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The Investor's Podcast (We Study Billionaires) - The Investor’s Podcast Network
TIP735: Compounding with Character w/ Guy Spier
02:11:48
Stig Brodersen speaks with Guy Spier about Guy's investment in The Economist, and what guides his life and investment philosophy.
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- [00:01]
Stig Broderson
You're listening to Tip.
- [00:03]
Guy Spier
Guy Spier is more than an investor. He's a teacher, a philosopher and student of life. Since founding the acromion fund in 1997, he outperformed the S&P 500 by investing not just with his head, but with his heart. In this wide ranging episode, you'll learn why Guy Spier invests in the Economist, how Guy builds meaningful relationships, and how he navigates a world where money has limits and character has none. This was one of the most thoughtful and enriching conversations I ever had on the show, and I hope you'll enjoy the exploration as much as I did.
- [00:38]
Stig Broderson
Since 2014 and through more than 180 million downloads, we've studied the financial markets and read the books that influence self made billionaires the most. We keep you informed and prepared for the unexpected. Now for your host, Stig Broderson.
- [00:58]
Unknown
Foreign.
- [01:03]
Guy Spier
You'Re listening to the Investors podcast. I'm your host, Dick Broderson, and I am here today with one of the most revered investors in the value investing community, Guy Spier. Guy, how are you today?
- [01:16]
Unknown
I'm alive. As I say now, these days, I'm glad to be alive. I'm glad to be on a podcast with you. As you know, Stig, I'm in a relatively remote location and I was super frustrated about the Internet connection. I want everybody to know that Stig has the patience of an elephant. So we both set aside the afternoon for this. Because I can tell you, Stig, I enjoy talking to you as much as I think you enjoy talking to me. So we had no time commitment, time barrier, hard stop on the other side. But it is literally an hour and 20 minutes where we were supposed to start the interview. So thank you, Stig, for your extreme patience in this case, really.
- [01:55]
Guy Spier
You're very kind, Guy, and I'm just happy to have a chance to catch up with you and hear how everything is. So no worries at all.
- [02:02]
Unknown
As you know, you have a very, very successful podcast, and rightfully so. A huge number of people listen to you. So I always feel privileged that you want to invite me back. And I'm waiting for the day when you say when you decide internally that you've had enough of Guy Speer. And I'm a little surprised that you haven't had enough of Guy Spear yet. But, you know, I feel honored and I feel, you know, imposter syndrome to be here in a certain way.
- [02:31]
Guy Spier
I don't think I can ever get enough of speaking with you. And we are going to talk more about Meaningful conversations and meaningful relationships later in this episode. And I couldn't think of a better person to talk about that than with you, Guy. But before we do, I want to talk about Charlie Munger's favorite adult magazine, as he's been quoted to call it. We're talking about the Economist, and you invested recently in the Economist group. And I was kind of curious if you could elaborate a bit more on how did the transaction come about? Does it mean that you now have shares in a private company because it is a private company? Or is it investment indirectly through Axure? I'm kind of curious what's going on.
- [03:14]
Unknown
Yeah, obviously I have known about the Economist ever since I started studying economics around age 18. It's a very, very old publication. It started certainly in the 1800s. How early in the 1800s, I can't remember. It was actually part of the Enlightenment, in a way. They were trying to get people to think in a rational way about the allocation of scarce resources. And so it was a must read in the UK at the time of the Industrial Revolution and onwards. So I was aware of it. But then I also became more aware of it when I came across two business school cases, Harvard Business School cases. One case is actually on the Harvard Business School itself and analyzes the Harvard Business School as a business. Bill Ackman recently did that about Harvard University. This is just Harvard Business School. And one part of the case study, if I'm not mistaken, focused on a publication called the Harvard Business Review. And then another study, another Harvard Business School case study on the Economist. And this was around the time of the reorganize of publishing post Internet. And both the Harvard Business Review and the Economist were kind of highlighted as sort of publications that somehow had managed to survive and maybe even thrive through the great kind of tumult of the Internet. And so that got my attention, but I didn't do anything about it. But then when I was studying Exor, which is in my portfolio, and I go to a biannual meeting that takes place in Turin for people who are interested in Xor. And it's a very small gathering of people. And I met the most incredible woman, Susan Haywood, who herself, if you could get her on the podcast, wouldn't be great. But she's written a couple of books and she's now for various positions within exorbit. She's kind of a key operational figure for John Elkann in exor. And I had a conversation with her about the Economist because John Elkann controls about or exor controls about 40% by value of the Economist shares. And I said it would be a dream for me to own shares of the Economist. And she said, oh, let me introduce you to the CFO or the CEO. And I visited them in London. So that's how it happened. It's happened through the connection from EXXOR and John Alkin and the company is private, but there's a very clear price that is established for the shares because shares do change hands privately. So even though it's private, you could argue there's an over the counter market for the shares, something like that. And in the past, in the beginning of the fund, I bought shares of Neutung, the number one newspaper in Switzerland. I paid like around four times earnings for that. I paid a little bit more. I mean it's, I think I said something like, it's not cheap, but it's not expensive, something like that. I bought into it at a fair price. But just to add one, one thing extra to that, which is just an interesting way in which life works. The opportunity is unevenly spread in the world and opportunities tend to, they sort of like collect a certain points. If you make it your business to attend the Berkshire meeting or if you make it your business to attend the EXOR meeting, you're more likely to hear about and pick up on those opportunities. I mean, the connection to Jerome Elkan and EXOR arose from the Berkshire Hathaway meeting. And I can tell you about that if you like. So now the connection to the Economist arose from the attendance of the EXOR meeting.
- [06:56]
Guy Spier
I've been reading that magazine for I don't know how long and it's such high quality. And so I looked into multiple times we experience life and whenever we see something that's really valuable, you sort of like, you look up, or at least I do. And probably a lot of listeners are looking up, can I invest in that company? Looking at XR a few times has always been one of those how much of that exposure do I really get and what it is that I want? Like whenever you look something like economists that raised prices quite rapidly over the past few years. I'm not saying that in any kind of negative way, but also you really experience the pricing power firsthand. And I found it to be a very interesting investment. I found it to be a very guy type investment, which I do mean as a compliment whenever I say that. So because of the longevity to your point, and you also invested in lvmh and I'm not here to give you any kind of confirmation bias or anything like that. The reason why I found LVMH to be interesting. And of course the business isn't that old, but a lot of the brands are very, very old. And it really comes from this idea of, to your point about the economists, that's sort of like what I'm trying to connect the dots of. There are so many things in the world that are changing, what is not going to change and perhaps what's even going to outlive us. And whenever I think about that and that anti fragility, I think about you and I think about your portfolio and reading about that investment, reading about the economists, I was like, oh, I was just about to say great minds think alike. It could also be not so great minds or in the same echo chamber, but then I'm sort of pulling you down on my level, so I probably shouldn't have said not great minds. So my apologies for that fat joke guy.
- [08:36]
Unknown
We're on the same level, Stig. We're both students. We're both students of life and business and investing and building a better life for ourselves despite our foibles and weaknesses. I did an interview with this guy, Valuex participant David Duranko. He's a mathematician and so he knows what a power law means way better than me. But it's not like the best businesses in the world are twice or three times as good as the worst businesses. The best businesses of the world are 110,000, 100,000 times better. I don't know how you measure that quality. And so you really give up a lot by trying to find cheap businesses that you think are going to outperform or are going to be a better value than the best businesses on the planet. And in this case, even if it's not the best, we can make the argument that the Economist. I don't think we can make the argument the Economist is the best business on the planet, but the quality of the people that it attracts and the quality of the way the organization and the fact that they attract the world's greatest minds to both either to read it or to publish in it, whether anonymously or non. Anonymously. And it aspires to be the mixing ground of the most important economic ideas of the day that kind of like at that apex, that once you're at the top of that mountain, it's very hard to dislodge you. And in a way the Economist is there. I mean, they share the space with a few other people. I mean, I think that people would argue that the Financial Times sits there in that space as well, and maybe the Wall Street Journal, but there's not 100. There's maybe two or three. And what's fascinating about the Economist is that you and I, and probably about quarter million people in the world, actually, by subscriber numbers, it's higher than that. Decide even if we don't read every single issue, that we want to have it. Minds meet at the top or the world narrows at the top. And so, I mean, every back page of the Economist is most of the time it's Rolex. And if it's not Rolex, it's lvmh. It's probably an LVMH brand. And that is very coveted real estate. And it's more coveted even than, for example, National Geographic. And Rolex is all over National Geographic. And Rolex becomes a kind of conduit because it's not Rolex. Rolex is there, but it's showing Roger Federer or it's showing the director of an opera or an opera singer. And the people who want to enter into the culture at the very kind of peak and at the elite of what they're doing, whether they're golfers, tennis players, opera singers, opera directors, they find their way into these pages, you know, so, yeah, and something else that happens, which really shouldn't be the case. I could own shares, just for argument's sake, T.J. maxx. And it might make a really good investment, really good compounder. But there's something that I get a personal benefit out of being associated with the economists and talking about it. An image that I have in my mind is you're furnishing your home. And yes, there are some very important pieces of furniture, like the couch and the settee maybe, which you should not pay a ridiculously high price for and, you know, is important part of the home. And then you get this jewel, which is not going to be an important part of the home, but somehow it enhances it in ways that make it more livable space for you. And I think that Warren Buffett has made investments like that. You know, early on, companies like Borscheims were like that. But even more recently, I think, I mean, for reckless reasons, I'm just reminded by somebody who said, you know, they had to buy Fruit of the Loom because it was the only way they get into women's underwear. It was kind of a special brand and they wanted it in the portfolio, even though it's just apparel, you know, and it was never going to make a huge contribution to Berkshire's earnings. But it was kind of a jewel. So I think that the Economist is like that for me. Interesting enough, I brought in a cocktail party. I was had the opportunity to talk to Ted Wexler, and I brought up my economist investment. And I actually said, forgive me, because I don't want to presume to know or understand what you're dealing with in capital allocation Berkshire. And I realized that it's tiny, but isn't that a beautiful brand to own inside Berkshire Hathaway? And the response I got was just like, it doesn't move the needle. It certainly doesn't move the needle for Berkshire Hathaway. But anyway, so I brought it up to Berkshire Hathaway, the Museum of Modern Business, as he says. But I'm glad you liked it.
- [13:25]
Guy Spier
I very much liked it, and I think it's a good transition into my other questions here. Guy, now that you mentioned your conversation and whether it should move the needle or not, I was speaking with an asset manager here some time ago, and I asked about what he did, like, how he spent his days. And I might be oversimplifying things here, but he made it sound like everything he did in life made him a better investor. So first of all, he talked about how many hours he spent on conventional investing tasks like reading 10k, 10qs and whatnot. And then he said he did a lot of philanthropy, which was, of course, wonderful. He talked about how that made him better investor. And then he went to the gym, and then that made him a better investor. And he, he didn't really do anything that didn't make him a better investor. And even something that seemingly didn't make him a better investor, he sort of had a theory of why that made him a better investor. And I've heard different variation, perhaps not to the same extent, but I heard different variation in that story many times over the years. And I say many just talk about that. They work all the time. And it sort of makes sense, part because a lot of people in that field, they do what they love, and why wouldn't they spend a lot of time on that? But perhaps there's also an element that you sort of have to say that to justify your fees. And who wouldn't want to invest with this person with a great track record that spends all his time on figuring out what to invest in. And even whenever he's doing something that seemingly doesn't make any sense, he still makes him a better investor. Now, I wanted to turn this question into something about you, because, Guy, I know you have many hobbies And I would argue that hobbies give you a higher quality of life. And I would probably also argue that I'm probably just wired differently than this investor I'm talking about. But I do a lot of things that doesn't make me a better investor. I just really enjoy doing them. And that's the reason why I do it. So how do you think about managing money for other people, but also living the best possible life?
- [15:37]
Unknown
I mean, in a way, it's shocking what taking fees can do to the way you manage your life. And it's not easy and it's not fun to be in front of people that you've taken fees from and you've having a period of bad performance. And they're not very happy about that. So I empathize, I guess, to the guy you were talking to. But I think that you and I both agree that there's something disingenuous about it and there's something where if you want to live a more honest life. He needs to be more curious about his motivations. We both sense that he's seeking to justify it. The only person that I've met who meets the description that I think that he's trying to describe himself as is Warren Buffett. Where his best life. And I remember it's about two thirds to three fourths of the way through the lunchroom. The penny finally dropped. He actually doesn't like all those things. It's not just that he doesn't like them. He's generally not interested. He doesn't even notice them. And one vignette of that is that Mohnish jibes me and says, oh, Warren, guy spent some money on expensive car. We were driving around New York City last night in the 911. We got a great tour of in the Porsche 911. A Cabriolet 911. And you know, I don't know if Warren didn't know what a Porsche 911 was or he just didn't care, but that guy is. His best life is reading audio reports all day. And I think that that's not the case for me. It's not the case for you. And before I go into. I can talk about some of the hobbies. I mean, I kind of did the confession. So two conversations that come up for me. One is with a guy called Ori Ayal. This is like 20 years ago, and we're in Pasadena and we've just attended the WESCO annual meeting, that great gathering of investors around Charlie Munger and then Whitney Tilson and John Schwartz have their value investors Congress. And I know that Ori's question to me was, but don't you want to be a really, really good investor? And it was then that the penny started slowly dropping on me that I didn't want to be the world's greatest investor. I wanted to be the best version of guy spier that I can be and let the cards fall where they may, if you like. So, I mean, you've heard about this idea has been well expressed by me and others many times. I can go into it. And then it happened again more recently, the realization that is, I have a finite time on this earth and there's a diminishing return to the amount of money I have, let's say, or the amount of money that I manage. So what actually am I trying to do? What am I trying to optimize? And if going back to the story about Warren Buffett, if I'm Warren Buffett, Warren Buffett could have this conversation where he says, yeah, I'm not freaking interested in getting on a bicycle. I'm not interested. And I could try in a thousand different ways, say, but Warren is so wonderful. It's this, that or the other, or he's not interested. I am interested. And at some point you have to say, I actually care more about. I guess I'm coming just full circle to what you said about the quality of my life, not the amount of money that I have in the bank or the success of my fund or all of those things. So if given the choice between authenticity to myself and trying to be the best possible manager of a fund, it's a clear winner. Of course you have to be authentic to yourself. That's the only thing you have to be. Maybe this is a way to swing it back to you, that person that you're talking about. I think that if I was a psychotherapist, and I have no understanding of what psychotherapists do, but I've been in many psychotherapists session as a client. But what I want to ask him is how can you be so sure that being the best investor is the best use of your time? And how can you be so sure that you're not being the truly authentic version of yourself? Because that would be a shame if you didn't do that, wouldn't it? That's time lost, if you like. So I know that we're both circling the same idea, but I'm not actually putting my finger on the kind of the hot button to kind of solve it, if you like, but I think that maybe this helps. So, first of all, I learned this really from courage, courage to tell the truth to oneself. And I'm not saying that I'm the best at it, but I'm on a journey and I think I'm improving. I think that I learned more from my wife than anybody else because I've seen her, I've seen Laurie in multiple circumstances. Not be fearful of telling the truth to herself or to others, and let the cars fall where they may. And if you set yourself up as an investor, investment manager, you've taken other people's money, it's a very, very scary thing to stand in front of them and say what you just said to me. There's some things that you do, Stig, that it's very tenuous for anybody to believe that it makes you a better investor. It's a leap into the unknown because you don't know how the world will react. I think that you both, both you and I, need to forgive people who do it. They do it for an understandable reason. But the people who don't do it, the people who take the leap of faith and say, you know what? I'm just going to be honest. I care more about being honest than achieving what I perceive to be success. Those people are the people who live real adventures. And just coming back to me, it can go in a negative way as well. I mean, hobby is one thing. We touched on it. You know that my letter, I talked about an operation that I had later last year, and it required me to kind of reevaluate what my life is about. And I didn't want the life where I had to write to my investors and say, I had an operation last year. I think everything's going to be fine. But it is a risk factor, and I need to tell you about it. But it's like if you confront that and you actually say, well, that is a fact. It's there, and I'm not going to hide from the truth, and I'm not going to try and massage the truth for my investors. Maybe God or Destiny has a better and more valuable investment venture in store for you. You just have to take that step and find out. And the person who doesn't take that step, who shies away from being brutally honest with themselves, lives a diminished life, lives a less full life than they could lead. You know, it's not about the outward success. It's about knowing that it's really your life that you're leading and the treasures that you're discovering are your own and only your own.
- [22:41]
Guy Spier
The best footballers in the world, they obviously don't continue playing because they need the money. They love to win. That's why they do it. And they do things they don't like to do. Perhaps it could be speaking with the press and that stage. I'm pretty sure they don't want to speak with more journalists if they can avoid it. It could also be dieting, whatever. It could be, there is something traveling to away games, whatever. I can guarantee you, for all of us, and even for the best footballers, they do things they don't want to do because it is in that bucket, which is to continue to win, to continue to get to win those championships. You have to feel an element of pain, for lack of better words. And I'm curious to hear about how you think about that guy. Not necessarily talking about football, but what do you do that you don't like doing? To continue to win in whatever kind of way you want to define winning.
- [23:40]
Unknown
I mean, I find the football analogy very, very interesting. I'm not a close football fan, but I've been close enough to football fans before I go there. You know, a friend of mine was a tennis dad, so his son was a very competitive tennis player. And he turns to me, you know, and he says, we're just in a cafe having coffee or something, and he says, you know, guy, do you know what's more important than winning at tennis? And I say, you know, and I'm thinking of all these other things and I say, well, I don't know. And he says, nothing, nothing is more important than winning. So that's your point with soccer, maybe, But I think that if I was talking to a great soccer player, and, you know, it's funny because, you know, I. I spend more time on TikTok than I care to admit to, and I just love watching these videos. I don't know if you do as well of Ronaldinho or Maradona and the way. And Mardona and Ronaldinho are so interesting to me because they don't have particularly aesthetic looking bodies. When you look at the guy and you say he's an athlete, you know, Maradona is not very tall, guys, he's kind of short and stocky. But what he does with the ball is utterly, utterly genius. I mean, who could imagine that somebody could do that? So. But I think that if I was talking to Ronaldinho or Messi or anybody else, I'd say, look, you've been very good at winning in soccer and You've been, you know, and soccer is an amazing sport because it's a combination of individual and team skills. It's an amazing combination of team skills. Some sports are all individual, like golf, maybe, and some sports like rowing, it's all the team. And then there are sports like soccer, which is an amazing balance. But, you know, you talk about winning and soccer. If you look at the books on infinite, finite and infinite games, soccer is described, like chess, as being a very clearly well delineated, finite game. And what I'd want to say to the soccer player is as you grow older, you'll inevitably not be a part of the soccer team anymore. If you're lucky, you'll be a star and you'll be remembered for the great skills on the pitch. But you need to transition from playing a finite game where it's all about winning, to playing an infinite game. And I would try to seek to prepare the soccer player for the ways in which he might do that. I think I see a parallel in my own life that when I was younger, I used to get great pleasure out of setting my sight on a target, whether it's getting a good grade in a particular exam or learning a language or getting into a certain school and then achieving that target. I didn't achieve all the targets, but that was seeing the game. The game is getting into Harvard Business School. The game is going to Oxford. The game is getting a job for a consulting firm. The game is getting a deal at an investment bank and then winning at that game. But that becomes very, very empty and hollow after a while. And there has to be more to it than that. And I think that that's even true of people who've won at the game of making vast amounts of money, and the people who just continue to play the game of making the vast amount of money. I mean, I didn't know too much about him, but I understand this guy, Sumner Redstone, who. He built a media conglomerate called Viacom. You know, he was the kind of guy that Warren Buffett said of people like that, that so many people came to the funeral just to remember, just to make sure that they were actually dead. You know, although there's a story of a media empire in Germany, I'll certainly not remember those names where was actually built up by a guy who was actually blind, if I'm not mistaken. And again, he was a genius at what he did, and he played the game to the nth degree, but he was hated by such a vast proportion of the people that he dealt with. And so at some point the money is meaningless. And if you're playing it for the sake of the money, if you're playing it for the sake of winning in that narrow sense of winning a soccer match, then you've kind of missed something really, really, really important. And I think that that's why, I mean, maybe this is helpful. As we think through this. Warren Buffett talked about some guy that he knew that discovered value investing, made a couple of hundred million dollars. He was a guy who was on the beach when Warren Buffett met him. And now he owns the beach, but he's happy on the beach. And Warren Buffett again is very unusual because his artwork is Berkshire Hathaway. Their actual highest and best purpose in life is to build a company like Berkshire Hathaway. I think that many people just want their highest and best purpose is to be a good husband and to be a good father. I was sitting at the Berkshire Hathaway meeting and Chris Davis went past me. He's the director of Berkshire Hathaway. And I think that I don't know him that well, but I think that he, he really cares about being a great dad. And he is a really, really phenomenal dad. And that actually. So the rich man died. How much money did he leave? All of it. And interestingly enough, the change in perspective of me going through a major operation, being on the other side of it. What regrets do I have about my life lived to date? Not that many. But one of them is that I always used to come home at like sort of seven o', clock, which was when dinner time was, because I spent that extra hour and a half in the office doing everything I could to. And I wish in that last 20 years I'd just have come home at 5:30, I'd skipped that extra hour and a half in the office. And, and that wouldn't have necessarily made me a better dad, but it would have given me more space to become a better dad than I could have been because I would have been just that little bit more present with our children. So I think that just going back, winning the game, but you need to update your understanding of what the game is. And the game is if you have a well defined set of rules for what the game is like making a lot of money or winning a chess, then you probably need to broaden your perspective. And then there are people who play the game of life in ways and they're, sorry, I'm just broading it out to sort of think of, you know, great people, you know, so three People who were murdered or his life was lives were taken away. But I don't think they would have lived their lives any differently. One is Alexei Navalny, another one is Mahatma Gandhi. A third one is Cicero. And I think that for those people, I mean Alexei Navalny, there's a great Netflix program on him and I haven't read the book yet, there's a biography of his. He lived in a world where he cared more about the opportunity to change the course of Russian history than he did about his own life. And I think that even though he died a natural death, that's true of Nelson Mandela. Those people would look at me. So I look at the guy who says, I'm about making the most money possible, and I say, that's not a good game to play. I don't think that that's the most meaningful way to live one's life. I don't want to be summoner Redstone the moment before I pass on, but I think that people like Alexei Navalny would look at me and say he cares about the highest values of human civilization and making sure they continue. I guess what I'm trying to say to you, Sting, is that there's a part of me that says, so rather than look down on that guy that you talk to who maybe has the wrong values and is trying to win a relatively finite game of who dies with the most money. But my values actually are extremely bourgeois, I think is what the word would be. I care to have my children educated at good schools and I want to be in nice places and I want to travel business class and stay in nice hotels and have nice things around. And I think that there's a very valid criticism that people like Alexei Navalny and many others human rights activists could level at me and say, you're abusing your wealth and your position in society just to live a comfortable life and you need to do more than that. That's an interesting thing and I apologize to all of them because I think they're probably right.
- [32:18]
Guy Spier
Let's take a quick break and hear from today's sponsors.
- [32:21]
D
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- [35:04]
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- [35:40]
Guy Spier
All right, back to the show. It's really important that we live by our values. You mentioned a number of different individuals, very unique, and they would. We would probably say, and they would probably say they live very aligned with their values. Whenever I have gotten to know you over the past decade, and that's been absolutely wonderful, I also think that you're on a journey, both figuring out what your values are and also aligning yourself with those values and also knowing that sometimes life changes and you change. And I don't necessarily. I was talking about this as a manager before, and I just want to clarify that, not that you necessarily insinuated that. Guys, please don't get me wrong. I don't look down on him for feeling that way in case he did. I think it's a question of some people. Perhaps he lived very much aligned with his values. Perhaps that was his finest mission in life. I don't know him that well. Perhaps it was not to be the richest man in the world. Perhaps it was to provide the best returns for investors. And that is his legacy. That is how he wants to be remembered. And who am I to say that's not noble for him? I think it's easy for us. And I kind of feel I'm as guilty as Chad. So if you want to call me a hypocrite, that's perfectly fine. But it's very easy for us to say, oh, this person isn't enlightened or isn't spiritual or whatever that might be. And that's only because that person hasn't achieved XYZ like I have. But then we're back to this idea of, like, who are defining which game we are playing. And to your point before, about Buffett, a lot of people would probably say he's not very enlightened, but I think he's very aligned with his values. He's probably living by his inner scorecard. It's not about the money for him. It's about the game and the game he wants to play. And I think that's all right. I guess that's what I'm trying to say.
- [37:41]
Unknown
Two points that come up for me that I think are valid and relevant. So one of my worst performing investments is a company called Seritage. And at some point, Warren had a 5% stake in the company, and then he arranged. He actually had Berkshire Hathaway take over a slug of debt that the Seritage had. Berkshire Hathaway could have easily, if they'd have wanted to bankrupted the company, it would have been better for the Berkshire shareholders, that's for sure. They would have made more money. But that's not the game that Warren Buffett wanted to play. And I think that he's got a sufficiently high reputation that it wouldn't have damaged his reputation too badly or the reputation of Berkshire. And in a way, it was kind of a legitimate thing for the lender to the company to do. This was in the vulture world. It wouldn't have been the worst vulture move that anybody had ever made. So it's worth saying that Warren Buffett, I think, plays the game far less aggressively than he could play and probably did play when he was younger, when he was doing, for example, merger arbitrage and various other moves that enhanced Berkshire's returns, but maybe didn't make him most popular with some people. So that's one perspective. And then there was another perspective that, yes, if you've not seen it, and you probably have, but if a listener hasn't seen it, you ought to go and listen to the podcast with Nikolai Tangen and Chris Hahn, who is a phenomenal investor, one of the smartest guys that I've ever met. He was a classmate of mine at business school. And I think that if Chris was on this call talking to you and me, he would just say, without any apologies, say, listen, I was an immigrant to the UK and my father was a car mechanic and I went into huge amounts of debt to go to business school. And the most important thing that I needed to do was get myself economically self sufficient and get myself on a path to the solid middle classes, which is not where I came from. And so while you guys who had an easy ride have these moral arguments about whether somebody's playing the right kind of game that is suited to his personality, I was just trying to make ends meet. By the time I'd paid off my student debt and by the time I'd kind of lifted my eyes and realized that I could think about other things, I realized I was really good at this and I really, really liked to do it. And yeah, I continue to do it, and it's no more complicated than that. And actually, perhaps I wouldn't say you're overcomplicating it, but perhaps I'm overcomplicating it a lot.
- [40:36]
Guy Spier
Well, Guy, many investors present this image of having everything figured out and you clearly openly Shared your struggles in investing and also personal and showing a great deal of vulnerability. Where are you mentally, if I can put it like that? And I don't know if now I'm complicating things. But where are you mentally whenever you speak about these challenges publicly? Is it something that you already processed? Is it something that you are going through while you're talking about and that's a part of your process to deal with different problems? Yeah. Let me throw it back over to you, guy.
- [41:18]
Unknown
It's a really interesting question. It's funny because I'm at the house where I come back to it. Jordan Peterson has said, if you want it, if you want an adventure in life, tell the truth. So I was in a single bedroom in my parents house not far away from where I am right now, and I'm writing the Belly of the Beast chapter. But I didn't even, you know, that's at the point in my book where I'm just writing down whatever comes to my mind, doing brain dumps of various different things to create material that I can then raid for my book. Much of the material didn't make it in the book, but I'm writing this kind of chapter on DH Blair and I realize at the end of it I'm doing a brain dump, not a chapter. I'm just doing a brain dump at that point. But the subject matter is my big career mistake and my year and a half at this bucket shop in New York City. And at the end of it, I realized that I want to put that into my book and that it will probably be the best, the strongest and beginning chapter. And that's the point at which I made a commitment to myself to tell the truth publicly. And that was the beginning of a big adventure for me. And I think that you take a huge risk for doing it, but the rewards are just enormous and you get huge rewards from doing it. And yes, I've continued to do that. And I remember myself asking a question of Warren Buffett, not about telling the truth about doing the right thing, but it comes to the same thing. And I said, does it become any easier? And he said, a little. I think that by telling the truth about that career mistake, I strengthened a muscle inside of me that made it easy to tell the truth about other things as I went along. And so that muscle sort of like is slowly and gradually strengthened such that I can. I remember the first time, and it was subsequent to writing the book and somebody said, how do you know when to sell? And it came up for me That I wanted to. You know, the first answer I wanted to give is some uber rational sort of, you know, we do a fine analysis of fair value, and when the company comes within fair value, we. And I looked at the person and I cast that answer aside and I said a more honest truth, which was, it's really hard. I really don't know. Yes, I would like to say to you that I come up with this careful analysis of intrinsic value, and I. And, you know, the fact of the matter is a lot of the time I don't fully understand how to go about it. And I'm doing the best I can. And, you know, and why is there something that happens to you that happened. Has happened to me a number of times, and I did. When I've done things like that, which is. The only way I can describe it is God smiles at me, meaning that it's not like it gets showered with love or something like that, or it gets showered with riches. But somehow, in the terms of the book Power vs Force by David Hawkins, things go strong around me and I realize I've stepped into a different reality. But I think that something that comes up for me is that each time I've done that, it's been difficult for me, and I've had to break through a whole bunch of resistance inside myself. I've had to break through fears. It's kind of like it's stepping into the unknown every time that I've done it. And when I've done it, I feel like, well, now I'm done. That's the last test. I don't have to do that anymore. Now I can sit back and relax and enjoy my life. And a pattern that I'm learning now, and I wish it wasn't the case, is that life keeps on throwing these challenges at you, unfortunately, because I can't say that every time I've done that, I mean, just like Warren Buffett said, it becomes a little easier. Maybe the muscle's a little stronger, but not a lot. And it's never fun to do. So when I've broken through that, the incentive is don't come out with the full truth. Hide a little bit of yourself. You don't know how they will react. They don't deserve to know that this is your private life, all of those things. And those things, those forces and voices around me of both inside and outside tell me, for example, talking about my health, very powerful voices that said, you don't have to talk about this. This is your own private stuff. And I said, no. I do have to talk about it because they deserve to know, and I'm applying the simple rule. So taking that jump every time has been difficult. And every time on the other side, there's been a reward that is not instant obvious, but there has been a reward for doing it. I don't know. So, for what it's worth, I'm also helped greatly that I have, I really believe, and I can give you specific examples if you want me to, that I've been greatly strengthened in this by my wife, Laurie, and her relationship to the truth. And underneath her beautiful soul and outward beauty and amazing mother and all sorts of other things, I find her to be an extraordinarily brave and courageous woman who is not afraid of the truth and not afraid to say the truth in all sorts of circumstances that I can share with you. So the fact that she is that way makes it far easier for me to be that way, if you like. I've also seen that in my children. I've multiple times in my life thought, well, now I've been honest with this, and I've seen the rewards. I won't be tested again. And it seems to me, I mean, some of the ways that I've been tested, my career decision to go to DH Blair, investment mistakes where I've had to come clean with my investors. And the reason why I was bringing up Laurie so much, my wife, is.
- [47:23]
F
That.
- [47:25]
Unknown
We got married and we went through all sorts of difficulties in our marriage. We don't know if those are the same or greater or not as great as the marriages that other people go through. But Laurie was fine, and I'm fine for us to talk about them in the open. In fact, we think that it's important for people to know, I think, that I have more than a successful marriage. I could ask for better. But if people think that that happens easily, it doesn't. It happens through an enormous amount of work. And both Laurie and I think are very proud of our marriage, but we're proud of the work that we've done to make it that marriage. It didn't happen just because we wanted it to. And now there's kind of new challenges related to, you know, the state of my health, for example, that requires me to again come clean with investors in the world in a way that I didn't expect. And it has its rewards. It has its huge rewards. But so I. My consciousness has expanded. I think I can say that, but it's expanded not because I wanted it to expand, but because I had no choice.
- [48:36]
F
I Tried every other option, and every.
- [48:39]
Unknown
Other option didn't work as well, basically. I think it's an interesting idea. The things that I'm really proud of.
- [48:48]
F
That I've done in life, like succeeded.
- [48:52]
Unknown
In my marriage despite, I think, great difficulties, or succeeded in writing a book despite being, you know, for all sorts of reasons why I don't think I.
- [49:02]
F
Was the ideal person to write a book. None of those things felt easy, and none of those things felt like they were voluntary. In a way, I felt like I was pushed into it and pushed in.
- [49:14]
Unknown
Not by an individual, but by life circumstances got me into a place where suddenly I was cornered.
- [49:20]
F
And yes, maybe I took a more courageous way out, but I didn't take.
- [49:25]
Unknown
That more courageous way out because I.
- [49:27]
F
Woke up and was brave or courageous. I tried every other option first, because I really didn't want to be courageous. I didn't want to tell the truth. I didn't want to stand there, face up to what I was facing up to. But I realized that that was the only option. And I did that option reluctantly. I think that my point to you and anybody who's still listening at this point, is that, at least in my case, and all I'm doing is acting as a witness to my own experience. It doesn't come easily for me, and I don't do it gladly. I do it very reluctantly, if you like.
- [50:03]
Unknown
And I think that that is probably.
- [50:05]
F
True of many people who are courageous, who take difficult decisions, or maybe it's just me and I'm the least best at it, but I think that that should encourage people. If you think, if you're faced with a difficult situation, an investment that's gone bad, an investor who's not happy with you, a situation where you feel ashamed, then I hope that I can be helpful by being a witness to my experience in those circumstances.
- [50:36]
Unknown
If you feel like you want to.
- [50:37]
F
Be 6ft out of underground and you.
- [50:39]
Unknown
Don'T want to be anywhere near what's.
- [50:41]
F
Just happened, I felt that as well. And I've tried every single way to get out of that situation without facing.
- [50:48]
Unknown
Up to the reality.
- [50:50]
F
And I realized that every other single.
- [50:52]
Unknown
Way was to run away, which didn't.
- [50:54]
F
Solve the problem, in my experience. Stig, I hope this is helpful and I'm not rambling. So we live in Switzerland, and there are plenty of beautiful mountains to climb. And there are things called. In Italian it's called a Via Ferrata, and in German it's called a Kletelsteiger. I don't know what it is in English, but it's extremely safe. You have a version of a harness which allows you to clip yourselves in to these metal guides which it's impossible to have an accident if you follow some very simple rules about clipping yourself in. But at the end of the day, you're in a place where if you look down, you could fall 500 meters or more. I mean, you'd fall to your death if you weren't securely clipped in. I've never ever. I mean, I don't know. There are people who say that they love those things and they get an endorphin high and they get super excited to do it. I've hated it every time I've done it. I never enjoy doing it. When I'm finished with it, I say, I'm glad it's over. I'm glad I got through. I'm glad I did that highline wire thing. And no, I didn't enjoy it. And so that's the same for me with this kind of truth telling, if you like. But I still think it's a better light. Nobody has to go on the high line. Nobody has to climb ridiculous places on a kettlesteig. But it seems to me that all of us will be faced with very difficult situations in our lives where we're better off showing up. Even though it's not pleasant to show up.
- [52:23]
Unknown
I mean, sorry, because it's high on my mind. There are phone calls or opportunities to show up. Somebody's had a terrible diagnosis, somebody's loved one has died, their mother has died. You know, it's not an easy call to make. Nobody wants to make that call. But you're so much better if you do make that call. And that seems to me that that's just a part of life. And you know, somebody that I was at university with, he says to me, well, I just want to be happy. You know, I'm going to. I'm going to do what it takes to minimize pain and to maximize joy. And it just. That's a really lovely idea. And I hope that most of us get to experience vast spans of our lives when that is true. But it just seems to me that for an individual it's just universal. It's not universally true. At some point we're all. It's part of the human condition that we'll be faced with something, whether our choice is to run away or. Or to do what's meaningful. And you can run away, but then you're leaving a far diminished version of what your life is. Or you can do what's meaningful. And my point to you, and I'm sorry if I'm belaboring this point, doing what meaningful is meaningful, don't have in your image you the listener of some courageous hero who finds it easy. I don't think anybody finds it easier. Maybe afterwards people say, oh, yeah, that was a cinch. I don't believe it because I've not experienced that in my life. When Warren Buffett says, he shows up at Salomon Brothers and he says something like, my mother has sewn my name into my underwear, so it's all going to be okay. I mean, he was actually being extraordinarily courageous and he can say what he likes. He was scared. His reputation was on the line. His Sullivan Brothers moment, showing up in Congress and deciding that he wasn't going to pretend about what happened, he was going to tell the truth as it was. It seems so easy in hindsight, but actually, I think that if we could get him talking about it, I don't know. He's a different personality to me. He's a different generation. Our generation are full of psychotherapists and feelings and examining your feelings. And I probably couldn't get him to say more than, yeah, my mother had sewn my name into my underwear, so it was going to be okay. Come on, Warren, you were scared. And probably he'd just say, he'd just brush it over. But I'm sure that he had the same feeling of butterflies in his stomach. I'm convinced of it. But we'll probably never find out.
- [55:04]
Guy Spier
No, we probably never will. And I also like that you brought up this point here about Buffett. I think a lot of us, myself included, I should say, are looking at different parts of his life and saying, oh, how can you do this? How can you say that? And I think it goes back to our previous conversation about, yeah, he made mistakes. And he talked about this here at the Q and A at the last shareholders meeting, where there are different things. He wasn't specific about some of the mistakes he made, but he certainly said that he made mistakes. But also that's the way it is. And I think we are evaluating a man who was born in 1930 based on 2025 standards and the upbringing that we have and the things we experience and the values that we have. And so it's like they're not the same. It's not a one on one thing to say that's not been a successful life. And this is not my way of saying that that is success. It goes back to this point about what is successful for that person and whether they're aligned with their values. And so it takes me to another thing I wanted to talk to you about, Guy, because I've talked to you in the past about this idea of being wealthy or not being wealthy in seconds. And as we grow older, we start to think differently about, well, everything, I guess, to the point you had before, about. It's a little bit easier to do the right thing as you grow older. There's probably an element of experience and perhaps even wisdom in that also that at a certain age, you just don't know what the right thing is. You haven't had a good feedback loop, and. And you start to think about time differently as you grow older. You think about minimizing regrets, or at least some type of regrets, but also being very frank about what is right to do at one age isn't necessarily right to do at another age, even though you don't need to regret what you did whenever you were 25, because life was just different whenever you were 25. But one of the things that I've increasingly started to think about as similar to you, perhaps Gaia, having friends on many different continents, traveling and making decisions. It's going to sound very transactional. That's not my intention. But there are friendships where you want to cross the ocean to see that person, and then there are probably good people who would show up at your doorstep, but where you're like, no, because I also have to do other things. And so that leads me to this question and your reflections of how do you think about which friendships to invest in and how do you invest in those friendships?
- [57:44]
Unknown
Yeah, it's a good question, obviously. And in a way, it hits hard for me because I don't think that I've been. Maybe none of us are conscious about it. And it kind of. So. So it kind of hits me in the gut because I don't think I've been very optimal about it either, you know, and so you've got me kind of, in a way, trying to think it through on the fly, if you like. So one of the things that comes up for me, as you say that, is that I find it interesting that there. There are friendships that I've had at different parts of my life that were deep and very meaningful, but they have a natural lifespan to them. And so not every friendship has to have the same intensity, the same depth of exchange at all points in one's life. So that's one thing to be said, I think That I have friends from my time at school and my time at university, where we don't have as much in common now as I would like. But I hold them dear to my heart because they are people who shared a certain part of my life with me and who knew what I was at the time. And so they knew what I was like then. And so even if that's not something I want to invest a lot of time in, I hold them dear. And it's interesting for me that I think that Warren has many people like that in his life. And he continues to invite them to Berkshire and finds them very. It finds it. He's really happy when they show up, even though he doesn't necessarily meet with them and doesn't have a lot of time for them. And I know about that because I've been a regular at W. Basanic's events. And I think that many. There are a number of people that. Debbie Basanic's events, which have been very meaningful for Warren Buffett at certain points in his life, but he doesn't have time for them today. So I think that one of the first things that comes up for me is to honor that. I also think of another cut kind of friend. And I'm thinking specifically of somebody, a couple that I met in Toronto. Sorry, I met them in Oxford. They now live in Toronto. Where our interactions are intermittent and are not regular at all. But somehow when we talk, we pick off from where we left off. And he is a lawyer. They're both lawyers, actually. They have three wonderful children. And I've been like a child in their household. And I could sort of like try and analyze and go through with you why it is that that friendship exists. But they're not family in a family in a biological sense. But they feel like family to me in so many ways. And I feel no obligation to. And they don't feel any obligation to kind of hang out on a regular basis. I'm seeing all these categories of friendships. I also see that friendships can change over time or change life. Circumstances reveal something about a friendship that you didn't see before. And I can say that when you go through a life, change yourself. Some people who I didn't know would turn out to be such good friends and some people that I thought were very good friends were maybe less good friends. So there's a new light that's shone on it. I think the bottom line is that clearly friendship is one of the most important things in life. It's a complex phenomenon. There are many Things that go on in a friendship. And I maybe think of the different friendships in my life as a bit of a garden. And there's some very strong oak trees, there are forgotten flowers. There's various different species in the garden. And every now and then I realized I didn't fully understand what was in the garden. That's just a very long way of saying nothing. Perhaps I don't have any definitive answers. If you like. I think that there's a poem that somebody wrote about love which comes out in the same way where the poet or the character in the poem just says, don't talk to me about love. It's a complex thing. It's too complex for any individual to analyze and everybody sees it differently. It's interesting because this poem, I wish I could bring it up. I'll have to ask Chatgpt or similar is that in the poem the character becomes quite angry about being asked the question and maybe I'll come up with it. I'll send it to you if I find it. I don't know. Have I enlightened you in any way, shape or form, Sting?
- [62:23]
Guy Spier
No. I love the way that you think about this guy. And to your point, I don't. I think everyone solved it, or at least I haven't seen anyone solve it. And it's one of those things where as you grow older, you learn that the only thing that's constant is change. And one of the things that my wife and I talk a lot about with the relationships we have in life is that very often those relationships are there for a reason, a season or lifetime. And most things are not there for a lifetime. And that's okay too. It's not, I think probably because I'm sentimental as a default, it sometimes makes me sad that some of my relationships are not there anymore. But I think I'm more at peace with that than I used to. Because there were reasons why we're close at some point in time, and there's a reason why we're not anymore. And that's not because there's a falling out or anyone is mad. It's like we were, you know, some of the friends that, that I had in back university there was, you know, mainly because we like watching the same football and drinking the same beer and party together, you know, and that was that. It's not like I don't expect to lie on my deathbed and be like, oh, that was a deep regret. I didn't, you know, kept in touch with them. But I also don't think I'm going to lie on my deathbed and be like, oh, you shouldn't have done that. You should have started reading one piece much younger. I probably should have. But we had fun those nights, you know, and there was a reason for that. And that's wonderful. And then you have some relationships that are sort of like ebbs and flows, and that's wonderful, too. Sometimes there are, again, a reason for why those were ebbs and flows. And sometimes you experience different things. It's not because you have. You have kids or perhaps there's a parent that's passing at the same time. Whatever. It might be a ton of different reasons why at some point in time that there are different things sort of like ties you together. And then sometimes it's just location. I know you talked here with me even on the show. I think it was on Value X. And that started because you moved to Zurich and there was a different phase in your life and you wanted to say yes to different things in New York City.
- [64:41]
Unknown
At a certain point, I'd met a guy who. I don't know exactly why we became friends, but he helped me to explore the dark underbelly of New York nightlife. And so he had an apartment on Madison and 67th Street. It's 62nd street, which is just like just north of Midtown. Really incredible place to have an apartment with some really beautiful restaurants around. And I, for a period of, I don't know, maybe it was a six months to a year, was irregular. And at restaurants that he would go to parties at his place, inevitably at like 11, 30, 12 at night, would end up being taken by some limousine to some nightclub that I had never even heard of. But there were some of the most beautiful, gorgeous people around. And I, within a very short period of time, had a most incredible set of friends. I mean, this was the most colorful set of friends I had in New York. And then at some point, I don't know what changed, but I was like, I didn't want to be in that New York nightlife. And all of those friends disappeared. There were people who I only saw at the nightclubs at night, and I only saw at the restaurants. And I don't know if they were ghosts. I don't know if they actually existed outside of that little world. And so that's an example. And I love those people. I adored them, and I had a great time with them, and they showed me things I never would have seen before. And it just disappeared. And I think that's fine, you know, So I don't know if that has helpful to you. I can, I can just one other. This is more of a less of an anecdote and more of a kind of a wisdom bump that I've had recently. Is that I mean my health experience.
- [66:28]
F
I don't know.
- [66:29]
Unknown
For some reason I was able to see far more clearly the motivations of.
- [66:34]
F
Some people why they were in my life.
- [66:38]
Unknown
And one thing that I so one thing I noticed was people who are narcissists.
- [66:45]
F
Suddenly I became far more clear about what the narcissistic personality type is and how toxic it can be for you.
- [66:53]
Unknown
And that doesn't mean you shouldn't have a narcissist in your life or multiple narcissists. But I learned that it can be toxic either for you or the people around you. And I think I see that now.
- [67:02]
F
And have a better handle on perhaps how to deal with it. I also realized how many people were envious of me and envious of what I had. And it became starkly clear to me how negative an emotion envy can be and how necessary it is to not have envious people in your life. And what the envious people don't realize is that you may see somebody who you envy, but you don't know what else is going on in their life. You don't know what disease they have. You don't know how happy their marriage is. You don't remember what difficulties they had to get to that point or what difficulties they have later in your life. And so I've been grown particularly sensitive to the people that I know had envy of me. And I don't want to. That doesn't mean that I have to delete them, but I just want to not have them in that Mercury orbit. If I'm the Sun or the Venus orbit, I want them to be in the Jupiter orbit or a Saturn or Uranus orbit. They can be there, but not so close. And another thing that I've really noticed is first of all, you should want the people in your life to be living their most joyful life as long as they're not harming other people. So the corollary of not being envious and not having envious people in your life is you should wish certainly for your friends, but any human, any life, being on the planet, the most joy that they can possibly have because you don't know how that's going to change. And I think that I've been thinking a lot about this King Croesus who asked if one of his subjects if he was happy if he lived a happy life. And his subject says, well, we don't know that yet because we haven't gone to the day of your death. So I don't know if that's helpful to bring you to the question that you're about to ask, or have I led you further astray down the garden path?
- [68:58]
Guy Spier
Can I say both? Guy? No, that was wonderful. Thank you for telling those anecdotes. You know, I sort of feel like I am imposing a bit on you here, what I value and then assume that you value the same, which shouldn't be the case. One thing I absolutely love is to have thoughtful conversations. I don't necessarily think I'm thoughtful, but I can then speak with people who are more thoughtful than me. And so I find that we talked here before about this idea of crossing the ocean to meet friends. And some of the best conversation that I have I should probably preface to say, except not whenever it comes to you, Guy, but sometimes conversations that are you go from two to three and it's on zoom and then it's on to the next meeting. Those meetings are often not the best meetings. That could be an operational reason why you have that. And then that's all good and well. And really the best conversations I have is whenever I can spend consecutive days with a really good friend and we can just pick up where we left even it might be a year or two ago since we last met. So you have those conversations that might on and off last 50 hours if you're lucky. Most often because we're all busy. Those compartments would be shorter. It might be 10 hours, it might be 20 hours. But you have those ongoing discussions about everything in life. Let's take a quick break and hear from Today's sponsors.
- [70:35]
D
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- [74:15]
Guy Spier
All right, back to the show. And so my question, and again, I'm sort of like, feel like I'm, I'm imposing this on you guys. How do you facilitate the most thoughtful conversations? And which conversations do you most enjoy having?
- [74:32]
Unknown
Yeah, again, such interesting questions. And why is it an interesting question? Because to answer that question is to live one's life better. And I've not asked that question of myself. I've never heard that question asked of me in that way. And so I really appreciate the question and the listener. And what you're doing, Stig, is a beautiful conversation. That's a natural curiosity for you. You're asking that question of yourself, and now you get me to ask that question of myself. And I never formulated in that way. But I do have ideas. One of the reasons why, I mean, I've really. Someday I'll get even more clarity on the way. My relationship with my wife. My, my wife works because she's not into those kinds of things. She's like, you know, I need to go and make dinner for the children. So I leave. You know, if she was in this room, she'd get, she'd say, you know what, Guy? And Stig, you continue to explore the nature of reality. I'm going to make dinner for the children. See you in a couple of hours. You know, when we have dinner parties with Jeffersonian dinners, she enjoys it tremendously. And at some point she's had enough. And she's like, she gets up and goes to the kitchen, and I say, can we help? And she says, no, I really want to leave you at the table doing what you're doing. By contrast, my wife can dance the night away. And so different people have different capacities for different things. And I want to put to you, I see it in our three children. The personality that wants to explore questions of existence and reality in the universe is one personality type. But it's not the only personality type. And if you're not that personality type, I have plenty of people in my family like that, and they have a very important contribution to make. It's like, we don't want to live just in the world of the 1. I would not have three healthy, successful children if I didn't have the yin and the yang of me who wants to explore everything in an intellectual way. And my wife, who has, you know, she has far less patience for it, she doesn't have no patience for it, but she wants to see a practical outcome at the end of the day, which I think is very, very valuable. I think that there are another place where I would go is that some people, they don't realize they have it, but they're landmines of one kind or another inside their mental landscape that they are defending against, and they don't perhaps realize that they're defending against. But you discover them pretty quick because when they go there, when you go there, they get argumentative and they get difficult, or they get defensive, or they don't want to bring up that particular topic. And it's not fun being around people like that, because if you're. Because it's fun to explore, it's not fun to come up against somebody's defenses. I don't particularly like dinner parties where there's a group of people there who say, don't bring up politics, religion, or those are the only things to talk about in a way. And I think that what I'm trying to say to you is an answer to your question is unless they're your parents or family members or friends from a part of your life that you treasure and hold dear and you want to help them explore those defenses, and they have some openness to exploring those defenses, that's kind of like they're not going to make good conversation partners, if you like. And I find myself disappointed. I've been disappointed in various very, very smart interlocutors when I realize that there are places where they just won't go and I don't have the right to tell them to go there, but if they're not going to go there. So if I have somebody I'd like to believe, I think that my views on Israel are very, very clear. I'd like to believe that there's somebody who's very, very different viewpoints to mine. But so long as we're both willing to explore in our assumptions and question each other's assumptions without insisting that the conversation gets to a certain conclusion where I'm right and they're wrong, or the other way around, I could have even interesting conversations about that. But now I'm really kind of floating around the ether in the stratosphere, and I need to bring this down to earth for your listeners and for myself, I guess. And so here are some basic rules that I think contribute to valuable conversations. One is to examine another person's or to when another person reveals an attitude, an opinion, a thought to ask the question rather than engage with the thought, the attitude, the opinion, you engage with the process by which they came to that attitude, thought or opinion. And this is, I'm picking straight up from a book by David Brooks called I think To Know a Person. And so the extremely productive question Shah, that's really interesting. How did you come to that viewpoint? How did you come to think that abcd, whether you agree with or disagree with it? I think a few other navigational rules are I try to treat what the other person tells me as confidential unless I get permission to share that engages them inability to want to share. I try to never to tell people what to do. I think that when people get told what to do, they become defensive, even subconsciously defensive. So they know that they're in the presence of somebody who is never going to do that. Then that makes it easy for them to go to that kind of sharing place where they can reveal their vulnerabilities if you like. And simply rather than telling them what to do, you can say, wow, I think that if I was in your circumstances, here's what I would do. You can do that. They don't say, oh, my advice to you is abc, because that's very egotistical in my case, in that example, to even think to know what they would do in those circumstances and it puts them on the defensive. The last thing I would say is that there are certain formats that work extremely well. So obviously you need time and I can talk about it a little bit. I've just fallen in love with the Jeffersonian dinner format that I try to have as many of them as possible wherever I can because it's just so much fun. I conduct my meetings with investors. When I have an investor dinner, I conduct those dinners in a modified Jeffersonian format because I like it so much. So those are some of the things that I do. But I think that I go back to the first question, which is, is this person really a growth mindset person who's open to explore whatever comes up with courage and to examine it with me, or am I going to run into minefields and defenses, which is going to make the landscape difficult for that kind of exploratory and open conversation?
- [81:46]
Guy Spier
To me, you are a very wise person and I'm kind of curious to hear how you achieve wisdom. How much of that is reading, how much of that is interacting with other people and how do you achieve wisdom through meaningful conversations?
- [82:01]
Unknown
This is very kind of you to call me wise, even if it's true. Which part of me wants to doubt, even though I'm flattered by you saying that I'd rather be. So in the Wagner opera, it's the third opera, it's called Siegfried. You've got the young and powerful idiot. The guy Siegfried is very, very strong. He fashions his own sword, and he follows the birdsong to his call to adventure, but he's got no life experience. And the tragedy in the Wagner opera Siegfried is that he dies because he doesn't figure out he doesn't get wise fast enough, if you like. But my point to you is that I'd rather be young and unwise than old and wise. Because if you're young and unwise, you have your whole life ahead of you, whereas if you're old and wise, you have more of your life behind you. In a way, that's part of how you gain wisdom. So I don't think that this friend who lives in Toronto, I guess there's no problem mentioning his name. His name is Arthur Fisher. His wife is called Bonnie. They're wonderful people. A long time ago, he said to me, he just said, the unexamined life is not worth living. And I think that's a quote from Socrates. So I think that the beginning of wisdom is to be willing to examine your life. And I don't think I've been particularly good at it. I think that if I'd have been good at it, I'd have been an essayist like George Orwell or William Hazlett or E.B. white. And I really envy those people because I think that those people have far greater opportunities for growing their wisdom. Montaigne is one of the first essayists, or Bacon in the English language. But you got to certainly examine your life. You got to examine. Look inside and examine what's going on and courageously examine what's going on. I think that maybe is the beginning of wisdom. And if you want to do that, then what's so tragic and so difficult about watching the Siegfried opera is that. And I don't remember, I have the first act clear in my mind. He fashions the sword, and he's an orphan being brought up by a stranger. And he breaks free of that limited environment. But if I remember correctly, he just basically walks into a hornet's nest and dies. And by the way, the music of Siegfried's Funeral in the Wagner opera Sting is. I don't know if you like music, but it's one of the most phenomenal pieces of music you've ever heard.
- [84:39]
F
And it's sort of like it emphasizes the tragedy. And you don't want to be a fool like Siegfried. You want to start getting learning and.
- [84:49]
Unknown
Getting smart about what games are being played around you and understand what it is. I was talking to my mother last night and I was expressing to her regret over when I was at business school.
- [85:03]
F
I didn't take it seriously and I didn't take myself seriously.
- [85:08]
Unknown
And I just wish if I could have my life that time back, I didn't have the wisdom. I was like a young Siegfried. If somebody could have come to me.
- [85:18]
F
And said, not only you're not taking.
- [85:21]
Unknown
Your life seriously, you're not taking yourself.
- [85:23]
F
Seriously, and that's a great waste and a shame, and you should do better for yourself, that would have been very, very nice.
- [85:30]
Unknown
I think that this idea of curiosity.
- [85:34]
F
About how the world really works and.
- [85:37]
Unknown
So it's not reading for the sake of reading, it's reading for the sake of I'm trying to understand how the.
- [85:42]
F
World really works and realizing. Having the honesty to realize I actually don't have a good understanding of how the world really works. How am I going to find out more? So it's reading with purpose, if you like, not just reading for the sake of reading.
- [85:59]
Unknown
I think that I would say that. I think that in many ways my learning has accelerated in with the advent of AI because I now can have.
- [86:09]
F
These great conversations with artificial intelligence.
- [86:13]
Unknown
And I can say, like, I brought up Hazlet.
- [86:17]
F
So one of the prompts that I.
- [86:19]
Unknown
Use on ChatGPT is I will run the post that I want to put.
- [86:24]
F
On X through ChatGPT.
- [86:26]
Unknown
And I say, please look at this.
- [86:28]
F
Post and correct it for grammar and for spelling and for clarity. And then I say, please append suggestions for improvements. Specifically make the post sound a little bit more like George Orwell, because who would not be impressed with how George Orwell wrote And then today, earlier today. So I don't know if this is.
- [86:52]
Unknown
Too much detail, but Chantal tells me.
- [86:55]
F
At like 11:30 that I've got the podcast with you and the only window I have to go and do my workout is so like from 12 to 2, which is where I arrived slightly late to this. But I was asking, having done a post on Twitter and having asked ChatGPT to give me synonyms for words and better ways of saying and a way that was. So my language starts off with too many words.
- [87:26]
Unknown
And actually I can prune a lot of words.
- [87:28]
F
I'm a big fan of Ernest Hemingway, who Also wanted to write in short, clear sentences. And so then I asked ChatGPT, who can I learn from to write better? And it came up with some great, great examples. And so why is this relevant to the acquisition of wisdom? Because I think saying to ChatGPT, Hey, I really don't want to be an idiot like Siegfried was, and I want to read works of literature that help me to understand people's true motivations that are often hidden. What can you give me to read?
- [88:09]
Unknown
And it would come up.
- [88:10]
F
I imagine one of the works it would come up with, not just because I've talked about it, is War and Peace, but it would come up with other works.
- [88:18]
Unknown
So here's the point.
- [88:20]
F
We thought that privacy was phone companies not hearing our phone conversations. But actually, it turns out that privacy is a lot more than that. It's about all this metadata. When did you make the phone call? From where did you make the phone call? How many times did you call the person that has got no content in it? But those patterns are extremely valuable for understanding what somebody's doing. And when I just read the other day, or I heard somebody say that if a teenage girl deletes a bunch of photographs from any social media that can detect it, that's a great time. She's clearly not happy with her image, and that's a good time to advertise some beauty products to her. So that's kind of the idea of metadata. What's my point? The reading and the acquisition of wisdom is greatly enhanced by not just reading Francis Bacon's essays or Leo Tolstoy or George Orwell. It's about having somebody say, here's why you want to read George Orwell. Here's why you want to read Leo Tolstoy. Here's what you're going to learn. Well, here's the kind if you're curious about this, read War and Peace if you're curious about that. So you're kind of primed in a certain way. And something that I. Different paths in life. I don't exist in a university environment. But one of the things I think you gain in a university environment is that meta knowledge, how to go about acquiring the knowledge. And so I think that my ability to acquire wisdom has actually accelerated in the last year because I'm using multiple conversations with these LLMs where if I'm reading a book, while I'm reading the book, I go and have a conversation with the LLM about what I'm reading. You know, I read the Canterbury Tales, like the Knight's Tale who are these characters? Why did Chaucer choose those characters? So that's already fascinating. I leave you with one last thought. So I decided I need to read one novel in Spanish, and I haven't read any novels in Spanish yet. I've read bits and pieces, you know. As you know, Stig, my wife grew up in Mexico. Spanish is a language I hear a lot in my family because I had this operation. Actually, my capacity to pronounce foreign languages has atrophied a little bit. And so I've decided that one of the ways to get it back is to read in that language. So I had to select a book. And of course, the great work of literature in Spanish literature is Don Quixote de la Mancha. And so I'm reading the introduction to the English version by Harold Bloom, and he names Cervantes, who wrote, Don Quixote is an equal to Shakespeare in his literary output. And there's been no equal since. Shakespeare and Cervantes are the two greatest creators of fictional works. He's written about Shakespeare and the creation of the human. We would not be the people we are today if Shakespeare's work didn't exist. I can get into that if you want to dive into it. Anyway, I'm reading Don Quixote, which is an enormously satirical work. But I'm finding so many aspects of people that I know in this Don Quixote character, which is. It's so beautiful because. And I'm providing the listener with meta knowledge about Don Quixote right now because it might make them want to read it. The guy clearly loves the character. Chivantes love the character that he's created, while at the same time making fun of the characteristic that he's created, if that makes sense. He's lovingly making fun of him and lovingly making fun of him. He's actually holding up a mirror to so much of what we see in the world, which is just. He spends a whole week in the very beginning of the book, and I'm only at the very beginning. Don Quixote spends a whole week trying to figure out the right name for his horse, Rocinante. And I was thinking, how many times do people spend a lot of time deciding on the name of something or on something which kind of involves their ego and they think it's important Anyway, so I was able to start reading Don Quixote and start having a real relationship to the text, because I'm constantly in conversation with the large language models that basically instantly bring up stuff that's relevant to the thoughts that I'm having. So that was a very long and discursive answer. A lot of sound and fury signifying nothing but directed curiosity. So you acquire wisdom not by being curious for the sake of being curious, not by reading for the sake of reading, not for having conversations for the sake of having conversations, but directed curiosity, trying to answer questions that are in your mind and trying to find a path to them, if that makes sense.
- [93:19]
Guy Spier
That totally makes sense, Guy. And I want to talk a bit more about what you alluded to here earlier about facilitating conversations and meeting people with different opinion. Some of the best, but perhaps also some of the worst conversations that you have is with people who see the world different than you. So we're having this conversation. There are a few things that I would say I probably see a little bit different than you. That makes me excited, it makes me curious, it makes me want to explore more things together with you. And not in the way of I'm right, you're wrong type way, but just like, oh, like understanding where you are coming from and what kind of experiences that has led you to having that opinion. I think that's a wonderful journey. Now, some of the other discussions you have leaves you not curious, but basically leaves you cold. And that person also has a different opinion than you. But some people leave you with that positive energy, and then other people leave you without that positive energy, even though perhaps they've said the same thing. Are you consciously looking for people to challenge your worldview? And if you do, how do you engage with them to win together, for the lack of better words, sort of.
- [94:39]
Unknown
Studying and enhancing this Jeffersonian format for conversation. I ran across the Parliamentary Rules of Order. It is just a fascinating area of knowledge. So there's an American work called, I think it's called Robert's Rules of Order, and actually in the English version, and I don't remember the name, it's actually written into the Parliamentary Rules and Procedures. And so the question becomes, how does an assembly, and you can start with two, but you can go as large as 600 people conduct its business. How do you go about achieving something where you've got plenty of voices in the room and different opinions in the room, obviously. And before I go there, so this is something that goes deep into the roots of Western civilization, going back at least a couple of thousands of years, if not more. So how do we achieve things as a group? And we know what an authoritarian system looks like. An authoritarian, there's a leader, there's a general, there's Somebody, and basically we need to follow their orders and they can engage in some degree of consultation or not, but ultimately they decide and we follow. And then a deliberative assembly is very, very different to that. A deliberative assembly comes to a problem that needs to be solved without some kind of pre conclusion as to how it's going to show up. So deliberative assemblies have rules about how they do that. So here are some basic rules which are just fascinating. So one is every person has the right to speak. So in my Jeffersonian meals, if somebody's not speaking, I will ask them to speak. Because the person who feels like they have the least to contribute often has the most to contribute. So first of all, don't Filibuster is what it comes down to in a conversation between two people. Filibuster is when you continue to speak despite the other person have something they want to say. A conversation happens when in podcasts, I resort to the idea of saying, I'm about to hand the mic over to you, even though this is not a physical mic that I'm holding over. But there's got to be balance in the ways in which two people are speaking to each other. And online now on YouTube, you can see plenty of debates where one person's filibustering another person. They're not allowing the other person to speak to say what they want to say. And there are various ways of doing it. And that is unparliamentary behavior that doesn't facilitate conversation. And if you're around somebody who filibusters, it's a pain and it's a drag, and it's a nightmare. Another basic rule, and it's surprising to me how many people don't understand this, is you completely refrain from ad hominem attacks, meaning that you never, never attack the integrity of the person. You always attack the integrity of their ideas. So you separate the individual from the ideas. And in the British Parliament, they have various forms to help that to happen. So you never refer to somebody who's spoken into a debate. You never refer to them by name. You refer to them by referring to their constituency. So you can say the Right Honorable Member from XYZ constituency, or you can just say my Right Honorable friend. But you don't see I disagree with my Right Honorable friend. You don't say, I disagree with Guy Spier over there with the beard. So you're trying to create a situation where the ideas are attacked and not the individual. And that goes even further. Parliamentary conduct requires somebody to not accuse Somebody of lying, even though that's what they think that what they're doing. So you say, I can't remember the formula, but there's formulas for doing where you don't say, the right honorable member from Richmond is lying. You say, he may have inadvertently misspoken. You say, those are all ways of saying, I respect you as an individual, even though I disagree fundamentally with your ideas. So all of that facilitates an abstraction away from the personalities and into what you really want to agree or disagree with. I think that if you get those things going in a conversation, it becomes easier and easier for me to talk to you, Stig, about something that come from the opposite sides of the spectrum and constantly reassure the person we're in the same room. I respect you as a human being. I respect the right to your own opinion. I respect your right to speak your own opinion, but I just agree vehemently with your ideas. Another very important point when you look at that, this sort of careful management of the environment in which ideas get discussed. If an individual feels like either their ideas or their personhood or their integrity has been put under attack in some way, then there's the right of reply. So the worst thing that you can do in a deliberative discussion, which can just be between two people, if I say, for example, I love your ideas, but they suffer from the misfortune of being wrong, everybody in the room needs to understand that when you do that, Stig has the right of reply. You can't go on for too long without giving Stig the right to correct the record. And if you have a conversation where somebody feels like they have not been given the right to correct the record, to reframe what they've said, to say it more accurately, it becomes unfair, if you like, and people don't like unfair. And I think that it's possible to have discussions. And I would say that it goes to the very, very core of our Western civilization. The reason why we've succeeded so well for the last 500 years in the west is we've found the way to bring people with very different opinions into a room and to have them talk it out, basically. And this started happening in the 12th century. You had disputations on various different topics where they would. The king or the count or the leading power was curious to get the answer to the question, and they would get two experts, but there would be rules as to how that disputation would go. So those are some of the things that are really very, very basic. And actually I really appreciate you giving me the opportunity to talk about it here? Because I think that it's a subject to be taught at school. Actually, we should all graduate school with knowing these things. And it's an implicit in our civilization. But increasingly we kind of lose touch with it. And when we lose touch with it, we lose the capacity to access the kind of debate that we want to have. And it would be nice to have it back. I mean, something happened on the subjects, and I don't know if you're going to the subjects. I'm vehement in my opinions about Israel and who's right or wrong there, as you may have noticed in my Twitter account. And we can talk about it if you like. But there was a conversation recently between this famous sort of TV host, Piers Morgan, and a lawyer called Natasha Hausdorff and Piers Morgan, even though he was the host of the show, I feel filibustered. Natasha didn't allow her to answer the questions that he posed to her. And the way a lot of people cried out, piers Morgan's an antisemite. And what I would have said is, you don't need to go there. He was just not gentlemanly. He did not conduct himself in the interview according to the rules of parliamentary behavior. He made assertions of Natasha Hausdorff in that case, and he didn't allow her the right of reply. And when you inadvertently make an ad hominem attack, if you inadvertently accuse somebody of being misrepresenting the truth or lying, then you need to give them the right of reply. And so if you follow those rules, it should be possible to have somebody in the room who fundamentally, you disagree on fundamental issues in the most profound way, but you still accept them in the same room. That's actually what a parliament's about. It's a flat organization. You're all equals. You all have an equal right to be here, there. You all have the right to say your piece. You all have the right to be heard uninterrupted. And every time somebody speaks in a room like that, and even if it's just two people or more people, opinions slowly and gradually shift and we get progress and the hive mind, in many cases, that's what gives the solution. So I don't know. I've rambled a little bit, but it's something that's dear to my heart. Actually, I don't know if I'm answering directly your question.
- [103:54]
Guy Spier
No, I definitely think that you are. And to your point, guy, about we need time. That's one of the things I love with the podcast format that you do have time to talk about, there are so many important things in the world that you just can't put in. 160 characters, to put it mildly. And understanding where that person is coming from, I think if it's done well, it's empowering for both parties. But also to your point, you need to agree on those rules beforehand. Otherwise obviously they don't work. It's like playing football and then One team has 11 players and the other one's like, no, we're just going to put in as many players as we want because we make the rules. And that's obviously not what you want to have happen. I wanted to talk to you about another related topic guy. And I should probably say where I'm coming from as I'm talking about this, I come from this place of admiring your willingness to help others. I think in that sense you're very much a role model for us in the value investing community. And I can't help but to digress a bit here. And I'm talking about you and I'm talking about everyone else whenever I'm digressing a bit here. But one of the interesting things that I found coming from a normal, I don't know, you shouldn't say normal, that's kind of like a loaded word. But I come from a very typical middle class Danish family and so I didn't know wealthy people growing up. It was not before I went to business school that I've met people would have what probably other people would call rich, or I would call rich for that matter. But anyways, I think one of the, one of the interesting things I've realized from being around wealthier people and here I'm not necessarily talking about wealthy people in business school because in that age of our life, we were just all trying to figure out life and who we are. But once we grow up and we're adults, one of the things I found interesting about being around wealthy people is that they show you who they are because money tends to magnify who you are. And if you're a jerk, then you're going to be a jerk with money and then you're going to do different things because now you're a jerk. If you're a wonderful person and now you have a bit of money, you do wonderful things for other people because you can. And that's because that's who you are. So I think that's sort of like my premise going to this here. But I know you, guy, that whenever you you meet people, you always come from this wonderful place of wanting to help that individual, no matter what the circumstances are. You're there to help. You're there to provide service. And I'm curious to hear how you think about this next part, because you might attend a conference or a gathering of very wealthy individuals, let's say a young guy who wants to set up his own fund. I would imagine that over the years, quite a few young budding managers have been, as managers have been approaching you to help them set up a fund or whatever it might be. And the person might not have a high net worth right now on paper, but you also know, like the human capital is probably 50 million euros easily. But you can also help them to get to 50 million or 100 million faster if you really do whatever you can to help them. But then you could also spend that time and energy on helping other people with 0 in net worth, but a different type of net worth, perhaps with the human capital. That's €10,000, whatever it might be. This is not my way of saying we shouldn't help young asset managers who have a lot of human capital ahead of them, even though they might have a very low net worth on paper. We should then instead buy food. And for the poorest, globally. I'm not coming from a place of guilt as I'm saying this. I'm more coming from a place of thinking about opportunity cost. And I'm inclined to say, who's the most deserving of your help? I think that's probably come. That sounds very negative whenever I say deserving, but how do you figure out how you can best be of service?
- [108:16]
Unknown
Yeah, I mean, I don't think that I'm very mohnish. Has said to me personally a number of times, you're just not good enough at saying no. So maybe that's part of it. But I know what it's like. It doesn't feel long ago to me that I was the guy walking down the streets of London trying to get into somebody's office so I could get an internship and not knowing how to do it. And so I identify with that a lot. I think that I personally don't have a strategic approach to it. Maybe I should be more strategic. And that is something that we could explore or I could try and think about. But I think that I'm reacting to what shows up in front of me. And I know that if I do more of the helping stuff, then good things will happen to me. So, first of all, it's worth saying that In a way, it's motivated by. Warren Buffett has called it long term greedy. It's not altruism or it's more a case of I want to live the best possible life and I live the best possible life by helping others. And one example of that is 25 years ago or so, the first edition of the Manual of Ideas lands on my desk and I was truly impressed with what John Miljavik had put together. And I was the head of office in Carnegie Hall Tower. And I write to him an email and I say, this is one of the best research publications I've ever seen. Would you like to come to the office and say hi? And yeah, I definitely want to subscribe at the right price. So I think that I was the first person that from the kind of like it looked like I was a big fancy hedge fund manager, I was in Carnegie Hall Tower. So that would have been impressive to him, even though that was a bad real estate decision for me. So he came to my office and I remember saying to him, you're clearly a very smart guy and I just want to be clear here. I want to help you right now because one day you'll be very successful and then it'll be very nice if you remember me now and then. That's literally what I remember saying. And that's what I meant. And the fact of the matter is, 25 years later, the many of Ideas is still extremely successful, both publication and community of investors. He has a number of investor meetings. The Zurich project in Zurich. He has a meeting in St. Moritz in the wintertime and he walks with me there. So that was an investment that I made. So when you help people early in their lives, the investment can pay off in such significant ways because it's very meaningful to them at that moment, nobody's paying attention to them. And I know how that felt for me, you're in a way very vulnerable. So I remember that. And I'm doing it because it's a smart move to do it. And in a way I want to make that move as often as I can because I don't know, it's long term greedy. I want the move to pay off. I'm not just doing it for altruistic reasons, but so when I can, I do. And something came up recently that I'm going to give a backhanded compliment to a guy called Ritavan. Ritavan's an Indian guy, grew up originally from Pondicherry in the south of India, now lives in Munich. Studied in the Ecole Normale Superieure in Paris. It's an interesting story. And he wrote a book that I've got here, but I don't have it on my desk and how traditional businesses can use data to their advantage. And I was just like, is it the best produced book? And that's the backhanded compliment part. No, it's not the best produced book. Please send me a personal copy with a note on top of. So I wrote him a note back saying, congratulations on writing this book. It clearly has a lot of really good ideas in it. Can't wait to read it all. I flipped through and you're a very smart guy. Something like that. But the most important thing that I wanted to do, this was not Isaac Walter Isaacson biography of Elon Musk. It wasn't Robert Moses by Caro. It wasn't that kind of book. But it was a book that he'd produced. But that personal note, he was so excited. He wrote back to me and said, wow, I'm so excited by this note. Would you mind if I posted it on LinkedIn? I was like, of course. You can post it on LinkedIn. Not a problem. What's my point? He posted on LinkedIn. We ended up having a podcast together. And in a way, I feel like I think he deserves to be far more successful than he is. He is on his path to that. But I became a part of his story and that's hugely, kind of like that makes my life more meaningful. In another case, the same thing happened with Luca Delana that I'm sure, you know, he's written a book about egudicity and about playing long term games. And he was at my Value X event this year where he talked about why you need to pay attention to near misses. And I looked, this guy's book arrived on my desk and I said, my God, this is an amazing book. It deserves. And nobody's paying attention to him. Everybody's paying attention to Ray Dalio. They're queuing up to interviewing him. They're queuing up for all sorts of things. And he's at the end of his career, but Luca Delanna's at the beginning of his career. And so I can say that I get an endorphin kick. I get an endorphin high about, from making really, from my perspective, minor interventions that will make a significant difference for them. I mean, what game are you playing if you want to end up at the end of your life with the most money in the bank? Congratulations, maybe you'll do well and maybe you're smart enough to do that. And maybe that's a game worth playing. I guess now I'm talking about it, maybe it'll become more conscious. I'm trying to maximize goodwill. I'm trying to maximize the number of people who are grateful that I exist on the planet. The number of people who are grateful that I took an action that made a difference in their lives. And that for me is extremely meaningful and it gives me great joy. Many of the actions that I take don't pay off in any specific way to me. But you only need a few for it to pay off. And again, it's kind of frustrating for me because one of these days, if Warren Buffet, if you ever listen to this, it's okay if you don't. I want to learn something that you haven't learned so far. Everything that I've learned, I realize Warren Buffett's learned. If you come to my office in Zurich, you'll see that Warren Buffett has sent me, on the course of the last 10 years, maybe, I don't know, seven or eight pieces of mail personalized directly to me. I remember the first letter I received from him. He'd read minor report and he had some nice words to say about my inner report. You could have peeled me off the floor. And it's there, framed and everything. And so if Warren Buffett's doing that for me, why wouldn't I do that for other people? And too many people have the perspective and it's so wonderful because they're trying to appeal to the Ray Dalios, the Ken Griffins, the Warren Buffetts, the people who have no time at all and they're going to have a very, very hard time making a difference for them. Where there's all these people who are doing, maybe they're not as great as Warren Buffett, but they still deserve a spotlight on them and they deserve to have more attention on them. And even at a more fundamental level, everybody wants to be seen. Everybody wants to know that their life has meaning and what they're doing is meaningful. And I think it's a great gift to the world to say, you are being seen by me. I see you. I'm another human and I see you. I remember the first time I got that feeling. I was a very self centered individual. But I'm having coffee in Harvard Square, or not far away from Harvard Square. I can still see the rest, the cafe in my mind. And I saw a blind person who was about to cross the road. And I dropped everything and rushed out and I came up next to them and said, I see you're about to cross the road. Can I help you? And in this case, many blind people don't like the hell. They say, no, that's fine. I'm fine on my own. Thank you so much for asking. But they said, yeah, this room. And said, yeah, sure, I'd love to, for your company in Crossing the Road. So I, I crossed the road with her. She was happy. I went back into the restaurant. They offered me a free coffee in the restaurant because they'd seen what had happened and I got that feeling of being seen. The waitress and the manager of the restaurant had seen me do a sort of simple good deed and it felt great. So Warren Buffett said, it's not money that makes the world go round, it's love. If you can give that. If you can give that feeling of being seen to an individual, why the hell wouldn't you do that? If Brittvan writes a book and takes the trouble to send it to me, why would I not make him be seen? And it gives me great joy in doing so. What's my point to you, to kind of bring this down to earth and give you back to Mike, is that in a way I'm doing it for purely selfish reasons. I'm doing it because it's long term, greedy, it's great business, it's a great way to live your life, but it also gives me great joy to do it. It's just fun to do. I mean, it's an enormous amount of fun.
- [117:41]
Guy Spier
It's wonderful how you want to use your platform to do such good things for the value investing community and the community at large. There are a lot of people out there and I'm thinking about entrepreneurs here and they get asked, so why did they, why did they start a certain company? And then they had some kind of mission and that they wanted to help other people. And I wish I could say it was the same for me whenever I started Tip, that I just wanted to help other people. I did it because I had a good friend, have a good friend, Preston, and we wanted to talk about Buffett and we sort of felt we needed a reason to do that. So we made it public. And then as it got a bit of traction, it was kind of like to the Chris Han, not necessarily because my dad was a car mechanic and need to make ends meet, but there was certainly an element of, oh, can I make a living of doing my hobby? But as tip has become a bit more successful, there's this urge to want to use the platform to do something, to do good. And I've been approached by different people who want me to be political, for example, which I don't want to do. And I think that's we've talked a bit about that, but I generally don't want to use the platform to be political. But that is one way to do it. There are other ways to do it. And I don't know if it's going to sound cliche, but one of the ways I want to use the TIP platform to make a small slice of the world, perhaps the value investing community a little better, is to speak with with you, Guy, and other thoughtful people who come from a place of wanting to help. And we started out talking a lot about investing on the show and we still have hosts on the show that talk a lot about investing. Whereas I can almost feel like to an increasing extent, I've started to have conversations like I have with you today, Guy, about crossing oceans for friendships and have the right discourse with the right people. And it's different. But I'm going to do a very long segue here into my question at the end, but perhaps something that might be a bit used and not sound as self serving as what just went through, but something that might be a bit of use to the audience and something I know you figured out a long time ago, Guy, and certainly Buffett has because he always thought about things, even whenever you're like, oh, I just came up with this and then you study his work and then he probably said something 30 years ago about it. I found the value investing community because I wanted to make a lot of money. That was sort of like my very brief introduction in my 20s into all of this. Like, no, we need to figure out how to make money. Buffet made a lot of money. Let's study Buffett. And of course, whenever you start doing that, you realize that there is so much more to it and you sort of stick around for all the life lessons and the values and all that good stuff. And I can't help but segue then to my long winded question about over the past 12 months, guy, I'm putting you a bit on the spot. When have you found that money has brought you happiness? I think to a large extent, especially in my 20s, I thought that money would buy me happiness. But also when has it not over the past 12 months?
- [120:51]
Unknown
No, I mean, clearly money does not buy happiness. We can say that. I even don't think it would be controversial, actually. But money buys you comfort, put it that way. It Buys you headroom. It buys you the ability to abstract away from the problems that can be solved with money. And I realized that from my perspective, for me to say that money doesn't buy you happiness probably will sound very, very, not very down to earth for a lot of people. I remember, and again, I think I'm okay to mention him. A guy called Abel Halpern, classmates of mine from business school, who said, you just have the freedom by having money to worry about the things that really count in life. And the rest of us who don't have enough money, in addition to getting to worry about the things that really count in life, have to worry about a whole bunch of other things, like how to rent an apartment, how to get to work tomorrow, how to put food on the table for our wife and children, all of those things. But I think that I would still, and I understand that I'm kind of abstracting away from those everyday things that the vast majority of people on the planet. You know, in the Hebrew, you'd say the word palmasar, which means to make a living. And that is a fundamental problem that everybody needs to overcome in some way. We all need a way to make a living, to pay the rent, to buy the food, to do what we do. That's a part of what you were saying, whether you've got. You were interested in value investing, and then you realize, well, maybe I can do it also to make a living, and then I can have a hobby making a living. But when you go beyond that and you see you're more than making a living, can it buy you happiness? No, it doesn't buy you happiness, period. End of story. What buys you happiness is all that other stuff that we've been talking about, this investing in goodwill, pursuing one's interests, having hobbies and the right to have a hobby and the freedom to have a hobby or an interest that is an interest purely because it interests you and not because it gets you somewhere or gets you to some position, it's not an ulterior motive. Yeah, I mean, that just seems to me to be obviously true. Again, I'm repeating myself because somebody's going to say, easy for you to say because you have enough money, but I think that even if you feel like you don't have enough money and a huge part of your life is directed towards those basic daily needs, you should create the space for the other stuff, if you possibly can, or be aware that once you've reached those daily needs, extra money is not going to solve anything. If you like, I Spent a good five years thinking that actually I proudly would say I'm an immigrant. Immigrants go off to the money and they don't question anymore because that's what immigrants do. And I spend a lot of time in that mindset. And I think that I'm coming out of that mindset now where I'm saying that's not very smart. In fact, it's asinine. I've only gotten anywhere close to answering your question.
- [124:06]
Guy Spier
Yes. And Guy, I think you bring up a good point whenever you say. It's easy for you to say because you have enough money. But on the other hand, it also sounds different if a person is struggling to make a living and then also says money doesn't buy happiness. So I think you, please don't beat yourself up. I think your perspective does have that impact because you are in that, well, deserving, privileged position. Guy, this has been a wonderful conversation. Thank you for being so generous with your time. Do you have any concluding remarks here before I let you go?
- [124:41]
Unknown
Yeah, there was something that came up for me, these thoughts that kind of come up and then they disappear before you had the chance to so something like that. But I'm not going to remember right now. I just say that for the audience and for you. I don't give this much time to most people who want to call me up and talk to me, but I really value your conversations. I think you. My conversations with you, I think that they're. I learned a lot from being on this show with you, on this conversation with you. I know I've said it before. I really ought to make the time to come visit you and spend a few days with you in Aris. I think it would be a lot of fun and we would have multiple conversations like this. But next best is to have it like. Is to have it on a podcast at a distance. And that's why I allocated the whole afternoon to it, because I knew that I wanted to go for as long as it went for. And we can retake this up. There's so many issues that we can take up whenever we get the chance to when the time is right. I would like to believe that we've discovered something with the people who gathered around the Berkshire Hathaway meeting so many years ago. We're onto something. And as humanity figures out that that is the right way to be a capitalist, perhaps we'll make the world into a slightly better place. Meaning I think we're on the right track and we invite other members of humanity to come on board with us, there's plenty of space. And this is not something kind of exclusive club. You know, Warren Buffet, I said this in some essay or some post that I made, and it didn't get much play. But I believe that Warren Buffett can.
- [126:26]
F
Be seen to be a philosopher of capitalism.
- [126:30]
Unknown
And there are different versions of capitalism. That was the kind of capitalism that was practiced in the Industrial Revolution in.
- [126:38]
F
The United Kingdom, which involved slavery and.
- [126:41]
Unknown
Involved people working long hours in factories. There's the kind of capitalism that was practiced in Russia after the fall of the Soviet Union. And then there's a version of capitalism.
- [126:51]
F
That Warren Buffett kind of identified and iterated upon, which is just a beautiful way to be. And we've kind of discovered that, and we love it. And it's not just about making money. It's about all these other things that we've been discussing.
- [127:05]
Unknown
And my word to anybody who's just.
- [127:09]
F
Tuning in, there's plenty of space for everybody.
- [127:11]
Unknown
In fact, it's one of these beautiful things that the more people have that outlook, the better the world becomes for all of us.
- [127:18]
F
So maybe that's the thought to leave us with. And that's kind of the journey that you and I are on, Stig. We're continuing to explore the implications of what we've learned at the feet of.
- [127:28]
Unknown
Warren Buffett and Charlie Munger. And the implications are very broad.
- [127:33]
Guy Spier
What better way to end the episode than. On that note, Guy? Thank you.
- [127:37]
Unknown
Yeah, thank you.
- [127:38]
F
Thank you for having me on and wishing you a great rest of the day.
- [127:42]
Stig Broderson
Thank you for listening to tip. Make sure to follow. We study billionaires on your favorite podcast app and never miss out on episodes. To access our show notes, transcripts, or courses, go to theinvestorspodcast.com this show is for entertainment purposes only. Before making any decision, consult a professional. This show is copyrighted by the Investors Podcast Network. Written permission must be granted before syndication or rebroadcasting.