Top Podcasts of the Week

Below is our “Top Podcast” episode with our curator, Colby Donovan!

Today we have Howard Marks & Bill Gurley together with their thoughts on the economy, David Booth on his long and successful career, and a look back at some lessons from 2020 with CEO’s of top companies.

Investing

  • The Rational Reminder Podcast: David Booth: The First Index Fund, Competing Fiercely, and Keeping it Simple. Booth founded Dimensional Fund Advisors almost 40 years ago and takes a look back at the origin story, creating the first index fund and how the business and index funds have changed over time. He emphasizes the importance of evidence-based investment ideas and how it was hard to communicate some of those ideas to clients early on. He also talks about DFA’s entrance into the ETF space, direct indexing, and why simplicity beats complexity. He finishes with how he built his company’s culture and what his thoughts are about luck and success in life. [January 8, 2021–1 hour, 7 minutes] iTunes Podcast | Spotify | Google | Breaker | Website Link

Models are important, research is important, but models don’t explain everything.

  • The Twenty Minute VC: 20VC: Bill Gurley and Howard Marks: What Happened In 2020? What Can We Expect Looking Forward to 2021? This is a great interview with two legends in their respective fields of investing (venture capital and distressed debt). We hear their perspectives on the current state of the economy and how it compares to prior cycles, both in public and private markets. They also touch on the impact of low rates on excessive speculation, the possibility of big tech being broken up, regulatory capture, and the effect of political and social unrest in the U.S. [January 4, 2021–41 minutes] iTunes Podcast | Spotify | Google | Breaker | Website Link

  • Infinite Loops: Brian Roemmele — The Intelligence Amplifier. Roemmele is a true Renaissance man and referred to as “The Voice Expert.” The episode reminds me of the Freakonomics spinoff podcast People I (Mostly) Admire because he is so interesting and the conversation is so wide-ranging. He talks about the future of AI on our lives with devices like Alexa and AirPods. He explains what he thinks the future will look like, which is different from what lots of others expect, and spends a long time explaining an invention of his called the Intelligence Amplification. [December 31, 2020–1 hour, 42 minutes] iTunes Podcast | Spotify | Google | Breaker

The Rest

  • Masters of Scale with Reid Hoffman: 8 reliable lessons for unreliable times. Last year, LinkedIn co-founder Reid Hoffman launched a spinoff of his Masters of Scale podcast that focused on how companies were handling the crisis. This episode is a look back/summary of those episodes, distilled into eight lessons. Guests include the CEOs of YouTube, Dupont, Verizon, Target, GM, LinkedIn, and Nextdoor, and others, and they cover lessons around communication, listening, being an agile organization, sticking to your mission when times get tough, and more. [January 7, 2021–60 minutes] iTunes Podcast | Spotify | Google | Breaker | Website Link

The bigger the moment, the bigger the challenge, the more important it is to get your message across — over and over and over.

RECOMMENDATIONS
Books

Biz Stone (Co-Founder, Twitter & Medium):

Howard Marks (Co-Founder, Oaktree Capital Management):

Bill Gurley (Partner, Benchmark Capital):

Good investing,Meb Fabertheideafarm.com