Invest Like the Best with Patrick O'Shaughnessy Colossus

My guest today is David Einhorn. David is the President of Greenlight Capital, a long-short hedge fund that he co-founded in 1996. He is a prominent value investor with a reputation for rigorous security analysis. In 2002, he revealed a short position in Allied Capital, which was ultimately proven correct and similarly in early 2008, he told the Sohn Conference he was short Lehman Brothers. Over his near three decades managing money at Greenlight, he has delivered impressive returns but it has not been without challenge. Our conversation covers both the highs and the lows, his views on the current banking issues, and how he has evolved as an investor. I’m on the planning committee for this year's Sohn conference where David will be featured with others like Stan Druckenmiller, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, Stripe CEO Patrick Collison, and Bridgewater CIO Karen Karniol-Tambour. If you’ve enjoyed Invest Like the Best and are willing to contribute to a great cause—Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center—I’d deeply appreciate you buying a ticket at the link available in the show notes and join us in May for what will be an incredible day of investing and business presentations and interviews. Now, please enjoy my great conversation with David Einhorn.
 
Buy a ticket to The Sohn Conference 2023
Listen to Founders Podcast
Founders Episode 136 - Estee Lauder
Founders Episode 288 - Ralph Lauren

 
For the full show notes, transcript, and links to mentioned content, check out the episode page here. 
 
-----
 
This episode is brought to you by Tegus. Tegus, the modern research platform for leading investors. I’m a longtime user and advocate of Tegus, a company that I’ve been so consistently impressed with that last fall my firm, Positive Sum, invested $20M to support Tegus’ mission to expand its product ecosystem. Whether it’s quantitative analysis, company disclosures, management presentations, earnings calls - Tegus has tools for every step of your investment research. They even have over 4000 fully driveable financial models. Tegus’ maniacal focus on quality, as well as its depth, breadth and recency of content makes it the one-stop, end-to-end research platform for investors. Move faster, gather deep research to build conviction and surface high-quality, alpha-driving insights to find your differentiated edge with Tegus. As a listener, you can take the Tegus platform for a free test drive by visiting tegus.co/patrick.
 
-----
 
Invest Like the Best is a property of Colossus, LLC. For more episodes of Invest Like the Best, visit joincolossus.com/episodes. 
 
Past guests include Tobi Lutke, Kevin Systrom, Mike Krieger, John Collison, Kat Cole, Marc Andreessen, Matthew Ball, Bill Gurley, Anu Hariharan, Ben Thompson, and many more.
 
Stay up to date on all our podcasts by signing up to Colossus Weekly, our quick dive every Sunday highlighting the top business and investing concepts from our podcasts and the best of what we read that week. Sign up here.

Follow us on Twitter: @patrick_oshag | @JoinColossus
 
Show Notes
(00:03:50) - (First question) - Why he is glad he started his fund in 1996 rather than today
(00:05:58) - His view of how companies’ personnel and goals have changed since the 90’s
(00:07:01) - His counter-momentum approach to markets and how he views current trends
(00:11:17) - The jelly-donut theory of monetary policy
(00:14:46) - His outlook on inflation and the Fed from a fiscal perspective
(00:15:45) - Commodities and other assets that become relevant
(00:16:48) - The evolution of Greenlight’s portfolio and philosophy through history
(00:20:11) - Periods in his career that stand out as the most challenging
(00:25:58) - How tech advances have influenced his core concept of figuring out worth
(00:28:17) - His three-step process to picking investment targets
(00:29:10) - The companies he has learned the most from studying
(00:30:52) - His expe

My guest today is Avi Goldfarb. Avi is a Professor at the University of Toronto’s Rotman School of Management, the Rotman Chair in Artificial Intelligence and Healthcare, as well as the co-author of two bestselling books on AI and its economic impact. His most recent book, Power and Prediction, is probably the best piece of content I have read in explaining how AI may reshape business models, systems, and products. We recorded this before GPT-4’s release last week which, if anything, makes Avi’s ideas on AI’s impact all the more poignant. Please enjoy my conversation with Avi Goldfarb.
 
For the full show notes, transcript, and links to mentioned content, check out the episode page here. 
 
-----
 
This episode is brought to you by Tegus. Tegus is the modern research platform for leading investors. I’m a longtime user and advocate of Tegus, a company that I’ve been so consistently impressed with that last fall my firm, Positive Sum, invested $20M to support Tegus’ mission to expand its product ecosystem. Whether it’s quantitative analysis, company disclosures, management presentations, earnings calls - Tegus has tools for every step of your investment research. They even have over 4000 fully driveable financial models. Tegus’ maniacal focus on quality, as well as its depth, breadth and recency of content makes it the one-stop, end-to-end research platform for investors. Move faster, gather deep research to build conviction and surface high-quality, alpha-driving insights to find your differentiated edge with Tegus. As a listener, you can take the Tegus platform for a free test drive by visiting tegus.co/patrick.
 
-----
 
Invest Like the Best is a property of Colossus, LLC. For more episodes of Invest Like the Best, visit joincolossus.com/episodes. 
 
Past guests include Tobi Lutke, Kevin Systrom, Mike Krieger, John Collison, Kat Cole, Marc Andreessen, Matthew Ball, Bill Gurley, Anu Hariharan, Ben Thompson, and many more.
 
Stay up to date on all our podcasts by signing up to Colossus Weekly, our quick dive every Sunday highlighting the top business and investing concepts from our podcasts and the best of what we read that week. Sign up here.
 
Follow us on Twitter: @patrick_oshag | @JoinColossus
 
Show Notes
(00:03:15) - [First question] - His initial reaction to chat GPT when it first launched 
(00:07:08) - Prediction Machines; The impact price has on how much something is used by humans
(00:11:07) - The shift from steam powered factories to electric ones and the transition between the two in regards to systems and application solutions; Power and Prediction
(00:17:06) - Midpoints between a point solution and a systems solution and applications that are being built in the middle of them
(00:19:10) - What application, system, and point solutions feel like today in the world of AI
(00:27:03) - The transition from a world governed by rules to one by decisions  
(00:30:58) - How the power of prediction moves us from a binary to a decimal framework
(00:34:48) - Ways power disruption will occur as we navigate the emerging AI frontier
(00:44:33) - Other functions like personalization that entrepreneurs should think about putting into their products and features
(00:47:18) - How we should be thinking about the generation of information and data 
(00:51:32) - A future where technology either desimates or empowers specific industries
(00:54:16) - What he’s most excited and worried about given the emerging frontier of AI 
(00:55:41) - The kindest thing anyone has ever done for him 

My guest this week is Auren Hoffman. Auren is the CEO of Safegraph, which curates data on physical locations. He also founded LiveRamp, a public data connectivity business. Auren knows more about data businesses than almost anyone I know and that is the topic of today’s discussion. We look at the business of data from every angle and finish with a fun masterclass on how to host a dinner party. Please enjoy my conversation with Auren Hoffman.
 
For the full show notes, transcript, and links to mentioned content, check out the episode page here.
 
-----
 
This episode is brought to you by Tegus, the modern research platform for leading investors. I’m a long-time user and advocate of Tegus, a company that I’ve been so consistently impressed with that last fall my firm, Positive Sum, invested $20M to support Tegus’ mission to expand its product ecosystem. Whether it’s quantitative analysis, company disclosures, management presentations, earnings calls - Tegus has tools for every step of your investment research. They even have over 4000 fully driveable financial models. Tegus’ maniacal focus on quality, as well as its depth, breadth and recency of content makes it the one-stop, end-to-end research platform for investors. Move faster, gather deep research to build conviction and surface high-quality, alpha-driving insights to find your differentiated edge with Tegus. As a listener, you can take the Tegus platform for a free test drive by visiting tegus.co/patrick.
 
-----
 
Invest Like the Best is a property of Colossus, LLC. For more episodes of Invest Like the Best, visit joincolossus.com/episodes. 
 
Past guests include Tobi Lutke, Kevin Systrom, Mike Krieger, John Collison, Kat Cole, Marc Andreessen, Matthew Ball, Bill Gurley, Anu Hariharan, Ben Thompson, and many more.
 
Stay up to date on all our podcasts by signing up to Colossus Weekly, our quick dive every Sunday highlighting the top business and investing concepts from our podcasts and the best of what we read that week. Sign up here.
 
Follow us on Twitter: @patrick_oshag | @JoinColossus
 
Show Notes
[00:03:16] - [First question] - His 2x2 matrix for categorizing different types of data businesses
[00:04:59] - An example of what he calls a religion company in his matrix
[00:07:03] - His notion of data currency
[00:08:23] - His definition of a great business
[00:09:46] - An example of a so-called application religion company in his proverbial matrix
[00:11:24] - Co-op and non-profit business models within and outside of the data sphere
[00:13:35] - The truth application quadrant of his matrix
[00:15:00] - The more pure-data-oriented truth category of the matrix
[00:16:18] - How data has exploded in prevalence for the business world as a whole
[00:18:57] - How to think about the end market for data and its demand
[00:21:09] - Characteristics of a good data set and how to identify it
[00:23:14] - Other factors that impact the usability of a data set
[00:24:30] - Optimizing data collection itself
[00:26:30] - The slow growth that’s typical of early-stage data companies
[00:27:27] - Market share considerations for data businesses
[00:28:47] - Brand-building for data companies and how it can supercharge market share
[00:30:03] - Common struggles for data entrepreneurs
[00:31:55] - How he found a big problem that he could feasibly solve with data
[00:34:01] - The genesis of his business; SafeGraph
[00:35:15] - Progress in privacy protocols for gathering and mobilizing people’s data
[00:37:08] - The power of self-maintained and user-maintained databases
[00:38:34] - The kinds of data that SafeGraph gathers and how he foresees it expanding
[00:40:16] - Typical customers and use cases for SafeGraph’s data
[00:41:08] - How SafeGraph and other companies protect against data theft
[00:42:12] - Frequency of change as a proxy for the value of a given data set
[00:43:27] - How to optimize the systems

My guest this week is Trae Stephens. Trae is a partner at Founders Fund and co-founder and Executive Chairman of Anduril. Trae’s philosophy can be boiled down to finding good quests, which has led him to investing in businesses that work closely with the government on societally important issues. Clearly, that extends to co-founding Anduril and I would highly recommend listening to my Business Breakdowns episode on Anduril if you haven’t already. In this conversation, we discuss the importance of lobbyists, why the high-tech defense firms of the past became stale, and how he hunts for disagreeableness in founders. Please enjoy my conversation with Trae Stephens.
 
For the full show notes, transcript, and links to mentioned content, check out the episode page here.
 
Listen to Founders Podcast
Founders Episode 136 - Estee Lauder
Founders Episode 288 - Ralph Lauren
 
-----
 
This episode is brought to you by Tegus, the modern research platform for leading investors. I’m a longtime user and advocate of Tegus, a company that I’ve been so consistently impressed with that last fall my firm, Positive Sum, invested $20M to support Tegus’ mission to expand its product ecosystem. Whether it’s quantitative analysis, company disclosures, management presentations, earnings calls - Tegus has tools for every step of your investment research. They even have over 4000 fully driveable financial models. Tegus’ maniacal focus on quality, as well as its depth, breadth and recency of content makes it the one-stop, end-to-end research platform for investors. Move faster, gather deep research to build conviction and surface high-quality, alpha-driving insights to find your differentiated edge with Tegus. As a listener, you can take the Tegus platform for a free test drive by visiting tegus.co/patrick.
 
-----
 
Invest Like the Best is a property of Colossus, LLC. For more episodes of Invest Like the Best, visit joincolossus.com/episodes. 
 
Past guests include Tobi Lutke, Kevin Systrom, Mike Krieger, John Collison, Kat Cole, Marc Andreessen, Matthew Ball, Bill Gurley, Anu Hariharan, Ben Thompson, and many more.
 
Stay up to date on all our podcasts by signing up to Colossus Weekly, our quick dive every Sunday highlighting the top business and investing concepts from our podcasts and the best of what we read that week. Sign up here.
 
Follow us on Twitter: @patrick_oshag | @JoinColossus
 
Show Notes
[00:03:17] - [First question] - Why Trae thinks most high-margin businesses are bad for society
[00:04:28] - What would he change to impact energy technology most if he were in charge
[00:06:18] - His investing focus on dynamism and mission-driven tech companies
[00:09:42] - Analyzing why relatively few people strive to make society-level advancements
[00:11:35] - What he’s done as a parent to enable his kids to develop passions
[00:12:41] - The most noteworthy adventures in his career
[00:14:41] - Founding Anduril and what it taught him about the tech industry
[00:18:40] - The cutting-edge of defense technologies today
[00:21:29] - What Shyam Sankar of Palantir taught him about defense tech
[00:23:34] - Why some of the biggest defense tech companies have stopped innovating
[00:28:29] - What he and Anduril have learned about sales and scaling in the public sector
[00:32:12] - Where lobbyists and decision makers play in to defense tech business models
[00:35:22] - His take on Peter Thiel’s notion that competition should be avoided
[00:38:24] - The importance of being psychologically disagreeable when building a start-up
[00:39:54] - The origin story that stands out the most from companies he has interviewed
[00:41:12] - How he developed an investor mindset on his unorthodox path to the venture world
[00:43:57] - What he has learned from playing supporting roles and aligning with great leaders
[00:46:11] - Important but uncommon lessons about entrepreneurship
[00:48:21] -

My guest this week is Doug Leone. Doug led one of the world’s most successful venture firms, Sequoia, for over 25 years after he was given responsibility for the firm by its founder, Don Valentine, in 1996. Alongside Mike Moritz, the pair managed its expansion from a single $150m early-stage fund into an $85 billion global powerhouse. It was a privilege to sit down with Doug and learn from him. We talk about his tough start at Sequoia, get into the technicalities of great go-to-market motions, and survey his advice for other investors in the industry. A key theme that will stick with me from this conversation is Doug’s insistence on keeping things simple and clear. Please enjoy my great conversation with Doug Leone.
 
For the full show notes, transcript, and links to mentioned content, check out the episode page here.
 
-----
 
This episode is brought to you by Tegus, the modern research platform for leading investors. I’m a longtime user and advocate of Tegus, a company that I’ve been so consistently impressed with that last fall my firm, Positive Sum, invested $20M to support Tegus’ mission to expand its product ecosystem. Whether it’s quantitative analysis, company disclosures, management presentations, earnings calls - Tegus has tools for every step of your investment research. They even have over 4000 fully driveable financial models. Tegus’ maniacal focus on quality, as well as its depth, breadth and recency of content makes it the one-stop, end-to-end research platform for investors. Move faster, gather deep research to build conviction and surface high-quality, alpha-driving insights to find your differentiated edge with Tegus. As a listener, you can take the Tegus platform for a free test drive by visiting tegus.co/patrick.
 
-----
 
Invest Like the Best is a property of Colossus, LLC. For more episodes of Invest Like the Best, visit joincolossus.com/episodes. 
 
Past guests include Tobi Lutke, Kevin Systrom, Mike Krieger, John Collison, Kat Cole, Marc Andreessen, Matthew Ball, Bill Gurley, Anu Hariharan, Ben Thompson, and many more.
 
Stay up to date on all our podcasts by signing up to Colossus Weekly, our quick dive every Sunday highlighting the top business and investing concepts from our podcasts and the best of what we read that week. Sign up here.
 
Follow us on Twitter: @patrick_oshag | @JoinColossus
 
Show Notes
[00:03:21] - [First question] - What Don Valentine’s heart was like
[00:06:30] - The most productive and unproductive parts of Don’s toughness 
[00:09:01] - Being the opposite of insufferable and how it was different when he was younger
[00:10:55] - Why it’s so important to understand someone’s core motivations
[00:14:18] - Questions or topics he returns to when getting to know people 
[00:15:31] - How much time he believes it can take to really get to know someone  
[00:16:44] - The most formative experiences he had prior to becoming an investor that impacted his investing the most 
[00:20:37] - What venture looks like to him today relative to his prior career
[00:23:51] - His style of approaching emerging technology markets like AI as an investor  
[00:26:37] - Whether or not he’d go into venture today if he was in his late 20s 
[00:28:30] - Commonalities between the very best at going to market effectively 
[00:31:11] - The key components of great product positioning  
[00:32:10] - Helping companies circumnavigate mediocre positioning 
[00:33:25] - Generating demand and leads and doing it well 
[00:37:15] - How interacting with companies early on has changed over the ears
[00:41:12] - Whether or not new entrants into venture should build firms with enterprise value 
[00:46:14] - Sussing out the killer gene in somebody 
[00:47:25] - What high school was like for him when he first came to the US 
[00:49:04] - How successful people can instill the lessons learned from hardship into their children 
[

I’m excited to share this conversation with Tim Urban. Tim is, in my opinion, one of the best and most engaging writers of our era. He’s tackled many of the most interesting topics in the world from AI to procrastination. I interviewed him in 2017 in an episode we called “Grand Theft Life”, and it remains one of my favorite episodes ever.
 
In the 6 years since that episode, he hasn’t published almost anything. That’s because he’s been writing the book we discuss in this episode. The book is called “What’s Our Problem”, in which Tim investigates the big issues facing society.
 
The reason I love Tim’s writing so much is its density of ideas and ridiculously clear explanations: a rare combo that makes reading a joy. I hope you enjoy this great round two with Tim Urban, and go buy and enjoy his great new book.
 
For the full show notes, transcript, and links to mentioned content, check out the episode page here.
 
Listen to Founders podcast.
 
-----
 
This episode is brought to you by Tegus, the modern research platform for leading investors. I’m a longtime user and advocate of Tegus, a company that I’ve been so consistently impressed with that last fall my firm, Positive Sum, invested $20M to support Tegus’ mission to expand its product ecosystem. Whether it’s quantitative analysis, company disclosures, management presentations, earnings calls - Tegus has tools for every step of your investment research. They even have over 4000 fully driveable financial models. Tegus’ maniacal focus on quality, as well as its depth, breadth and recency of content makes it the one-stop, end-to-end research platform for investors. Move faster, gather deep research to build conviction and surface high-quality, alpha-driving insights to find your differentiated edge with Tegus. As a listener, you can take the Tegus platform for a free test drive by visiting tegus.co/patrick.
 
-----
 
Invest Like the Best is a property of Colossus, LLC. For more episodes of Invest Like the Best, visit joincolossus.com/episodes. 
 
Past guests include Tobi Lutke, Kevin Systrom, Mike Krieger, John Collison, Kat Cole, Marc Andreessen, Matthew Ball, Bill Gurley, Anu Hariharan, Ben Thompson, and many more.
 
Stay up to date on all our podcasts by signing up to Colossus Weekly, our quick dive every Sunday highlighting the top business and investing concepts from our podcasts and the best of what we read that week. Sign up here.
 
Follow us on Twitter: @patrick_oshag | @JoinColossus
 
Show Notes
[00:02:50] - [First question] - What it’s been like spending seven years thinking about a single topic: Tim's book, What’s Our Problem?
[00:05:05] - How he’s come to articulate the big question he’s trying to answer in his book
[00:07:58] - A dinner experience where a single question showed just how much of a problem there was to solve
[00:09:47] - Group ideology and the different ladder rungs of human thinking 
[00:17:28] - The concept of a social golems and genies and their implications for society 
[00:23:02] - His favorite genies and golems throughout history and their impact  
[00:29:07] - Examples of canonical high functioning genies across history   
[00:34:20] - The key ingredients within liberal democracies that allow for and correct golems
[00:40:44] - Media’s role in shaping ideas and society and what’s changed about it in today’s media landscape 
[00:46:46] - What else is going on that has him worried about modern institutions that are failing as social immune systems
[01:01:15] - The gap between what we say publicly versus what we feel privately and the growing pile of unsaid things 
[01:07:18] - What’s to be done in order to help society repair itself 
[01:14:09] - Whether or not the direction we’re most afraid to run is where we should 
[01:17:37] - Thoughts on AI having written extensively on it and the new wave of emerging tools
[01:22