Invest Like the Best with Patrick O'Shaughnessy
· David Senra
[00:00:00] S1: Like, whatever you're into, just be into it more than anybody else and, like, you'll be able to tell, like, what is a good idea, what is a bad idea. It's, like, this constant refinement of taste. In fact, I was shocked at the way your profile started with, about Josh Kushner and where it was, like, this visit to Rick Rubin's house, and I'm a huge Rick Rubin fan. Like, I read a biography on him, I think it's episode 245 of Founders, did that. I think some of his interviews and stuff he says in an interview, it can be a three-hour conversation and you just hear, like, there's a 45-second clip that makes everything, like, it just makes perfect sense… I needed to hear that whole three-hour conversation just to get that 45-second clip and that 45-second idea in my head. But if you think of the guy started his record company in, like, 1984 in his dorm room. And he's been in the same business, he's worked with all these different musicians. In fact, he said something that was interesting to me, and I actually screenshotted it, saved it, and I reread it on my phone. And he talked about that the most obsessive artist he ever worked with was Eminem, which is, like, wait a minute, you worked with everybody, you've had a four-decade-long career. Why is that the case? Like, that makes me want to know more about that. Our mutual friend, Brent Beshore, told me this hilarious story one time. You know, Brent's got… he owns a bunch of different companies, and sometimes those companies need a CEO. And he found himself, I think, at a lunch or a dinner with Charlie Munger, and so he's like, "You know, I'm this young guy." I think he was probably 35 at the time. He said, "I own these, like, 12 companies. How do you and Warren find great CEOs?" And Charlie's just like, "We just find somebody that is a great CEO and say, 'Come do that for us.'"
· Patrick O'Shaughnessy, David Senra
[00:00:00] S0: Yeah. [00:00:00] S1: And Brent's follow-up, he goes, "Yeah, but what about hiring for potential?" He goes, "We don't do that." It's just a beautifully simple idea. "He's really good. Can you come do this over here?" [00:00:00] S0: Yeah. People show you. And I think that also, if you invert that, to use another Mungerism, it serves as great advice too, which is if you're trying to get ahead, put stuff out in the world that people can find. Hinkie would call these breadcrumbs. Put breadcrumbs out into the world so that people see it and are amazed by it. Like, if you create a single thing, not – you don't have to do 10 things. Just one thing that people are amazed by. Pour a year of your life into making one amazing thing that people are amazed by, and amazing things will happen, I promise you. Like, the internet is amazing at sharing something that is great. You say there's always room for great. [00:00:00] S1: Yeah. [00:00:00] S0: One of your maxims. That's true. Great takes time. Great's hard. [00:00:00] S1: Well, you just proved this. The idea of there's always room for great came because so many people are like, "We don't need another podcast." I was like, "Okay, so we don't need any more music?" [00:00:00] S0: Yeah. [00:00:00] S1: "We're going to stop making music? We're going to stop making movies?" Like, no, it's just like we need less bad shit, but that's always going to happen. Like, there's always room for great. You just proved this with the profiles. [00:00:00] S0: Yeah.
· Patrick O'Shaughnessy, David Senra
[00:00:00] S0: Yeah. [00:00:00] S1: Like, that idea was just hiding in plain sight. It was just not being done well. And it's like, well, what if I just take this idea and not make it shitty? Well, how Walt Disney towards the end of his life was very fascinating because everybody associates him with animation and Mickey Mouse and everything else. And yet, when he's towards the end of his life, you just ask, "What is the things that he's most proud of?" And he said he named two things. He said, "Keeping control of my company," because he lost control of his first company, and he's lost control of the first characters he made, and Disneyland. And Disneyland was his obsession. In fact, I read this book called "Disney's Land." I think it's by Richard, this guy named Richard Snow. And it's not about the animation, it's not about everything we know him for. It's about how he thought about making this amusement park. And at the time, amusement parks were think of… like, low quality. [00:00:00] S0: Yeah, sure. [00:00:00] S1: They were kind of scammy because- [00:00:00] S0: Traveling carnies. [00:00:00] S1: Yeah, exactly. Like, you would come in there, and there'd be, like, games to play, and you'd get ripped off because the games were set up and everything else. And he's going around trying to raise money for this, very unsuccessfully. And they're like, "Yeah, but, you know, amusement parks are, like, kind of trashy." He's like, "That's the point. Mine won't be." [00:00:00] S0: Yeah.
· Patrick O'Shaughnessy, David Senra
[00:00:00] S0: Yeah. [00:00:00] S1: It's because, like, mediocrity is always invisible until passion shows up and exposes it. And he's just like, "I'm just going to take every single part of this and make it better, and then remove the parts that don't make any sense." And, like, that's a great filter for finding, you know, new things to create in the world. [00:00:00] S0: By the way, I spent my 20s basically just reading. And I read more than you can imagine. I mean, you're probably the one person that can imagine it because you did something similar. But I wasn't just doing... I mean, literally everything I could get my hands on. Thousands of books and profiles and everything. And I started the podcast in part because I started to feel this awful feeling of this is happening in this weird, isolated way. Like, it's just me and my notes. I'm not talking to anyone about these books. And so I wanted to start sharing, which is where that book email came from that you originally... that's where the audience came from. Like, I used to have this saying, "Learn, build, share, repeat," and just do that until I die. And I believe in that. And so it's- [00:00:00] S1: Wait. Learn, build, share, repeat? [00:00:00] S0: Yeah. [00:00:00] S1: Still really good. [00:00:00] S0: Still works. [00:00:00] S1: Yeah.
· David Senra, Patrick O'Shaughnessy
[00:00:00] S1: Yeah. [00:00:00] S0: And maybe that's my governing principle, probably, like you said before. And, yeah, it's an incredibly powerful loop to go on. But that 10 years of reading prepared me to be a good producer of profiles. Because I've seen great, I've seen good, I've seen average, I've seen bad. My reps are very, very, very high. And that's another thing I always tell people, especially young people, like, what is the thing where you naturally have a lot of reps because you just like it? And find that, build off that because there's this learning-by-doing concept. Like, you get better at something just through being prolific in the thing, and most people have a thing for which they are naturally prolific. Even if that's following your sports team or whatever it might be. Like, what's the thing you just can't help but do a crazy high rep count of? Probably that's a good clue to, like, where you could go build one of these compounding curves for yourself. And for me, my first love was reading. That love of reading became the email list. You know, here's my four favorite books from the month. The email list gave me my first set of people to listen to the podcast. The podcast introduced me to all these people who helped me build my business and sell it successfully. You know, and on and on and on. That led to it- [00:00:00] S1: Led back to the profiles.
· Patrick O'Shaughnessy
[00:00:00] S0: That led to PositiveSum, and me building my business successfully in software got me to all of these people building early-stage companies, writing these small checks. Writing these small checks got me to this series A investment that caused me to create this new investment firm. Creating this new investment firm caused me to go invest in all these, you know, companies in a bigger way and be more impactful on them and their trajectories than I could've been on my own. The whole thing is daisy-chained together because I loved reading fucking books in my 20s and I did something about it, and I started telling other people which ones I liked. That's how it started, that's it. And all of that was unpredictable. Back to why I don't like goals, if you had told me when I sent that first email to list my goals, none of those things that I just listed would've been on my sheet. I wouldn't have even known to think about them. My own experience has cemented my belief in this growth without goals. Like, I wanted to grow. I love the idea in weightlifting, Jeremy Giffin and I talk about it all the time, of progressive overload, of always, like, a little bit harder, a little bit more. Go to failure, go to failure, go to failure. The beautiful thing about life is you don't know where that's going to take you. God, I never in a million years could've predicted any of this crap. What's even more exciting is it doesn't stop. Some set of stuff's going to happen over the next 10 years, which, if I tried to make a goal list today, I would be unable to predict. It's going to be so much fun. But it all started with I had a thing I loved naturally, I just liked to read books, and I think that's profoundly cool. Now, you know, the obligatory disclaimer is that I've been so unbelievably lucky, I had the privilege to sit and read a gazillion books and not be spending all of that time just getting ahead like you had to, because, again, I was very lucky. The situation I was born into in life with the parents I had and, you know, the things that were easy for me, I didn't have to pay for college, all this stuff made it possible for me to do these things and I think that's important to acknowledge. But nonetheless, you found your way there, you found the passion, you found the high-rep passion and now look.