Top Podcasts of the Week

Below is our “Top Podcast” episode with our new curator, Colby Donovan! Holler with any feedback!

Today we have a great interview with the CIO of HostPlus, two episodes on applying factors to your investment process, an interview with VC legend Bill Gurley, and a talk with Jonathan Haidt, the author of best-seller The Coddling of the American Mind: How Good Intentions and Bad Ideas Are Setting Up a Generation for Failure.

Business

• Invest Like The Best: Bill Gurley — All Things Business and Investing. Gurley is a General Partner at Benchmark Capital, one of the most successful funds of the last decade with a portfolio including the likes of Uber, Twitter, Dropbox, WeWork, Snapchat, and more. The episode begins with discussing Brian Arthur’s 1996 paper “Increasing Returns and the New World of Business” and how it changed Gurley’s view on investing. They talk about the impact of network effects, features of healthy marketplaces, the impact of cheap capital on startups today, his frustration with the IPO process which results in companies leaving money on the table, and close with thoughts on a greattalk he gave to the University of Texas MBA class on career advice. [July 2, 2019–1 hour, 8 minutes] iTunes Podcast | Spotify | Overcast |Breaker | Website Link

• Capital Allocators: Sam Sicilia — Seizing on a Long Time Horizon at HostPlus. Sicilia is the Chief Investment Officer of HostPlus, Australia’s AUZ 37 billion ($25B USD) Superannuation Fund. The conversation covers how the fund has grown over the last ten years while developing their core strategy, which focuses on capturing the equity and liquidity risk premium due to their long-term horizon. He explains his thoughts on future expected returns (inflation + 4%) and the importance of being realistic about that going forward. The conversation turns to how he allocates his fund, how he evaluates managers, how he constructed his investment team, and how he has evolved over the years to focus on the qualitative part of the analysis over the quantitative part. [July 1, 2019–1 hour, 20 minutes] iTunes Podcast | Spotify | Overcast |Breaker| Website Link

• Fifteen Minute Financial Advisor: Employee Financial Wellness: Employer Insurance and HSA’s. This is a great, quick episode covering different topics related to employee health benefits. The host, Michael Policar, covers different types of health insurance and the importance of funding an HSA if you can, because it’s possible to use your HSA to fund part of your retirement. He finishes with thoughts on the different types of disability insurance and what to consider when thinking about choosing one. [July 1, 2019–15 minutes] iTunes Podcast | Overcast | Breaker

• Animal Spirits Podcast: Talk Your Book: Global Factor Investing. The episode features Vincent De Martel of Invesco, who discussed how institutional investors are using factor investment strategies. They cover the differences between a single and multi-factor strategy, the idea of people attempting to time factors, and why applying factors to fixed-income strategies is going to be a growth area going forward. The topics covered are discussed further in the Invesco Global Factor Investing Study. [July 1, 2019–39 minutes] iTunes Podcast | Spotify | Overcast |Breaker | Website Link

• Masters in Business: Andrew Ang Discusses Asset Management. Ang is the Head of Factor Investing Strategies at BlackRock and author of Asset Management: A Systematic Approach to Factor Investing. In his talk with Ritholtz, he explains factors are used to both achieve outperformance and manage risk. He also covers ideas discussed in the episode above; applying factors to fixed-income investing and timing factors. He finishes with touching on some widely held beliefs that he’s learned aren’t actually true. [June 28, 2019–1 hour, 4 minutes] iTunes Podcast | Spotify | Overcast |Breaker | Website Link

• The Latticework Podcast: Dave Sather, Sean Stannard-Stockton and Felix Narhi on Compounders. This episode features three fundamental stock pickers and their thoughts on compounders. They provide several of examples of stocks they view as past or future compounders — Netflix, Trupanion, Shopify, Nike, Tiffany’s, Mastercard, Baidu, and more. They touch on how to identify the emergence of a new competitive advantage, the different types of moats and how to frame them in your mind, the impact of technology on all types of businesses (with Starbucks as an example), and evaluating management’s ability to allocate capital. [June 24, 2019–1 hour, 3 minutes] iTunes Podcast | Overcast | Breaker |Website Link

The Rest

• The Knowledge Project: When Good Intentions Go Bad. The guest, Jonathan Haidt, is the Professor of Ethical Leadership at New York University’s Stern School of Business and the author of The Coddling of the American Mind, a must read for any parent or someone trying to understand societal changes effecting the younger generations. Haidt explains that mental health statistics have never been so bad for a generation; starting in 2011, there was a big rise of both depression and anxiety, and suicides increase by 70% for females and 25% for males. He believes social media has to take a lot of blame for this trend and that parents need to view social media like smoking or drinking — not allowed when kids are younger. He finishes with the “call-out” culture that has been created and how that has caused people to grow up self-sensoring, which could result in a generation that is afraid to challenge ideas. [July 2, 2019–1 hour, 15 minutes] iTunes Podcast | Spotify | Overcast |Breaker | Website Link

—-Here’s ours:

Episode #163: Albert Meyer, “You’re Held In Higher Regard When You Don’t Dilute Shareholders”

Good investing,Meb Fabertheideafarm.com