Invest Like the Best with Patrick O'Shaughnessy
· Patrick O'Shaughnessy, Nick Kokonas
[00:00:00] S0: I'll remember this awesome conversation for a lot of reasons, but just for the first principles thinking no surprise that you're a philosophy major at all. I'll turn to my traditional closing question that I ask everybody which is to ask you what the kindest thing that anyone's ever done for you is? [00:00:00] S1: I'll make it a little bit generalized. Any time that someone says thank you for something that was done a long time ago is a nice thing. I try to do that for some of the people who were mentors to me. I think a really nice act of kindness is just to sort of recognize somebody when they've done something nice for you or they've helped you out. Or sometimes it's tough love. It's not always a good thing. So recently I've had a couple of instances in the midst of all this. People have called up and said like, "Hey, I really appreciate that these were difficult decisions." Or, "I really appreciate that I wouldn’t had started my company without you." Allen Hemberger, who is running all of our publishing stuff, once stole a napkin from Alinea. He is an autodidact. Amazing guy. He learns so much different stuff. And one day I got a knife in the mail with a story written to it that said, "I was so taken by Alinea when I was there years ago. I never imagined working with you guys. And I've never done anything like this but I actually took one of the napkins and I wanted to return it to you today." [00:00:00] S0: Wow. [00:00:00] S1: It was embedded in resin in the handle of a knife that he hand forged from a kiln that he hand built. [00:00:00] S0: Wow.
· Patrick O'Shaughnessy, Nick Kokonas
[00:00:00] S0: Wow. [00:00:00] S1: So I opened it and I was just like, "That is one of the most amazingly cool things anyone's ever done." Now, it's not the fact ... And it's kind of amazing that he made the knife and all that stuff. What's really cool is that he took the time to do it and sort of said, "Hey, this is important to me." Those kinds of little kindnesses are the big ones. [00:00:00] S0: Well, this is so damn fun. I could have done it for three hours. Sorry we only had an hour and a half. But it's been an absolute pleasure to meet you and to speak and learn from you. Thank you for the time.