Podcast Magic
In February 2015 David Rosenthal and Ben Gilbert decided to experiment podcasting after meeting less than a year earlier. It then took them eight months to produce their first episode and was considered a side project for years.
Now eight years later they’re invited to dinner with Charlie Munger and somehow convince the 99 year old curmudgeon to record and share the conversation.
That’s the magic of podcasting.
And we’re clearly in the golden era of content. This was Munger’s first ever podcast and he barely made it on my list of weekly favorites.
This Week’s Favorites:
Sarah Moore on My First Million
My sisters and I sort of had a subpar upbringing in that we didn’t really have parents. We were split up and we bounced around living in a lot of different homes…I was partying all the time, I wouldn’t go to school, I had a truancy officer, I went to jail, I was just so disrespectful to everyone. And I got away with that because people felt sorry for me.
And one day she said I’m going to adopt you. Obviously it was pretty transformational…Her husband one day let me have it because I was trying to skip school the first week living there. And he sat me down and he literally explained how life works…And it was very emotional for me because up until that time a lot of people had given me lectures but it felt like it came from this place of you’re bothering me or this is really inconveniencing me so you can just stop your crap. He came from this place, I could tell he really cared. And up until then I didn’t really feel like anybody did care. And so I got my shit together very quickly. I was so nervous about being sent back or them regretting their decision because up until that time no one and I mean no one was looking to invest in me. I was like a junk bond investment wise.
I’m working at this diner and this couple would come in all the time. And they never had kids…They offered me a job at their company, probably initially out of sympathy out of the kindness of their heart….When I was working there I got waitlisted from Northeastern and he said you need to take yourself off financial aid because these schools are going to take that into consideration when evaluating your candidacy…He said we’re going to pay for your school.
It's hard for me to not get emotional talking about—between these two couples, I mean, they changed my entire life. It wasn't just the money, it wasn't just the home, these people changed the way I viewed myself. They invested in me when I was truly the world's worst investment. I mean, who takes a kid like me, and say, you know what, I'm gonna go all in on this. They put their ass out on the line for me on multiple occasions, with the worst track record you can possibly imagine. And from these two families, I had this whole concept in my head of I just want to be that one person for one person. Because for me, I literally begged when I was a kid sometimes for people to help me. I would beg judges, I would beg attorneys, I would beg social workers to put me in better circumstances or help me with x and y. Nobody helped me at all. They felt sorry for me but nobody took action.
That's truly one of the most rewarding things about my job now. I try and keep my circle very small. I'm really big on doing what these families did for me as much as possible, which is a lot of one on one mentorship. I can only do so much on a mass scale, but one on one, I can really bring people to the next level, whatever that level is. And I have no tolerance for people self doubting. I'll say no, you can do it. Do it again. We're doing this again. And I will sit there. And everyone in the business I say, I will come any day, any time I will sit with you for as long as it takes. If you try and you're honest with me, I'm not going to give up on you. And I really mean that.
Morgan Housel on The Tim Ferriss Show
Every cell in your body as a parent wants to say, “I want to provide for my kids, support my kids, boost my kids, give them all the benefit.” And it’s so hard to push back against that natural mentality…I’ll give you one perfect example here. I grew up ski racing. My son who’s now seven, I started taking him skiing about two years ago. Because I’m a fairly advanced skier, it was no problem for me on the first day to hold him between my legs and ski down. I thought it was the right thing to do…My son is very physically coordinated, physically talented, but because I did that, it took him about 10 sessions of going skiing before he could do it on his own because I babied him. What I should have done is just strapped him in and kicked him down the slope, “Go for it. Learn yourself, learn how to fall.” And if I did that, he would’ve gotten it in two runs. Instead, it took him 10 sessions to do it. And I think it’s a great analogy for what money can do to your children too…Sometimes you’ve just got to click them into their skis and kick them down.
I really have three major life goals. I want to stay married, I don’t want to get fat, and I want to be there for my kids.
Among the top 10 richest people in the world, there are, I think, 14 cumulative divorces, which is obviously a massive outlier within there. And I think the reason why that is is because to become very successful, you need to devote every waking hour to your career. And so your spouse, your children, your friends, “Bye. Sorry, don’t have any time for you.” If you read Snowball, as someone who’s been such a Buffett fanboy my entire life…you read his biography, and at the end, you’re like, “To tell you the truth, not the life that I want.” There was an interview with Elon Musk several years ago where they’re talking about how hard he works, and he breaks down in tears and he says, “All of this has come at the expense of spending time with my children.”
Tim Ferriss: Part of being good at a game is choosing the right game. Part of what makes the right game is the right competitive landscape and the right ratio of opportunity to cost and risk.
David Senra on Art of Investing
The public praises people for what they practice in private.
I think there's something really important about repeating things. And you see this with the greatest entrepreneurs, investors who, they just repeat the same thing so much that inside these companies, like inside Amazon, Jeff Bezos repeated the same things over and over again for decades. And they call them Jeffisms. You just maybe think of this. In Edwin Land's company, inside Polaroid, they were called Landisms.
First, you must be ambitious…The moment you are trained, set yourself to becoming the best-informed man in the agency on the account to which you are assigned. If, for example, it is a gasoline account, read text books on the chemistry, geology and distribution of petroleum products. Read all the trade journals in the field. Read all the research reports and marketing plans that your agency has ever written on the product. Spend Saturday mornings in service stations, pumping gasoline and talking to motorists. Visit your client’s refineries and research laboratories. Study the advertising of his competitors. At the end of your second year, you will know more about gasoline than your boss; you will then be ready to succeed him. Most of the young men in agencies are too lazy to do this kind of homework. They remain permanently superficial.
—David Ogilvy
I was a podcast fanatic and still I am to this day…If one person listens or one million people listen, I do the same amount of work. So it's infinitely scalable. They have no expenses, 95% profit margins…I feel it's the printing press of the spoken word…The relationship I have with somebody that I hear their audio for hundreds of hours is the same relationship that you have with your best friend. I don't have the same relationship with my favorite authors because I don't hear them. I'm just reading their words and their thoughts…It's a technology that allows you to scale authenticity. You listen to my podcast, it's going to sound exactly like what we just did here. And so what happens is it's a way to be authentic at scale that people could opt-in…The people who think it's great, over time, they start to build a parasocial relationship with you.
Rabid-eyed kid, quit jumping, focus.
Charlie Munger on Acquired
We we had some wonderful early years and that's what everybody needs this wonderful early years.
They were too wedded by the ideas they already had. That's everybody's trouble. They just can't accept a new idea because the space is occupied by an old idea.
Charlie’s Costco Comments:
“They really did sell cheaper than anybody else in America and they did it in big efficient stores. All the parking spaces were 10 feet wide instead of 8 feet or whatever they normally are. And they had a lot of parking spaces.”
“They kept out of their stores all the people that didn’t do big volumes. They gave special benefits to the people who did come to the stores in the way of reward points.”
“[Sol Price] always wanted the rich man trying to save money.”
“They make the suppliers wait until they’ve been paid and then they’re scheduled to pay only after they’re scheduled to sell.”
“Costco just specialized in the good locations where the rich people live and Walmart just let them do it year after year—it was a terrible mistake.”
“It takes a lot of good execution to do it. You really have to set out to do it and then do it with enthusiasm every day, every week, every year for 40 years. It's not so damned easy. Culture plus model, yes, absolutely. And very reliable, hardworking, determined execution for 40 years.”
“It is hard to open too many stores a year. New store, new manager, new this, new politics, it's hard. Plus a lot of stuff has to be learned and taught and put in place. And so they didn't want to do more than they could comfortably handle.”
“Well take those goddamn Costco hot dogs—that's an exception. Anybody else would have raised the price of hot dogs a long time ago, they just don't do it, they just know that it's like half famous and people bring their kids in, they know they've got something going there that's worth extra money and they just don't destroy it.” [Related to Peter Kaufman saying: “A young man knows the rules and an old man knows the exceptions.”]
Thank you Stephen!