00:55:37 · Micky Malka, David Senra
[00:55:37] S1: And that's the power of compounding. Yes. And it's compounding relationships and ethics and work and principles and love and passion and time. And just don't care about the winning or losing. Just let it be because the power of compounding is the most important equation in society. And everything on friendships, on family, just be consistent, work every day. Yeah. [00:56:00] S0: This is like a very Buffett Munger kind of thing. Like Munger has that that line where he's like, you know, you need to learn the big... The few big ideas in each discipline. They carry most of the freight, think is the way he describes that. And through all this reading, I was like, my version of that is like, time carries most of the weight. Like, if you're in a good business, like, just stay there and time will actually carry most of the weight to what you want to do. And so that leads, if you're going play the infinite game, and you want to do things over a long term, you have to protect your reputation, which is another thing that Buffett would repeat in his shareholders. Like, hey, we can lose money. We can lose a lot of money, actually. We can't lose a shred of reputation. I wanna know how you think about reputation, and then I wanna know... And then I'll talk about why it's so important, how it led me to you.
00:56:00 · David Senra, Micky Malka
[00:56:00] S0: This is like a very Buffett Munger kind of thing. Like Munger has that that line where he's like, you know, you need to learn the big... The few big ideas in each discipline. They carry most of the freight, think is the way he describes that. And through all this reading, I was like, my version of that is like, time carries most of the weight. Like, if you're in a good business, like, just stay there and time will actually carry most of the weight to what you want to do. And so that leads, if you're going play the infinite game, and you want to do things over a long term, you have to protect your reputation, which is another thing that Buffett would repeat in his shareholders. Like, hey, we can lose money. We can lose a lot of money, actually. We can't lose a shred of reputation. I wanna know how you think about reputation, and then I wanna know... And then I'll talk about why it's so important, how it led me to you. [00:56:41] S1: I started to go to the Berkshire Annual Meetings when I was 18. And back then, they were much smaller. They were on Friday afternoon and a Holiday Inn, a couple 100 people. And as soon as they moved to the to the bigger convention center a few years later, they had this movie clip playing in in the beginning of the annual meeting with a bunch of TV commercials commercials or or Buffett interviews over the years. And every time since I was a kid... Young that age, they were playing the Buffett getting deposed when he was the chairman of Salomon Brothers saying that line that you just said. It got sticky in my in my brain.
00:56:41 · Micky Malka, David Senra
[00:56:41] S1: I started to go to the Berkshire Annual Meetings when I was 18. And back then, they were much smaller. They were on Friday afternoon and a Holiday Inn, a couple 100 people. And as soon as they moved to the to the bigger convention center a few years later, they had this movie clip playing in in the beginning of the annual meeting with a bunch of TV commercials commercials or or Buffett interviews over the years. And every time since I was a kid... Young that age, they were playing the Buffett getting deposed when he was the chairman of Salomon Brothers saying that line that you just said. It got sticky in my in my brain. [00:57:17] S0: So wait. They replayed it at every annual meeting? [00:57:19] S1: The annual meeting. It was there that deposition... That was... That he said that line on a deposition at congress for something that Salomon Brothers was doing with the treasuries, arbitraging the... Or taking advantage of the treasury issuing market. Yeah. They played it every single year. And I remember it every single year. And part of the reasons why I wanted to live that life is because it was natural to me. It was the way you wanted to live life. So yes, reputation matters more than anything.
00:57:19 · Micky Malka, David Senra
[00:57:19] S1: The annual meeting. It was there that deposition... That was... That he said that line on a deposition at congress for something that Salomon Brothers was doing with the treasuries, arbitraging the... Or taking advantage of the treasury issuing market. Yeah. They played it every single year. And I remember it every single year. And part of the reasons why I wanted to live that life is because it was natural to me. It was the way you wanted to live life. So yes, reputation matters more than anything. [00:57:54] S0: There's a handful of people that I really trust and admire. And then the people I trust and admire, I wanna know who they trust and admire. And I had a decision I had to make, and I wasn't sure how to make it. It was... There was a lot of uncertainty. I didn't have the information I needed. And realized that you were actually in possession of this information. We won't talk about, like, the details of this. And I actually never, almost ever, asked to meet people. And I asked two separate people. I was like, do you mind making this, like, introduction for me? And then the first time we met, we actually wind up talking for, like, several hours, and then we, like, became, like, fast friends. [00:58:27] S1: Yep.
00:58:27 · Micky Malka, David Senra
[00:58:27] S1: Yep. [00:58:27] S0: But I made a big decision in my career based on how fantastic your reputation was. And so therefore, almost like... Charlie Munger has a great line where, like, trust is one of the greatest economic forces in the world. And it's like the level of trust that you have built up over excessive long time with people I trust made me be able to build a relationship and trust your judgment really fast that I can make a decision based on your reputation. And I think this is super important. It's also something that comes up over and over again. Like, I I did this episode on Jensen. There's this book called The NVIDIA Way, which is kinda like half biography of Jensen, half company history. And it talks about he pitched Don Valentine. Don Valentine's still alive, still making the investment decision at Sequoia. And Don's like, that was the shittiest pitch I've ever heard. I'm still gonna give you money because your reputation precedes you and it's so excellent. It's so valuable. [00:59:19] S1: It is the most valuable asset. It's the only asset we have. It's a reputation. Everything else can come and go, but that's the one thing that we have that it will always stick to us, even when we're dead. [00:59:29] S0: You know who also shaped my thinking on this? It's like, have you ever heard Palmer Luckey talk about reputation? Have you? [00:59:34] S1: No. I haven't heard him talk
00:59:34 · Micky Malka, David Senra
[00:59:34] S1: No. I haven't heard him talk [00:59:35] S0: about So he says the exact same thing. He's like, anytime... He he thinks this idea where, like, if people try to destroy reputation, like, you should just, you know, rise above the phrase. Like, no. This is bullshit. He's just a fight back because the problem is it forecloses opportunities. If this person's damaging your reputation and it's not true, it's gonna foreclose future opportunities. And it's not like if somebody... And he... His whole point is like, this is invisible. And I thought it was really interesting insight. He's like, if so... If somebody... I let somebody destroy my reputation and and unfairly, and two years later, I asked for a meeting with a guy who took that story and believes it, he's not gonna tell me I'm not taking the meeting because your reputation sucks. Yep. He's gonna make up some other story. So he's like, you have to protect it and then fight against it. I thought it was interesting. It's very like a Ben Franklin kind of idea. Yep. Because Franklin would nurture and then also protect and fight back against his reputation two hundred and fifty years ago. It's very fascinating. [01:00:27] S1: I love it. I didn't know that about Ben Franklin. I'm gonna read more about that. [01:00:30] S0: So I told you right before we started recording that I got the art piece that I ordered at Node. I was... I don't even know how to describe the fact, like, I could spend about an hour there with you. Can you just describe what the hell Node is and why you're doing it?