Top Podcasts of the Week

Today we have a realistic episode on the current economy and impact of the Fed, an update on seed stage investing, an episode on the financial education gap in the U.S., a new ETF offering a hedge on inflation, and lessons on what some of history’s best leaders did to survive difficult times.

Business

• ***Must Listen*** The Sherman Show: S8 E16 Economist David Rosenberg Returns. Mr. Rosenberg is the President and Chief Economist & Strategist of Rosenberg Research & Associates Inc. He talks about why he doesn’t believe in the V-shaped recovery, what indicators he’s focusing on, why he thinks we’ll have cost push inflation as companies focus on localized supply chains over globalized supply chains (a situation he thinks bodes well for real assets and not financial assets), and what he sees beyond the COVID-19 crisis. [June 9, 2020–57 minutes] iTunes Podcast | Spotify | Overcast |Google | Breaker | Website Link

• Resolve’s Gestalt University: Cat of Nine Tails: How Mutiny Fund Harnesses Ensembles to Hedge Many Tails at Once. Buck is a founding partner of Mutiny Fund, an asset management firm that’s essentially a fund of funds for tail risk strategies. This episode covers all facts tail hedging, how they deploy a variety of strategies to cover as many possible scenarios, how to coach clients through sticking with the strategy, and why their focus is on younger entrepreneurs and drawdowns more than volatility. They also cover how and when you decide to crystalize gains and what the expected carry of different strategies are. [June 12, 2020–49 minutes] iTunes Podcast | Spotify | Overcast |Google | Breaker | Website Link

• This Week in Startups: E1075: Cendana Capital’s Michael Kim on investing in Seed Funds as a serial LP. Kim leads Cendana Capital, which is essentially a fund of fund for seed investors with partners like the University of Texas and NPR. He explains how it’s structured, what makes a great seed fund manager, and how the total dollar amount looking to invest in the seed space has increased a lot recently. Then at the 36 minute mark he talks about what the last 90 days have been like working with companies they’ve invested in, what general trends he expects to see as we come out of COVID-19 (white-collar layoffs as firms realize who is actually contributing, WFH trade-off with having an office, handling child-care), and why Robinhood is a great acquisition target. [June 16, 2020–1 hour, 14 minutes] iTunes Podcast | Spotify | Overcast |Google | Breaker | Website Link

• The Phil Bak Podcast: Nancy Davis: How can investors hedge against inflation? Nancy Davis, Founder and CIO of Quadratic Capital Management joins the show to talk about her fund ($IVOL) and how it can help investors hedge against interest rate and inflation risk. She considers herself a convexity snipper and has historically tried to buy out of favor, extremely cheap options over her career and thinks this fits in with her style and is a great inflation hedge. She also discusses ETF’s evolving from just a beta play to an alpha play, the growing number of institutions using ETFs, and her journey as an entrepreneur since leaving Goldman Sachs. [June 17, 2020–35 minutes] iTunes Podcast | Spotify | Overcast |Google | Breaker | Website Link

• The Pomp Podcast: Tyrone Ross On The Need For Financial Education In America. Tyrone Ross is a financial consultant, early-stage start-up advisor, and entrepreneur. In this episode, he discusses the importance of financial education and why low-income areas are behind in that area, why he thinks Bitcoin is especially helpful for low income areas who aren’t provided access to traditional financial products, what he thinks about the last month of protests on social injustice, and what all of us can do to help bridge the financial education gap. [June 17, 2020–1 hour, 4 minutes] iTunes Podcast | Spotify | Overcast |Google | Breaker | Website Link

• The Meb Faber Show: #229 — Evan Brandoff, LeagueSide — There’s No Better Way To Engage With Families In The Community Than Through Youth Sports. Brandoff is Co-Founder and CEO of LeagueSide, a startup connecting regional and national brands to local communities and families involved in youth sports, making local sponsorship scalable for both brands and youth sports leagues. He discusses what led him to realize this was a huge untapped business opportunity, how they’ve been able to utilize data to help show large organizations that spending their marketing dollars on this is a great ROI, and how their business has actually growing since the start of COVID-19. He also talks about their experience raising $5 million over three rounds. [June 17, 2020–46 minutes] iTunes Podcast | Spotify | Overcast |Google | Breaker | Website Link

The Rest

• The Learning Leader Show with Ryan Hawk: 369: Nancy Koehn & Adi Ignatius — Courageous Leaders Are Forged in Crisis. Both guests work for the Harvard Business Review and join the episode to discuss themes they’ve come across while doing research into leaders handling crises. The are: 1) leaders are made, not born, 2) they’re resilient, 3) they remain humble while realizing they’re able to make a big impact, 4) they commit to a goal while remaining flexible on the path it takes to get there and 5) they’re empathetic and display emotional awareness. They then show how certain leaders displayed these characteristics during difficult times, including JFK, Winston Churchill, and Ernest Shackleton. FYI stop playing this at the 32 minute mark — after that they discuss their own career paths. [June 7, 2020–57 minutes] iTunes Podcast | Spotify | Overcast |Google | Breaker | Website Link

• Impact Theory with Tom Bilyeu: #174 Legendary Psychologist Adam Grant on Why Leadership is All About Humility, Integrity and Adaptation. Adam Grant is an organizational psychologist and the youngest person to achieve tenure at the University of Pennsylvania. He talks about what makes the best leaders: they are givers and not takers (focus on helping others over themselves), and they display both humility and integrity. He also talks about the importance to remain flexible over time and realize different situations require different things from you as a leader. Then he talks about why and how he chose to embrace asking for and learning from feedback (he makes every student and peer give him feedback) and explains how the most successful teams are typically structured. [June 16, 2020–48 minutes] Spotify | Overcast | Google | Breaker | Website Link

RECOMMENDATIONS

Books

Daryl Morey (GM, Houston Rockets):

1. The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People: Powerful Lessons in Personal Change by Stephen Covey

David Sacks (Co-Founder, Craft Ventures):

1. Destined for War: Can America and China Escape Thucydides’s Trap? by Graham Allison

Soona Amhaz (GP, Volt Capital):

1. The Space Barrons by Christian Davenport– About Bezos and Musk journey to colonize space, the story behind why they started their companies and the resourcefulness they both needed to do so is so inspiring

Chris Best (Founder & CEO, Substack):

1. The Death and Life of Great American Cities by Jane Jacobs

Matt Ridley (Author, The Rational Optimistand How Innovation Works: And Why It Flourishes in Freedom):

1. The Selfish Gene by Richard Dawkins

Good investing,Meb Fabertheideafarm.com