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Top Podcasts of the Week
Below is our “Top Podcast” list with our curator, Colby Donovan!
Today we have Balaji on everything, Jeremy Grantham’s market thoughts, Wolfgang Puck on the journey of an entrepreneur, and Moderna’s CFO on the development of the vaccine.
Investing
Invest Like The Best: Balaji Srinivasan — Optimizing Your Inputs. This episode pairs well with Tim Ferriss’ episode with Balaji earlier this year. Balaji was the CTO of Coinbase and now is a serial entrepreneur and angel investor. The episode really covers three themes: the need to optimize your information diet by watching less news and reading more source material, the future of cities and what sovereignty may look like in the future, and his advice on improving your health and what our ability to track health metrics in the future may allow. Listening to him is about as intellectually stimulating as it gets. [July 6, 2021–1 hour, 45 minutes] iTunes Podcast | Spotify | Google | Breaker | Website Link
“Yes, deconstruct the establishment, use every verbal, technical, monetary, et cetera weapon. I think that’s actually extremely important. But build something better.”
The Founder Hour: Wolfgang Puck | World-Famous Chef and Restaurant. Wolfgang Puck is a world-famous chef, restaurateur, and actor. The one thing that sticks out is the drive and passion that he and other entrepreneurs have in risking it all to go for their dreams. His passion seeps through the episode and is inspiring. He shares what led him into hospitality and restaurants, how he wrote to different restaurants early in his career trying to get his foot in the door, and then venturing out on his own. He also talks about transitioning from a chef to a business man that runs restaurants and how he innovated along the way through ideas like having an open kitchen for diners to view. [July 6, 2021–1 hour, 2 minutes] iTunes Podcast | Spotify | Google | Breaker | Website Link
“You have to have the ambition and drive to get better. Me personally, it wasn’t about the money. It was trying to get as good as possible at what I do.”
Capital Allocators: Jeremy Grantham — GMO. Famed investor and co-founder of GMO, Jeremy Grantham, kicks off Capital Allocators’ first episode in the “Manager Meetings” series. Grantham covers the same topics as usual but is always worth the listen. He starts with humans’ ability to solve climate change, his thoughts on the state of American capitalism, and why the bubble we’re in today differs from any he has seen before. He also touches on the unusual monetary and fiscal stimulus and why now is the first time in his entire career he’s thinking about the possibility of inflation. [July 8, 2021–56 minutes] iTunes Podcast | Spotify | Google | Breaker | Website Link
“American capitalism, in particular, has become a little fat and happy.”
Capitalisn’t: The Price Of A Vaccine With Moderna CFO David Meline. Meline provides some insight into the vaccine development and distribution process between Moderna and the U.S. government. He walks through the $1b+ equity raise Moderna undertook in May 2020 and the immense benefits of Project Warp Speed. He covers how the vaccine was priced, how the U.S. approach to vaccine development proved to be superior to the E.U.’s, and the benefits of the U.S. Army’s logistical expertise in manufacturing and distributing the vaccine. I suggest listening after the interview ends when the hosts discuss everything from their perspective, including the debate over patent rights. [July 1, 2021–42 minutes] iTunes Podcast | Spotify | Google | Website Link
“For once, it was global capitalism and it worked in the best possible way.”
Superinvestors and the Art of Worldly Wisdom: #46: Kiril Sokoloff On Seeking Truth In An Era Of Sophistry. Sokoloff is the founder of 13D Research, one of the most respected and influential services among institutional investors around the world. The episode starts with his philosophy for research and analyzing big trends and themes to delineate between signal and noise. Then he covers some of the big macro trends he sees today: reshoring and de-globalization, the green revolution, and the impact of remote work. [July 7, 2021–57 minutes] iTunes Podcast | Spotify | Google | Breaker | Website Link
Acquired: Special: Ho Nam from Altos Ventures — A Different Approach to VC. Nam is an under-the-radar VC who shares so many nuggets of wisdom in this episode. He begins with his firm’s 13-year journey with Roblox and how he deployed over $400 million into the company from an $86 million fund. He covers the types of CEOs he looks to fund (read more about that here), his decision making around how he wanted the firm to be structured over the years, and how he applies a value investing approach to venture capital. [June 20, 2021–1 hour, 50 minutes] iTunes Podcast | Spotify | Google | Breaker | Website Link
“I kind of joke that like, look, everyone wants Bernie Madoff without the fraud.”
The Meb Faber Show
The Meb Faber Show: #326 — Starup Series — Viktor Nebehaj, Freetrade — We Want Everybody To Have Access To Investing. Viktor Nebehaj is the co-founder of Freetrade, whose mission is to get everyone investing by making it simple and commission-free with a stockbroker you can trust. Viktor went all-in on a crowdfunding campaign for Freetrade and loved the product so much he joined the company as a co-founder. He gives an overview of the company, which offers commission-free brokerage without payment for order flow or margin lending. Viktor shares how the company makes money, what the appetite for this product has been like in Europe, and what it was like to navigate the craziness of 2021. Towards the end, Viktor discusses Freetrade’s crowdfunding experience, with seven total rounds raising roughly $60 million. [July 5, 2021–54 minutes] iTunes Podcast | Spotify | Google | Breaker | Website Link
The Meb Faber Show: #327 — Mario Gabelli, GAMCO Investors — We Have Accumulated Compounded Knowledge of Certain Industries Over An Extended Period Of Time. Mario Gabelli is the Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of GAMCO Investors and one of the most well renowned stock pickers over the last 40 years. Mario walks us through what he thinks about when analyzing both industries and companies. Then he covers some different industries — media, autos, energy, and farmland and agriculture. Towards the end, Mario shares his recent focus on PPP — people, profits, planet, and why he chose to launch an actively managed ETF. [July 7, 2021–31 minutes] iTunes Podcast | Spotify | Google | Breaker | Website Link
BOOK RECOMMENDATIONS
Jeff Lawson (Founder & CEO, Twilio):
Ho Nam (Co-founder, Altos Ventures):
Kiril Sokoloff (Founder, 13D Research):
Good investing,Meb Fabertheideafarm.com