Chris Bloomstran - Taking Principled Stances The Business Brew

This week Chris Bloomstran stops by The Business Brew to catch up.  Part of this conversation are a bit scary.  Parts you may disagree with.  Regardless, it's very apparent that Chris thinks A LOT about what he is investing in.


Chris is the President and Chief Investment Officer of Semper Augustus Investments Group. He is best known for his annual letters; most of which have an incredibly detailed analysis of Berkshire Hathaway. See https://www.semperaugustus.com/clientletter


We hope you enjoy the discussion.  Detailed show notes below the Koyfin sponsor and thank yous.


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This episode is brought to you by Koyfin, one of the fastest-growing platforms for financial data and analytics to research stocks and understand market trends. Check out Koyfin.com to see what a Bloomberg-lite, with tons of high-quality fundamental data and a powerful graph engine looks like.


Album art photo taken by Mike Ando.  Please see https://www.mikeando.com/


Thank you to Mathew Passy for the podcast production.  You can find Mathew at @MathewPassy on Twitter or at thepodcastconsultant.com


In this episode Chris and Bill discuss:

0:34 - Chris' wine hobby

7:34 - Chris setting weight lifting records in high school

11:33 - Playing football against Barry Sanders

17:04 - Pivot to investing

17:47 - What about today rhymes with the late 90s

25:00 - Chris' warning about Twitter, Shopify, and Tesla

28:00 - What rhymes between ARK and Janus

30:54 - How Chris thinks about today's multiples

38:25 - Why Chris has positions in energy companies

43:00 - Chris' use of Twitter and his Twitter threads

50:31 - Chris' love for teaching

53:03 - Bill and Chris discuss Berkshire

60:45 - Berkshire Hathaway Energy and how it fits within the renewable energy landscape

1:04:45 - Discussion about opportunity cost and value traps

1:08:45 - Why Chris is lukewarm on Big Tech

1:10:00 - Chris' take on the idea of never selling a great business

1:16:10 - Chris discusses Costco vs. Amazon and concludes the opportunity cost discussion at 1:18:52

1:22:00 - More energy (in the context of opportunity cost)

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