience Member / Participant]

Yes.

[Peter Lynch]

And he had a huge position at IBM. It was going down. I love stocks going down. I think IBM's great. He, he totally reversed. He got the hell out of IBM. Yeah, he's the best.

[Audience Member / Participant]

Yeah.

[Interviewer / Host]

Round of applause. I wanted to ask you, is there any idea from the investing realm that you once believed that you no longer believe in or is there something that you've changed your mind about as time has gone on? Or do you still mostly believe all of the things that you did in the 70s and the 80s?

[Peter Lynch]

It's the same thing. This success of Amazon, Costco, Walmart. I mean, forget the. All the technology companies or Oracle. I mean that's what's done well for average investors. And Fidelity was heavy invested in all those. Just using public information, we look at a lot of companies and we find some companies that are turning around. Like we bought some gold stocks when people hated gold.

[Audience Member / Participant]

Yeah.

[Interviewer / Host]

So the business doesn't change that much. The names of the companies change, the management changes, but the business is still very much as it was when you were Practitioner.

[Peter Lynch]

Well, I think there's one major change. I think 15 years ago there was 8,000 public companies is about 3,000. Now there's three or four.

[Audience Member / Participant]

Yeah.

[Peter Lynch]

So part of the upside, that 10 bagger that. I love that term. Sometimes you have this great stock, if you hold onto it, it's not the Pepsi steel, then private equity, you think the Stock's going at 30, it's 3. And private equity buys the whole damn thing out at six.

[Interviewer / Host]

They take it away from the market.

[Peter Lynch]

Yep. Yeah, that's painful.

[Interviewer / Host]

I wanted to ask you about the modern stock market, specifically the AI boom that's been for the last three years, arguably the biggest driving force behind earnings growth, behind revenue growth, excitement about stocks. What do you think about it when you watch it or how involved are you with AI stocks with your own money? Right now.

[Peter Lynch]

I have zero AI stocks and the. Okay, I literally couldn't pronounce Nvidia until about eight months ago. But we have people that are very tech. I am the lowest tech guy ever. I mean, my wife is mechanical, my daughter's a mechanical. I can't do anything with computers, so I just have yellow pads and a phone.

[Interviewer / Host]

From your position as a third party to this, do you think investors have chased these ideas too far? Are there echoes of the 1999, 2000 era to you when you look at it, or are you open minded about it and you say maybe this is not going to end as badly as that instance did?

[Peter Lynch]

I have no idea.

[Audience Member / Participant]

Ok.

[Peter Lynch]

I have a lot of stocks I like not in that category.

[Interviewer / Host]

So let's talk about your current portfolio. What are the stocks that you like today?

[Peter Lynch]

Fidelity doesn't let me do this anymore, so.

[Audience Member / Participant]

Okay.

[Peter Lynch]

In fact, they don't let any employees do that. I remember I was on television, I was saying Coca Cola is a spectacular company, but based on what they're doing right now, I think in 10 years I think the stock will be the same price. I mean the stocks priced in the next 10 years of growth. And we happened to manage Coke's IRA. I mean, this did not go over big.

[Interviewer / Host]

Weren't thrilled with that.

[Audience Member / Participant]

Okay.

[Peter Lynch]

It was not a big success.

[Interviewer / Host]

So for good reasons. One of the things that you talked about in your books was the necessity of not chasing glamorous stocks. And one of the things you said you liked the best is when a company got itself into trouble where it was a salvageable situation, but nobody wanted to be caught dead owning it. One of the examples that you used famously was waste management. You said nobody wants anything to do with this stock, number one, they're involved with garbage. Number two, everybody thinks the Mafia controls it. You made a lot of money there.

[Peter Lynch]

Yeah.

[Interviewer / Host]

Yeah. Do you think that that heuristic for selecting stocks that are off the beaten path still works for investors?

[Peter Lynch]

Again, under my thesis that if 10 people look at it, nine will say that's been unexpected. I don't think people are looking at Waste Management. They just wouldn't look at it. So stocks are mispriced when there's a lot of no. 1 in the class of Fidelity. We have a lot of good competitors. And they're doing the same work we're doing. And sometimes they're not looking at certain categories of stocks. And what I also found out, I've had companies that were losing $6 a share. And things started getting better. The industry hadn't recovered, but they had certain things. And now they're losing $2 a share. Right.

[Interviewer / Host]

Still not good, but not as bad.

[Peter Lynch]

But I think that's $4 a share in Bruin. Then they went from losing two to making two. The star quadrupled. Yeah, it's the same $4.

[Audience Member / Participant]

Okay.

[Peter Lynch]

Why weren't people looking when they went from. What were they doing when they went from losing six to losing two in a bad environment? Things didn't improve. They were doing something right.

[Interviewer / Host]

Can you tell us about the oxymorons of Wall Street? And some of us are here in the room. It was very original. You went on this kind of tour de force. I don't want to call it a tirade, but this sort of monologue about don't be fooled into thinking just because someone's a professional that they can do better than you or they know more than you. Warren's got a great quote about this. He said, wall street is the only place where people take a Rolls Royce to get advice from somebody who took the subway. And in fairness, I took the subway to my first job on Wall street for a long time. But you talked about the oxymorons. People that thought they knew everything just because they had proximity to the exchange. And I think you were giving a pep talk to the reader of the book telling them, don't think that you can't be good at this, too. You still believe that?

[Peter Lynch]

Absolutely. I just think people, average people, feel fidelity if they work hard, they're careful, and things are not clear. I have a term, like in poker term, the next car to turn over. This next car to turn over. I don't know what it's going to be. It could be positive. Could Be negative. But two years from now this company's going to be better. And if the next car turns out a positive, buy it. But I think you should buy some now. The next quarter maybe may not be better. I mean we don't know. Companies are get really tight in these quiet periods. So you're doing your best you can. But there's three things going to make this company have higher earnings in two to three years. We showing it right now.

[Audience Member / Participant]

Okay.

[Interviewer / Host]

And that's. And that you still think that approach is still the way people should be thinking and not think that somebody knows more than them.

[Peter Lynch]

Well, I think people tend to concentrate on what's hitting the new high list.

[Audience Member / Participant]

Yeah.

[Peter Lynch]

And that's a good place to operate. I mean one point BJ's was on the new high list. One point, you know, Ross Storr's on the new high list or Carvana is on the new high list. So Scummy's new high list can go up. But I look at the stocks on the new low list.

[Audience Member / Participant]

Okay.

[Peter Lynch]

Oh, some are crap, it's. Some of them are good.

[Interviewer / Host]

That style of investing has fallen out of favor in recent years. Do you think it'll make a comeback?

[Peter Lynch]

I hope so.

[Interviewer / Host]

Some call it value investing, some call it bottom fishing, whatever the term is.

[Audience Member / Participant]

Okay.

[Interviewer / Host]

You still think there's something there?

[Peter Lynch]

Well, we get one of the great managers ever, Bruce Johnstone. Bruce, you're here somewhere.

[Interviewer / Host]

Yeah, Bruce is here. Bruce Johnstone's in the audience tonight.

[Peter Lynch]

He's a superstar buying down out companies with a dividend yield. Yeah, turned around. He worked incredibly hard, did a lot longer than I did. He's a superstar and he's a great person to boot. But he was very thorough and careful and prudent and just like me, he was wrong. Four times out of ten he's saying three, only three.

[Interviewer / Host]

So I understand you're not particularly investing per se in the magnificent seven stocks, but you've always been an admirer of great businesses. These are, I think you'd agree, these are among the greatest publicly traded companies we've ever seen in America. These are companies that, yes, they have trillion dollar market caps and they're not cheap. But these are companies with 30 and 40% profit margins, 20% revenue growth year after year after year. Surely you must be impressed by these companies.

[Peter Lynch]

Facebook or Meta is incredible company. Microsoft's a great company. Google's a great company. Amazon's a staggering company. I'm a little vague on Tesla, but BYD's making a car now in Hungary. It's third, the price and a good car. I mean, I can't get this humanoid thing about. But every employee of heli we call in a 1015 and say I'd like to buy these three stocks, sell these three stocks. And they say, nope, can't do it. Fidelity is buying or selling. Every employee does that. So I don't have a chance of buying Meta or Amazon. These Fidelity's buying, but that's fair.

[Interviewer / Host]

You could buy the Fidelity Spartan Index fund if you want exposure to those.

[Peter Lynch]

I own a lot of Fidelity funds.

[Audience Member / Participant]

Yeah.

[Interviewer / Host]

One of the concerns that probably a lot of people in the audience have right now, large cap stocks in general are selling at some of the highest multiples we've ever seen. Historically high, not the highest ever, but in the decile, let's say. So we're selling currently s and P522 times trailing twelve months earnings. Granted, earnings are growing, interest rates are falling. It sort of makes sense when you think about this being a capex boom and low unemployment. There are a lot of justifiable reasons for it. Do you worry about future returns for the investor? Who puts a dollar of work to work today in the market?

[Peter Lynch]

I'll ask somebody in the room. Do we run Costco's IRA or Walmart's IRA? This Costco is like 55 times earnings.

[Interviewer / Host]

Costco has an AI stock multiple, but they sell paper towels.

[Peter Lynch]

It's a great company. Yeah, 55 times earnings. Walmart is 70 years old. Sam Walton was at JC Penney. Then this great formula did small towns. Imagine. Here's an example of being Sometimes you don't have to be in the first inning. Walmart comes public. You said, gee, it's a little common. Southwest and Southeast, not sure about them. So 10 years after they went public, the stock's up tenfold. It's gone up 10 places. I missed it. It's now up 80 fold since then. 10 years. They're a 25 year old company and they copied the Kmart formula. They're lower cost. They went to the big cities. They could kill Kmart, kill Sears. So went up 80 fold after going up tenfold, it's a 25 year old company. 10 years in public they're in 18% of the United States. Then they went to 19, then the 20, then the 23. And then they had Sam's Club. And I had the same example of McDonald's. McDonald's was my biggest position. People said it's all over McDonald's. I said, well wait a second, why is that? Well, how many more McDonald's can have, well, I think they can do really well In Europe, there's 450 McDonald's in France. In France, Germany, 380. There's over 300 in England. There's 300 in Spain. There's more McDonald's outside the United States. So McDonald's went up tenfold after that. People said McDonald's is done. They just didn't think it through.

[Interviewer / Host]

Is the message to that the fact that a stock has already been successful tells you nothing about how much more successful it could be in the future?

[Peter Lynch]

No, the facts were, at that point, they had 20 stores in France on the way to 400. They had 20 in Germany, they had 20 in Spain. This was not an idea. They were doing it, and people were lining up to buy a Big Mac everywhere.

[Interviewer / Host]

I wanted to ask you, in the time that we have remaining, a couple of other things about the modern market just so we could all get your take on them. And if you. And if you have no opinion, that's okay, too. In the last week, the SEC has said they would study an idea proposed by President Trump to ease up on the quarterly reporting burden for public companies and allow companies to report earnings on a semiannual basis, which is how they do it in the UK do you. Do you have an opinion? Not a political. Political opinion, but do you have an opinion on what that means for investors or whether or not that's something we should celebrate or have cause for concern? Is that something that you think about?

[Peter Lynch]

I haven't really devoted a lot of attention to that, but I think three months is a very short period. Yeah, a very short period. And you measured with it, and maybe the year before was very strong. So you're up against a strong. So there's some merit to having a longer period to see what's really happened to the company in just three months. So I have not made a decision on that one.

[Interviewer / Host]

I wanted to ask you about the meme stock phenomenon that took place during the pandemic. From my perspective, and I'd love to hear if you agree with me or not. From my perspective, obviously there are some elements of that that were reckless, but the byproduct is we got 25 or 30 million people to open their first brokerage account, mostly people under the age of 30, where the prior generation was very slow to embrace stocks. So I sort of looked at it like it had a silver lining. Would you agree with that or do you have a different take?

[Peter Lynch]

The Market bottom in 82 was 7. 7. 7.

[Audience Member / Participant]

Yeah.

[Peter Lynch]

Not 7777, the Dow.

[Audience Member / Participant]

Yeah.

[Peter Lynch]

So we've had a incredible market since 82. We've had 10 or 12 declines, but maybe a few more. So people today, they're not used to. Everybody I knew grew up, they were warned, the big one's coming. We've had 11 recessions in World War II. We've never had a big one. But imagine in the Depression, we didn't have Social Security. It wasn't Social Security. Criminal invention. People when they retired, they're older, they moved in with their family, the family had to stop, cut back on their spending. We also. We didn't have unemployment compensation. We didn't have the sec. The SEC did not exist. Did not exist. There's so many things that are better. And we had a Federal Reserve that was asleep to both. So I think there was a lot of things that, you know, there's margin requirements now. I mean, it's 1929. No one jumped out of windows.

[Interviewer / Host]

That was fabricated.

[Peter Lynch]

You said 1% of Americans own stocks. 1929.

[Interviewer / Host]

I don't think a lot of people understand that. The losses were very contained to a small group of people.

[Peter Lynch]

But we had an incredible depression.

[Audience Member / Participant]

Yeah.

[Peter Lynch]

30% of people out of work, not enough food trouble, farming environment. It was awful. People went through that. I've read stories about it. It was grim.

[Interviewer / Host]

You think we have evolved the economy and the markets to the point where it would be very difficult to repeat the quote, unquote big one.

[Peter Lynch]

Well, we've had 11 tests, 11 recessions since, and no one's ever got worse than 5, 6% decline in GDP. There's a lot of cushions now. 63% of Americans own their house. That was not true in the 1920s. People have IRAs. If they're fidelity, they're not going to panic. People are careful with their savings. The GI Bill allowed people to buy houses with 5% down. Create a lot of people with wealth. Most wealth in America is in their house. And that was not true in the twenties. People were renting, rent went up. I mean, there's so many buffers now that it's incredible how many positives there are. And we had a lot of tests. We had many opportunities to have a big one. And we've had some probably bad presidents, some bad Congresses, we've had bad economists, and we've made it through. It's a pretty good system.

[Interviewer / Host]

I like that message for people who are overdosing on Great Depression content on their social media feeds and constantly being fed that as a realistic possibility. I wanted to ask you one last question. This is an audience of some of the most successful, dedicated, self directed investors, customers of Fidelity. First of all, give yourselves a round of applause. As someone who for decades has been the leading advocate of the self directed investor. Is there any parting words of wisdom for this audience or anything that you think they need to hear from you that maybe they haven't heard from anyone else or haven't heard in a while? Is there any encouragement that you'd like to offer? We'd love to hear it.

[Peter Lynch]

Well, I think this is a special group of friends. These people do hard work. They're careful, they're prudent, they buy stocks, they understand what they own. That's not true of most people. My generation growing up, if you worked for a telephone company, if you work for utility, a gas, whatever it was, you had a pension, didn't worry about it. Now you have an ira company matches it. You've got to decide what you want to do with it.

[Interviewer / Host]

You're responsible now for your own retirement in a way that prior generations didn't have to think about.

[Peter Lynch]

You have to have it right? You have to decide. But I had a son in law, he wasn't happy with the company he's working for. And they were going to, let's see, he's going to put $5,000 in and they were going to match it. He says, I don't want to do that. He says, well, could I put 5,000? You'll match it. That's a double every year. Can I participate in your ira? I'd love to tell the story about this fear, this AI Fear.

[Interviewer / Host]

Please, please.

[Peter Lynch]

So in fact I was talking to Josh earlier. I was listening to a conference call. This company supplies semiconductor equipment. They were in this industry. And it was so sad. I was so Sad. The poor CEO is talking, he's talking about A1, the steak sauce. And my 11 year old grandchild knows the artificial intelligence he's calling A1. And there must be some people saying it's not A1, it's not AI but there's this fear that all jobs are going to go away. So I get a good example. 1984, they split up AT&T.

[Interviewer / Host]

The Baby Bells.

[Peter Lynch]

Nine Baby Bells, including Taco Bell. Yeah, Taco Bell was. That was a match.

[Interviewer / Host]

Southern Bell, Taco Bell.

[Peter Lynch]

Okay, so they split up. One million people worked for AT&T. We had 100 million jobs. One out of every 100Americans worked at AT&T. So it was 84. So it's what, 40 years later, this industry had phenomenal growth. There were no cell phones then. Remember payphones? I mean, remember payphones? There's texting. I mean, what you do on your phone. This has been one of the greatest growth industries. If you add together Verizon, T Mobile, AT&T, they now have 400,000 employees. We went from a million to 4,000 employees. There's 153 million Americans working today. We've gone from 100 million Americans working to 153. It's a great country. We're creative. This incredible conversation. America creates, China duplicates and Europe legislates.

[Interviewer / Host]

So from your, from your point of view, the people displaced by AI and other innovations to come in the future, they'll be doing something else. It's unlikely they'll be sitting there saying, I wish I still had my job that AI took away.

[Peter Lynch]

Yeah. I think more importantly, one job is gonna go away. These are good paying jobs. The people that drive a truck, a tractor trailer from a manufacturing firm to a distribution center on highways not through Beacon Hill, they go back that night. That should be automated.

[Audience Member / Participant]

Yeah.

[Interviewer / Host]

And likely will be, you would say.

[Peter Lynch]

I would say in 20 years, we'll lose 500,000 jobs. Yeah, that's a really. And safety will be better. Costs go down. That's more important to me than AI. And those are people who work hard. They don't need.

[Interviewer / Host]

Sorry. Automation is going to have a bigger impact than AI, you're saying?

[Peter Lynch]

Automation has been incredible the last 50 years. And we've gone from 100 million jobs to 153. And Eastman Kodak's gone down. The tire has gone down. Sears has gone away. I mean, all the growth is new companies and companies with 100 to 200 employees or less. The largest 500 companies have fewer employees than they did 50 years ago. The largest 500 companies have fewer Employees than they did 50 years ago. All the growth in this country is entrepreneurs starting a little shop, starting something else that makes our country great. And the important thing is banks will lend to them. It's a great book. The Shoe Dog. Has anybody read the Shoe Dog?

[Interviewer / Host]

Shoe Dog?

[Audience Member / Participant]

Sure.

[Interviewer / Host]

Phil Knight.

[Peter Lynch]

Incredible. I mean, it's a great read.

[Audience Member / Participant]

Yeah.

[Interviewer / Host]

I want to thank you so much for spending some time with us tonight. How about a round of applause for Peter lynch, ladies and gentlemen. I also want to thank the folks at Fidelity for putting this event on, inviting us all here to be together. Congratulations on the new app and thank you so much to the whole team who made this happen.

[Peter Lynch]

Really appreciate it.

[Interviewer / Host]

Lastly, I'd be remiss if I didn't thank my team who set up a lot of the equipment that you see surrounding us tonight. And we'll be tirelessly working on this video, editing the audio so that the people who couldn't be here with us have an opportunity to watch it or listen to it later. So, ladies and gentlemen, Daniel John, Nicole, and Graham Rob Duncan. Please give them a round of applause. Thank you guys so much. Okay, that's it from us, ladies and gentlemen. Thank you for being a part of this. We'll see you soon. Thank you.

[Peter Lynch]

Sa.