Zurich-based author and investor Guy Spier (@GSpier), the founder and CEO of Aquamarine Capital, joins Julia La Roche one episode 78.
In 2008, Guy and his friend Monish Pabrai bid just over $650,000 for a charity lunch with Warren Buffett. That meal with the Oracle of Omaha was a transformative experience for Guy, which he wrote about in his book, “The Education of a Value Investor,” which has sold more than 40,000 copies and has also been translated into Hebrew, German, Japanese, Korean, Polish, Mandarin and Spanish.
Guy completed his MBA at the Harvard Business School, class of 1993, and holds a First Class degree in PPE (Politics, Philosophy, and Economics) from Oxford University, where he studied at Brasenose College with British Prime Minister David Cameron. After completing his MBA, Guy started the Aquamarine Fund, an investment vehicle inspired by the original 1950s Buffett partnerships and run with a close replication of the original Buffett partnership rules. The focus is on investing for long-term capital appreciation and capital preservation by running a portfolio of equity investments with the goal of acquiring companies with outstanding long-term economics at a reasonable price and where there is a sufficient margin of safety between the company’s market price and its intrinsic value. Typical investors include high net-worth individuals, family offices, and private banks.
0:00 Show open
1:50 Welcome, Guy Spier
3:00 Started as a Gordon Gekko wannabe, found a ‘lifeline’ through Buffett
6:13 Reading about Warren Buffett
9:47 The pilgrimage to Omaha
11:00 Power of sending thank-you notes
17:00 Handwritten notes from Buffett
18:09 Bidding on lunch with Buffett
22:30 Lunch with Buffett was “transformational.”
27:44 The inner scorecard
30:00 Deep fear ahead of meeting Buffett
34:06 How much does the macro matter?
37:28 Siren songs of the hyped stocks
40:25 Writing with William Green
44:26 Why he changed his mind about not talking to company management
49:20 New investment process checklist items
54:15 Debt
57:10 Buffett spends time thinking about the downside
1:01:20 Content diet for investing
1:08:40 Surrounding yourself with a mastermind group
#177 Mike Green: Passive Investing Has Turned The Market On Autopilot
#176 Economist Jonathan Treussard On The Extraordinarily Confusing Macro Data, Markets With A Memory Of A Goldfish, And If We're In Bubble Territory
#175 Chris Whalen: 'We're Hiding A Lot' — Why Commercial Could Be The Next Source Of The Financial Crisis In This Country
#174 James Lavish On The Debt Spiral: They’re Going To Print So Much Money It’s Going To Shock You
#173 Dave Collum On Why We’re Headed For A 40-Year Bear Market
#172 John Cochrane On The Fiscal Theory Of The Price Level, Causes Of Inflation, And The Need To Stop Throwing Money Down Trillion-dollar Rat Holes
#171 Dave Friedberg, CEO Of Ohala And Co-Host of The All-In Podcast, On The New Breakthrough Can Boost Crop Yields By 50-100% And Could Change Farming Forever
#170 Bob Elliott: The Biggest Risk For Equity Investors Is The Economy Remains Too Strong
#169 Carol Roth: The Stagflationary Economy Is Making A Resurgence
#168 The ‘Acid Capitalist’ Hugh Hendry On The Fed’s No-Win Situation, The Fragility Of Valuations, Gold As ‘The Alchemy Of Chaos,’ Buying Bitcoin, And The Dangerous Sign The Japanese Yen Is
#167 Michael Pento: If Rates Don't Come Down Across The Yield Curve Relatively Quickly, The Economy's In For Big Trouble
#166 Nancy Davis: 'Whatever They Say, The Opposite Happens' — Fed Meeting Reaction, Why Inflation Is Here To Stay, And The Opportunity For Investors
#165 Jim Bianco On Stickier Inflation, A 10-20% Chance Of A Rate Hike, And Why The 10-Year Treasury Yield Could Surge To 5-5.5%
#164 Chris Whalen On Higher Interest Rates, Illiquidity, And The Death Of Leverage
#163 Professor Scott Galloway: We're Turning Into Something That's Not Very American
#162 Keith Fitz-Gerald, Investor Who Nailed 2023 Market Rally, Says The Fed Doesn’t Matter — Investing In Optimism Does
#161 Michael Howell On Global Liquidity, A Re-entry Point For Risk Assets, Monetary Inflation, Gold, The US Dollar
#160 Bill Fleckenstein: The Fed Is Trapped And Unable To Fight Inflation
#159 Lyn Alden On Fiscal Dominance Macro Backdrop, Why The Rise In Gold Is Indicative Of Fiscal Problems, And Why Bitcoin Could Hit Six-Figures In This Cycle
#158 Larry McDonald: We’re Entering A Sustained Inflation Regime, Why Trillions Of Dollars Are Currently Misallocated, And The Opportunity Right Now In Hard Assets
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