Invest Like the Best with Patrick O'Shaughnessy
· Patrick O'Shaughnessy, Ric Elias
[00:00:00] S0: Are there other -- any other philosophies that we haven't talked about that you feel like govern a lot of your own behavior? [00:00:00] S1: There's a lot. I'm a chief philosopher. Lots, lots and lots. There's lots around. We haven't talked about our commitment to real social impact as an organization. And the work that we do in Charlotte is probably the most outstanding work we do. We just don't publish it. By the way, we also don't believe that Shimon Peres used to say, press and awards are like perfume, nice to smell and dangerous to swallow, right? And those things get you caught in the wrong things. But we're so imperfect and so, in many ways, naive. I joked with you, I'm like Forrest Gump running a business. I'm not sure what it is and who cares. And I work really hard and I care really deeply, but do we just put weight on things that don't matter? [00:00:00] S0: If a high-integrity builder were to come study this place for a year, really have access, with the intent of I'm going to go spend a year studying RV, and I'm going to leave and I'm going to start a platform. What do you most wish that hypothetical person would take with them?
· Patrick O'Shaughnessy, Ric Elias
[00:00:00] S0: If a high-integrity builder were to come study this place for a year, really have access, with the intent of I'm going to go spend a year studying RV, and I'm going to leave and I'm going to start a platform. What do you most wish that hypothetical person would take with them? [00:00:00] S1: At the core of what I hope we leave as our legacy is thousands of people that were better at what they're doing and did more meaningful work wherever they went because they were here. And I can't tell you the amount of e-mails I get from people saying, "Holy cow, I did not know I was this good because now I'm not competing against everybody that is as good, and I would have never been this good if I had not been there." I think that's really cool, that opportunity. One of the great things about our country is the apprenticeship layer that exists between 20 and 30 when you leave college, which I think is at risk right now with all this not coming to the office and everything else. And I think in the world of new tech and technology and digital, we're one of those great apprenticeship places. That's great. Businesses understood the greater good. It's not we're going to be bigger or more profitable because that ability to train people is what allows for innovation to happen and changes to happen.
· Ric Elias, Patrick O'Shaughnessy
[00:00:00] S1: At the core of what I hope we leave as our legacy is thousands of people that were better at what they're doing and did more meaningful work wherever they went because they were here. And I can't tell you the amount of e-mails I get from people saying, "Holy cow, I did not know I was this good because now I'm not competing against everybody that is as good, and I would have never been this good if I had not been there." I think that's really cool, that opportunity. One of the great things about our country is the apprenticeship layer that exists between 20 and 30 when you leave college, which I think is at risk right now with all this not coming to the office and everything else. And I think in the world of new tech and technology and digital, we're one of those great apprenticeship places. That's great. Businesses understood the greater good. It's not we're going to be bigger or more profitable because that ability to train people is what allows for innovation to happen and changes to happen. [00:00:00] S0: How do you do that? Teach me how to do that. If someone has the desire, you mentioned the investment you make in the team, the investment in a literal team in Puerto Rico. Clearly, you're really intentional about what that means to do things or set standards. And I'm curious what it is. Is it systems of accountability? Is it ways of thinking about the customers? What is it that you're investing and doing to imbue that in people here in a brass tacks way?
· Ric Elias
[00:00:00] S1: It is 50 factors that have to play in. This is like an orchestra. It doesn't matter what it plays, it just has to be in harmony. So there is no song that says, this does that. It's like all the instruments, recruiting, performance reviews, career tracking, training, management, experiences, rotations, accountability, access, talks like today where you had all this constant investment in people in their personal growth. And we don't have it right. And we don't have it right at times. We won't have it right for everybody, but it's this endless pursuit of holding our mirrors to ourselves and saying, "Are we doing the right things?" And this is a little bit of my struggle. Employees here are loving coming to campus, but they love coming to campus three days a week. And if you're 30 and you're balancing three things in life and you are really good at what you do, then you're perfectly fine doing that. You can do your job that way. If you're 24 and you don't know too much, I feel like we're robbing you from the experience of what it really means to get trained in this decade. So when you're 30 and you have 50 other demands, aging parents, a bunch of other responsibilities, kids and whatever else, you can actually allocate your time differently. So I'm really curious as to 10 years from now what this is all going to look like because we can see it. And you take that at scale, and I think it's happening everywhere. Our apprenticeship layer in the U.S. is not just companies, it's hospitals, take anything, any practice, super interesting.
· Patrick O'Shaughnessy, Ric Elias
[00:00:00] S0: Do you feel like the architect of all those things, those 50 things, is that something you wake up on a Saturday? [00:00:00] S1: No, we have incredible people. No. If anything, I realize that I tend to ruin the soup when I put my spoon in it because you get too much credit when you're the founder, and power is really dangerous. And for a long time, I didn't understand it. Honestly, I don't feel like I'm anybody's boss. I just feel like I showed up here first. But you can ruin someone's day if you don't say hello the right way or whatever because they're invisible. The same way you can make someone's day if you show up, and the same way you can completely -- a lot of time now, I'm disclosed. Look, I don't believe this. I'm going to say it out loud just to see what you guys think because if I say it without a disclosure, it's like Ric said, we have to do this. And then we wake up six months later, what are we doing? It's like, well, you said it. I'm like, that's a horrible idea. I can't tell you the amount of times that, next to someone like me that thinks out loud is like, holy cow, you have now, everything is disclaimed. Just like you disclaimed, this is not personal advice for investment, it's like that. And we have tremendous talent. Look, the woman that runs comms here is just world-class. A lot of the team that sits in our people capital operations are fantastic. They're the ones that are constantly doing this.
· Ric Elias, Patrick O'Shaughnessy
[00:00:00] S1: No, we have incredible people. No. If anything, I realize that I tend to ruin the soup when I put my spoon in it because you get too much credit when you're the founder, and power is really dangerous. And for a long time, I didn't understand it. Honestly, I don't feel like I'm anybody's boss. I just feel like I showed up here first. But you can ruin someone's day if you don't say hello the right way or whatever because they're invisible. The same way you can make someone's day if you show up, and the same way you can completely -- a lot of time now, I'm disclosed. Look, I don't believe this. I'm going to say it out loud just to see what you guys think because if I say it without a disclosure, it's like Ric said, we have to do this. And then we wake up six months later, what are we doing? It's like, well, you said it. I'm like, that's a horrible idea. I can't tell you the amount of times that, next to someone like me that thinks out loud is like, holy cow, you have now, everything is disclaimed. Just like you disclaimed, this is not personal advice for investment, it's like that. And we have tremendous talent. Look, the woman that runs comms here is just world-class. A lot of the team that sits in our people capital operations are fantastic. They're the ones that are constantly doing this. [00:00:00] S0: You talked a lot about how you have changed your view on things in the last 18 years. What are you anticipating will change in the next 10? And what has you excited about in the next 10?