00:00:02 · David Senra, Micky Malka
[00:00:02] S0: Thanks for doing this, Mickey. [00:00:03] S1: David, it's a pleasure to be here with you. [00:00:05] S0: There's so many times in our previous conversations where I'm listening to you speak, and I'm like, shit, Mickey really does think and act a lot, very similar to, like, lot of history based entrepreneurs that I read all these biographies about for Founders Podcast. And one thing that I think you have in common with them and that you said before to me is that you hate being labeled. Can you say more about that? [00:00:25] S1: I think it's a way of always growing up in Venezuela and all my life. You never had people being labeled. I never learned what that was about. And every time somebody tried to put me on a label, I fought really hard to get out of it. From, hey, are you tall so you must be playing good at basketball? And my first answer is no, I suck at basketball. Just trying to get myself out of any particular label all the way to, are you an investor, are you an entrepreneur? And I said, what about if I'm both? What about if I'm not any? Why do I need a label? And the more you walk through life allowing things to have label, the more difficult life is because then you cannot see through it. You just see what you've been told to see. So I think it's part of my rebel cause to never accept labels. [00:01:15] S0: Yeah. I think if you're labeled, it means you're kinda conforming to an existing mold. And I think the great founders, they're inherently nonconformist.
00:01:15 · David Senra, Micky Malka
[00:01:15] S0: Yeah. I think if you're labeled, it means you're kinda conforming to an existing mold. And I think the great founders, they're inherently nonconformist. [00:01:23] S1: Yes. And you have to be nonconformist because the world can always be better. So why accept whatever is there today? [00:01:29] S0: So when you just said, hey, are you an entrepreneur? Are you an investor? Maybe I'm both, maybe I'm neither. Like today, how do you how do you view yourself? [00:01:36] S1: So I describe myself as an entrepreneur at heart and investor by design. Such a general line that allows me to do anything. Right? Some days I can wake up and be an entrepreneur. Some days I can be an investor. Some days it can be both. Some days it can be something completely different. But at heart means that it comes from a place from inside, that if I change my heart, I can just change it. And by design means that if I learn and I keep learning how to do something, I can only get better at it. So I just allow myself to keep learning. [00:02:04] S0: So there's really no, like you are completely fluid. You don't really put a label on yourself. [00:02:09] S1: Correct, I don't. I try and I avoid it. The only label I wanna get in life is that people say, I'm a great friend, I'm a great partner, and I'm a good father. And if I can get that label, that label I would love to have. The other ones, I don't care.
00:02:09 · Micky Malka, David Senra
[00:02:09] S1: Correct, I don't. I try and I avoid it. The only label I wanna get in life is that people say, I'm a great friend, I'm a great partner, and I'm a good father. And if I can get that label, that label I would love to have. The other ones, I don't care. [00:02:27] S0: Yeah. I'm always interested in how people think about, like, their own perception of their work. Because I just had this great conversation with Rick Rubin, And I had to, like, interrupt him one time because he's like, yeah. Kinda think of myself as a researcher. And I'm like, what? Because, you know, people think music producer, and now he's a podcaster, and, you know, he's a consigliere to, like, some of the top artists in the world. [00:02:45] S1: Yeah. [00:02:45] S0: And he's just like, I'm... All day, I'm just, like, finding what I'm intensely curious about and just researching that as far as I can. [00:02:52] S1: And I think that's what it takes. And that's what entrepreneurs do every day and that's what a great investor does every day. But you don't get labeled like that. But yes, I will agree with you. [00:03:00] S0: Question. I went to your website. I've read a bunch of these like, what do you call them? They're not manifestos. What are essays? [00:03:07] S1: They're essays. [00:03:08] S0: Okay. So I'm very curious. You've only done a handful. [00:03:11] S1: Yes. [00:03:12] S0: I'm very curious like how your writing shapes not only your thinking, but also what you want to build through Ribbit.
00:03:20 · Micky Malka
[00:03:20] S1: Writing is everything. Because we can sit here and talk about ideas for hours, but if you're not willing to put them in writing, you will never learn what truly they are, how deep they are. And what I find is typically those essays that you read, they start by being probably 20 pages long. But I can actually get a napkin and explain to you each one in a napkin. And if I can do that, if anybody can explain anything complex with you in a napkin, it means that they have studied enough that they know how to articulate it. So what we do there is we start by writing our essays. And our essays, what they are allowing us to do is to not conform to what the world thinks today. It's to allow us to conform to what the world looks like in ten years, fifteen years. Just imagine. And let it let it flow. Let it go. Let let that energy get out there. Let that energy be taken from our brains and our q and a's and our diligence and our calls. Just put it out there and see what happens. Why do you think that's that's beneficial? Because it gives you conviction. If you cannot have conviction, then you're gonna be going in mood swings with the markets. Up and down, if something changes, you gotta be able... The only way to really have a joyful investment life, or life in general, is to try to play this very long infinite game. And the only way to do that well is you have a unique conviction in whatever you do. You gotta be willing to be wrong for a long time. But if I write it, and we put it in writing, we share it with the world, and we get feedback, it allows us to make sure that the compass is in the right direction.
00:05:02 · David Senra, Micky Malka
[00:05:02] S0: How long do they take to write? [00:05:03] S1: Some of them can take us a year. Some of them can take us four, five months. But the whole process to get a thesis that we like, sit down, think about it, articulate it, test it, share it, come back, work it, probably like a year, year and a half. [00:05:19] S0: I know you're fan of Buffett. You've been a shareholder for... [00:05:22] S1: All my life. [00:05:23] S0: Yeah. Since I was 13. That's crazy. [00:05:26] S1: Yeah. [00:05:26] S0: I saw one of your tweets. I think it was from like 2015. He was like, I think you were holding for like twenty five years or something like that at that So even more now. And I know you write all his shareholder letters Yes. Which I'm a huge fan of. Did that influence your decision to start writing these essays? Completely. [00:05:42] S1: So I bought my first share of Berkshire when I was 13 years old in Venezuela. It was November 1987. How? It was my [00:05:52] S0: Why would a 13 year old be interested in Berkshire? [00:05:55] S1: I don't know. I had read a few articles in Fortune Magazine about him, about American Express, about Coca Cola, about a certain brands, and I love the brands he he had in his portfolio. I didn't know anything about float or insurance. I I was not very familiar with that line of the business. [00:06:11] S0: I would hope not at 13.
00:06:11 · David Senra, Micky Malka
[00:06:11] S0: I would hope not at 13. [00:06:13] S1: And and back then, what you... What what he used to say was buy it and get it shipped mailed to you in physical form. Don't leave it in a broker house so people cannot margin against it. And there I was. I was 13. I had had my bar mitzvah in November '87. The crash had happened a month before, the October eighty seven crash. [00:06:33] S0: Yeah. [00:06:34] S1: Stock went down a lot, and I didn't collect enough money to buy one share, so I asked to ask my grandfather for a loan. Asked for a loan, which he charged me interest as a way to teach me, and bought one share and had it mailed in the mail, it showed up in Venezuela. Luckily, don't know how I didn't lose it. And and so since then, every year I got the annual letters by by by mail. Yeah. And I will read them and I will highlight them, and then I will go and learn. That made me have to buy the little book from the Wall Street Journal called Understanding Money and Markets because there were terms I didn't understand in the letter. And my self learning came from doing all of that since I was 13. [00:07:12] S0: Imagine what a 13 year old kid could do now with AI. Like, if he wanted to... He or she wanted to go through Buffett's letters and then Alex is this, like, thought partner and companion compared to you having to buy a book and