Five Good Questions Podcast
Welcome to Five Good Questions. I’m your host, Jake Taylor. Fact: the average American watches 5 hours of television per day. What would the world be like if we dedicated one of those hours to reading books instead? I don’t know, but I’d like to find out. So to inspire others to read more, I ask five good questions of interesting authors and share the results with you every Friday. Let’s see if together, we can’t rescue some of those lost hours. In addition to author interviews, we also publish "The Hikecast." The Hikecast is a show where interesting people take me on their favorite hikes or walks and we talk about big ideas in an unconstrained format. No planned agendas, just deep conversations, recorded out in nature. The idea is for you to put on The Hikecast and get outside to simulate taking a hike with us. I want you to feel like you're there with us out in nature.
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5GQ Adam Mead - The Complete Financial History of Berkshire Hathaway
05/21/2021
5GQ Adam Mead - The Complete Financial History of Berkshire Hathaway
In this week's episode of Five Good Questions, we're interviewing Adam Mead about his new book, The Complete Financial History of Berkshire Hathaway. Adam Mead is CEO and Chief Investment Officer of Mead Capital Management, LLC, and founder of WatchlistInvesting.com. His book, The Complete Financial History of Berkshire Hathaway: A Chronological Analysis of Warren Buffett and Charlie Munger’s Conglomerate Masterpiece (Harriman House, 2021) was released in April. Extras and research material can be found at brkbook.com. Five Good Questions: 1. There’s an unbelievable amount of financial data and analysis pulled together into this book. What was the process of sorting through and organizing so much information? 2. Which decade for Berkshire was the most impressive to you? 3. Much of Berkshire’s success can be tied to insurance. What are some of your observations after deep-diving into their insurance operations for decades? 4. The effects of compounding are so small at the beginning, they’re almost imperceptible. Have you noticed any patterns that might help you detect the next Berkshire early in its formation? 5. How has writing this book made you a better investor?
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5GQ William Green - Richer, Wiser, Happier
05/01/2021
5GQ William Green - Richer, Wiser, Happier
In this week's Five Good Questions, we're interviewing William Green about his new book Richer, Wiser, Happier. This book is based on hundreds of hours of interviews that he’s conducted over the last 25 years with a pantheon of legendary investors—everyone from Sir John Templeton to Charlie Munger, Howard Marks to Joel Greenblatt, Ed Thorp to Nick Sleep. William has written for many publications, including Time, Fortune, Forbes, Barron’s, The New Yorker, and The Economist. He edited the Asian, European, Middle Eastern, and African editions of Time. Born and raised in London, he studied English literature at Oxford and has a master’s degree in journalism from Columbia. He lives in New York with his wife, Lauren, and their two children, Henry and Madeleine. Five Good Questions: 1. How did you get these world-class investors to open up for you in such a striking way? 2. What are some of the common traits running through the people you interviewed? Are these characteristics we can develop, or are they naturally born? 3. Was there anything about a global pandemic that changed how these people thought? Or perhaps confirmed they were using the right approach? 4. It seems that often those who reach the highest levels of wealth and achievement had to sacrifice a lot to get there. Perhaps even their own personal happiness. Who seemed like the happiest of those you interviewed? Why were they happy? 5. We’re perhaps toward the end of a 40-year bull run in bonds which saw interest rates fall from high teens to practically zero. Any phenomenon which spans a career length has a greater chance of creating survivorship bias. Are there perhaps any wrong lessons to learn from their success which might hurt us over the next 20 years if the cycle turns?
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5GQ Eric Jorgenson - The Almanack of Naval Ravikant
09/18/2020
5GQ Eric Jorgenson - The Almanack of Naval Ravikant
In this week's Five Good Questions, we're interviewing Eric Jorgenson about the book The Almanack of Naval Ravikant. Eric Jorgenson is a product strategist and writer. In 2011, he joined the founding team of Zaarly, a company dedicated to helping homeowners find home service providers they can trust. His business blog, Evergreen, educates and entertains more than one million readers. You can find all of his projects and other writing on EJorgenson.com. Five Good Questions: 1. This is a very unusual book--how did this project come about? 2. What was your favorite section to work on? 3. What does Naval say about ego, identity, labels and habits? 4. What changes have you made in your own life since compiling this book? 5. What are some common ideas or themes that connect the various advice throughout the book?
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5GQ Tim Koller - Valuation
08/21/2020
5GQ Tim Koller - Valuation
In this week's Five Good Questions, we're interviewing Tim Koller about the 7th edition of Valuation. Tim Koller is a core leader of the Corporate Finance Practice at McKinsey. During his more than 28 years of consulting, Tim has served clients globally on value creation, corporate strategy, capital-markets issues, and M&A transactions. Tim is the lead author of Valuation: Measuring and Managing the Value of Companies. This book—now in its seventh edition—has sold more than 800,000 copies. Before joining McKinsey, Tim was a vice president at Stern Stewart & Company, a leading value-based management-advisory firm, where he helped develop key financial-analytical tools and software. He has also lectured at business schools, such as the University of Chicago, Northwestern, Tuck, Yale, and INSEAD. Five Good Questions: 1. Do the growth rates and ROICs of today’s market favorites that are implied by their prices seem justified to produce an attractive future TSR? 2. Will profit margins and returns on capital mean revert after a prolonged period above their historical norms? Are the higher P/Es of today justified? 3. When forecasting the impacts of digitization, how do we factor in competition and pricing with respect to cash flows? (What are the odds of “Winner Take All” vs. “Red Queen Effect” where most of the value flows through to consumer surplus?) 4. What’s the most pervasive and pernicious myth in finance that just won’t die? 5. What’s the most likely mistake a business analyst will make over the next decade?
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5GQ Mike Michalowicz - Fix This Next
04/10/2020
5GQ Mike Michalowicz - Fix This Next
In this week's Five Good Questions, we're interviewing Mike Michalowicz about his book Fix This Next. Mike Mi-KAL-o-wits is the author of Profit First, Clockwork, Surge, The Pumpkin Plan, and his newest release Fix This Next. By his 35th birthday, Mike had founded and sold two companies - one to private equity and another to a Fortune 500. Today he is running his third multi-million dollar venture, Profit First Professionals. Mike is a former small business columnist for The Wall Street Journal and the former business makeover specialist on MSNBC. Over the years, Mike has traveled the globe speaking with thousands of entrepreneurs, and is here today to share the best of what he has learned. Five Good Questions: 1. When every problem in a small business feels existential, how do we prioritize what to fix first? What is the Business Hierarchy of Needs? 2. Many businesses, particularly in Silicon Valley, have grand visions of changing the world, yet their unit economics might not work. How does that violate your Business Hierarchy? 3. What can the Winchester Mystery House teach us about being an entrepreneur? 4. What is the biggest mistake you see that holds back the good from becoming the great? 5. What special advice do you have to small business owners who may be facing 50-100% drops in revenue?
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5GQ Matt Ridley - How Innovation Works
03/20/2020
5GQ Matt Ridley - How Innovation Works
In this week's Five Good Questions, we're interviewing Matt Ridley about his new book How Innovation Works. Matt Ridley's books have sold over a million copies, been translated into 31 languages and won several awards. His TED talk "When Ideas Have Sex" has been viewed more than two million times. He writes a weekly column in The Times (London) and writes regularly for the Wall Street Journal. As Viscount Ridley, he was elected to the House of Lords in February 2013. He also served on the science and technology select committee. With BA and DPhil degrees from Oxford University, Matt Ridley worked for the Economist for nine years as science editor, Washington correspondent and American editor, before becoming a self-employed writer and businessman. Five Good Questions: 1. What was the single most important event in the history of humankind and why? 2. Campfire, dung, whale oil, kerosene, “Edison’s” light bulb, CFLs, and LEDs. What are the sweeping innovation lessons we can draw from how humans simply light their homes? 3. Does the use of debt allow us to pull innovation from the future, similar to overclocking a computer? 4. What do past responses to health epidemics teach us about dealing with COVID-19? 5. Has science gotten so complex, specialized, and expensive that accidental, tinkering, gentlemen scientists are no longer feasible? For instance, could I build a thorium reactor in my garage? Is centralized research by governments and big businesses the necessary answer?
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5GQ Bogumil Baranowski - Money, Life, Family
12/13/2019
5GQ Bogumil Baranowski - Money, Life, Family
In this week's Five Good Questions, we're interviewing Bogumil Baranowski about his book Money, Life, Family. Bogumil K. Baranowski is a New York City-based investment professional with almost fifteen years of experience. He is a founding partner of Sicart Associates, a boutique investment firm catering to families and entrepreneurs on both sides of the Atlantic and the Pacific. He is the author of Outsmarting the Crowd and a TEDx Speaker ("The Great Investor in You"). Bogumil greatly enjoys speaking about investing and family wealth around the world. He likes to say that he was born Polish, grew up European only to become American later on. In his free time, he reads, writes, flies single-engine propeller planes, scuba dives around the globe, and sails. Five Good Questions: 1. How have your early life experiences shaped you as an investor? 2. What are the three types of “remote” we need to live a good life and be a successful investor? 3. Warren Buffett has a quote that he’s a better businessman because he’s an investor and a better investor because he’s a businessman. What do you think of the idea that you’re a better investor because you’re a traveler, and a better traveler because you’re an investor? 4. What are some of your best tips for insulating against the noise of the news cycle and financial markets? 5. Most family wealth was built from a severe lack of diversification. How much diversification is necessary to maintain wealth?
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The Hikecast 10
11/29/2019
The Hikecast 10
The Hikecast is a show where interesting people take me on their favorite hikes or walks and we talk about big ideas in an unconstrained format. No planned agendas, just deep conversations, recorded out in nature. The idea is for you to put on The Hikecast and get outside to simulate taking a hike with us. I want you to feel like you're there with us out in nature. Care to join us on a hike? :) My guest for this episode is Bill Brewster. Bill is a research analyst at Sullimar Capital Group. After getting a degree in Finance and Accounting from Auburn University, he got a law degree from Loyola. Bill ran a flooring franchise from 2007-2009 and worked as a credit analyst for BMO Harris Bank. We went for a brisk morning walk in Virginia. Please enjoy this hike cast with Bill Brewster. ********************* Also, please check out my first literary effort: The Rebel Allocator It’s a coming-of-age story of a young man who learns about business and life from an unlikely teacher. Imagine The Karate Kid meets Thorndike’s The Outsiders. You’re right, it’s probably not what you were expecting, but I have my fingers crossed that you’ll really enjoy it. It's available on amazon now in print, digital, and audiobook formats. With gratitude, Jake
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5GQ Alan Klement - When Coffee and Kale Compete
11/15/2019
5GQ Alan Klement - When Coffee and Kale Compete
Alan Klement helps individuals, teams, and companies become great at making and selling products that people will buy. His own experience as an entrepreneur helps make him effective at helping others. He is the author of When Coffee and Kale Compete. Five Good Questions Perhaps you could explain what Job to Be Done (JTBD) and Customer Jobs mean through the example of buying a Snickers vs. Milky Way? What is the problem with Chasing Visible Figures and how it relates to creative destruction? What are the forces of progress and how do they fit with JTBD? What do systems have to do with innovation? What does Clayton Christensen have wrong?
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5GQ Robert Greifeld - Market Mover
11/08/2019
5GQ Robert Greifeld - Market Mover
Robert Greifeld is the former CEO and Chairman of Nasdaq, Inc. He is currently Chairman of Virtu Financial, a leading financial technology and trading firm, Managing Partner and Co-Founder at Cornerstone Investment Capital, a financial technology investment firm, and a Board Member at Capital Rock and Financeware. Bob is Chairman and Founder of USATF Foundation, an organization dedicated to supporting both athletes from disadvantaged backgrounds and our next generation of Olympians. Bob also serves on the NYU Stern Board of Overseers. Five Good Questions: What do you think about the online brokerages now charging $0 for most trades? What does the shift from active to passive mean for exchanges? Are we losing the wisdom of the crowds which imbued information into market pricing? Could the market be doing a less effective job than before? You successfully executed dozens of acquisitions during your CEO tenure. What are the keys to good M&A and what are the risks Amazon went public at a $440m valuation. Google at $23B. Facebook at $104B. As companies delay going public for longer, is there concern for public equity investors that there won’t be enough growth left for them after a lofty IPO? You’ve interacted with countless high-profile CEOs. What was your most memorable moment with one of them? What do you consider to be the single most important factor that allowed you to be successful, and what as the single most important factor that limited your success?
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The Hikecast 9
10/25/2019
The Hikecast 9
The Hikecast is a show where interesting people take me on their favorite hikes or walks and we talk about big ideas in an unconstrained format. No planned agendas, just deep conversations, recorded out in nature. The idea is for you to put on The Hikecast and get outside to simulate taking a hike with us. I want you to feel like you're there with us out in nature. Care to join us on a hike? :) My guest for this episode is Nyle Bayer. Nyle is the Chief Marketing Officer at Helios Quantitative Research (HQR), an investment research company which assists financial advisors in creating, implementing, and monitoring quantitative investment strategies for their clients and boasts over $20 billion in assets under influence. Previous to his work at Helios, Nyle served as the President of Up Capital Management, a Registered Investment Advisor and he is the founder of Financial Time Traveler, a financial media company. Nyle is a father of three children, and lives in Roseville, CA with his wife Nicole. We went for an awesome hike in the Sierra Nevadas. Please enjoy this hikecast with Nyle Bayer. ********************* Also, please check out my first literary effort: The Rebel Allocator It’s a coming-of-age story of a young man who learns about business and life from an unlikely teacher. Imagine The Karate Kid meets Thorndike’s The Outsiders. You’re right, it’s probably not what you were expecting, but I have my fingers crossed that you’ll really enjoy it. It's available on amazon now in print, digital, and audiobook formats. With gratitude, Jake
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5GQ Jon Vroman - The Front Row Factor
10/11/2019
5GQ Jon Vroman - The Front Row Factor
Jon Vroman is a husband and father, who also happens to be the founder of FrontRowDads.com and host of the Front Row Dads podcast. His mission is to help high-performing entrepreneurial men be family men with businesses, not businessmen with families. In addition to his business and family, Jon founded FrontRowFoundation.org in 2005, a charity that creates unforgettable moments for individuals who are braving life-threatening illnesses. Ten years later, he published The Front Row Factor, to share “everything you can learn about living life from those fighting for it.” Five Good Questions: 1. What inspired you to found the Front Row Foundation and what lessons has it taught you about your own life? 2. The modern world is full of stress--how have you made friends with stress? 3. How do you balance achievement and fulfillment? (Or is that a false paradigm?) 4. What are some tips for making more and better moments? Where are most of us going wrong? 5. It seems like you’ve done a great job to minimize the big life regrets. Yet recognizing that getting regret to zero might be impossible, what do you think could still be lingering for you personally when your time is up?
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5GQ John Browne - Make, Think, Imagine
09/27/2019
5GQ John Browne - Make, Think, Imagine
In this week's Five Good Questions, we're interviewing Lord John Browne about his book Make, Think, Imagine. John Browne trained as an engineer, was CEO of BP from 1995 to 2007 and remains an influential leader in the energy business. He is Chairman of the Crick Institute, a Fellow of the Royal Society, past President of the Royal Academy of Engineering and former Chairman of Tate. He is a collector of antique books and art and the author of four previous books, including The Glass Closet: Why Coming Out is Good Business. Five Good Questions: 1. Do you have a sense that much of cutting edge technology relies on intervention into complex, nonlinear systems and fattens the probability tails of undesirable outcomes? Said more simply, does technology invite more black swans? 2. What’s the one new tech on the horizon that you’re most excited for? 3. How was the stirrup such a powerful invention and what does it tell us about the future of technology? 4. How did gunpowder ironically lead to greater peace in the world? 5. Investors like Warren Buffett have borrowed the engineering principle of margin of safety for their investment processes. What’s another concept from engineering that might also be useful for us?
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5GQ Mark Simpson - Excellent Investing
09/06/2019
5GQ Mark Simpson - Excellent Investing
In this week's Five Good Questions, we're interviewing Mark Simpson about his book Excellent Investing. Mark is a UK-based deep value investor and author with over 15 years of experience investing in individual securities. He writes about finding sources of edge in the market, investor psychology, avoiding investment mistakes and building better portfolios. Five Good Questions 1. Why do you think the microcap space is inefficient, and how much less efficient is it? 2. Wes Gray has this concept called the “God Portfolio.” What is it and what does it mean to knowing yourself as an investor? 3. What are your thoughts on averaging down when a stock you own drops in price? What are assassins, hunters, and rabbits in this context? 4. A percentage of the Kelly Criterion (½ Kelly or ⅓ Kelly) are popular upper limits for position sizing. What are lower limits and why are they important? 5. What do oxytocin and empathy have to do with story stocks?
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5GQ Maya Peterson - Early Bird
07/12/2019
5GQ Maya Peterson - Early Bird
In this week's Five Good Questions, we're interviewing Maya Peterson about her book Early Bird. https://amzn.to/2FUuQWM Maya Peterson is a current high school student who values the power of investing young, so she wrote a book about it called "Early Bird: The Power of Investing Young" and works to educate those around her about the power of compounding with talks and workshops. Five Good Questions: 1. Where did your passion for investing come from and what inspired you to write a book at such a young age? 2. What are three of your best tips for young investors? 3. Where do you see yourself in ten years? 4. How did you develop a relationship with the Motley Fool? 5. What are some of the dangers of a Peter Lynch-inspired “buy-what-you-know” investment strategy?
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5GQ: Gautam Baid - The Joys of Compounding
06/28/2019
5GQ: Gautam Baid - The Joys of Compounding
In this week's Five Good Questions, we're interviewing Gautam Baid about his book The Joys of Compounding. Gautam Baid is Portfolio Manager at Summit Global Investments, an SEC-registered investment advisor based out of Salt Lake City, Utah. Previously, he served at the Mumbai, London, and Hong Kong offices of Citigroup and Deutsche Bank as Senior Analyst in their investment banking teams. Gautam’s views and opinions have been published on various forums in print, digital, and social media. In 2018, He was profiled in Morningstar’s Learn From The Masters series. Five Good Questions: 1. In your book, you state that “I am a better investor because I am a lifelong learner, and I am a better lifelong learner because I am an investor.” Why is continuous learning so important in investing? 2. What does the equation [Ego = 1 / Knowledge] mean? 3. How has minimalism improved your investment process? 4. Given the increase in the rate of change of business, is there cause for concern about the durability of moats? 5. How do you balance high conviction with maintaining mental flexibility? Disclaimer: The views and opinions expressed by Gautam Baid are solely his own and do not reflect the views of Summit Global Investments. Any recommendations, examples, or other mentions of specific investments or investment opportunities of any kind are strictly provided for informational and educational purposes and do NOT constitute an offering or solicitation, nor should any material herein be construed as investment advice.
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5GQ Ashley Goodall - Nine Lies About Work
06/21/2019
5GQ Ashley Goodall - Nine Lies About Work
In this week's Five Good Questions, we're interviewing Ashley Goodall about his book Nine Lies About Work. Ashley Goodall is an executive, leadership expert, and author. He currently serves as the Senior Vice President of Leadership and Team Intelligence (LTI) at Cisco, a new organization he has built to focus entirely on serving teams and team leaders. He is the co-author, with Marcus Buckingham, of Nine Lies About Work: A Freethinking Leader’s Guide to the Real World and of two cover stories in the Harvard Business Review. 1. In your book you state that culture is a “shared fiction” and similar to plumage. What do you mean by that and what are “we” vs. “me” experiences at work? 2. What’s wrong with management by objectives (MBOs), SMART goals, and Objectives and Key Results (OKRs) that are widely used? 3. What can Lionel Messi teach us about employees? 4. What do “red threads” have to do with work-life balance? 5. As an investor, what are some outside clues that could indicate a good culture exists in a company we might want to invest in? How do we really know?
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5GQ Brandon Miller - Play to Their Strengths
06/07/2019
5GQ Brandon Miller - Play to Their Strengths
In this week's Five Good Questions, we're interviewing Brandon Miller about his book, Play to Their Strengths. Brandon Miller is a certified Strengths Coach through the Gallup Organization and has been coaching and training strengths for over fifteen years. He is CEO of 34 Strong Inc, an employee engagement and strengths-based development consultancy. Five Good Questions: 1. Could you explain the equation “Talent x Investment = Strength”? 2. We always tell children they can be anything they want to be if they work hard. I was surprised when you called that a lie. Why is that common idea wrong? 3. In your book, you talk about the before and after picture of your family, what has changed and how do you measure success? 4. What’s the “positive sandwich” with respect to punishment? 5. What’s the most common mistake parents make, and a possible solution?
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The Hikecast 8
05/31/2019
The Hikecast 8
The Hikecast is a show where interesting people take me on their favorite hikes or walks and we talk about big ideas in an unconstrained format. No planned agendas, just deep conversations, recorded out in nature. The idea is for you to put on The Hikecast and get outside to simulate taking a hike with us. I want you to feel like you're there with us out in nature. Care to join us on a hike? :) My guest for this episode is Bogumil Baranowski. Bogie is a founding partner at Sicart and Associates and previously worked at Tocqueville Asset Management. He's the author of the book Outsmarting the Crowd. We went for a beautiful walk in Central Park in NYC. ********************* Also, please check out my first literary effort: The Rebel Allocator It’s a coming-of-age story of a young man who learns about business and life from an unlikely teacher. Imagine The Karate Kid meets Thorndike’s The Outsiders. You’re right, it’s probably not what you were expecting, but I have my fingers crossed that you’ll really enjoy it. It's available on amazon now in print, digital, and audiobook formats. With gratitude, Jake
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5GQ Barbara Tversky - Mind in Motion
05/24/2019
5GQ Barbara Tversky - Mind in Motion
In this week's Five Good Questions, we're interviewing Barbara Tversky about her book Mind in Motion. Barbara Tversky has three degrees in cognitive psychology at the University of Michigan. She moved to Israel with Israeli husband, learned the language & culture, taught, fought wars, and had 3 kids. Then she was on to Stanford to research memory, categorization, spatial thinking & language, design, diagrams, event cognition. Her kids grew up, her husband died, and she moved to Columbia Teachers College, adding research on gesture, art, creativity, and joint action. Five Good Questions: 1. What are mirror neurons and how do they unite seeing and doing? 2. How do we use spatial reasoning to navigate the world? 3. What is the first law of cognition and what are some examples to help us understand? 4. What makes maps so miraculous? 5. How can insights of your research help investors and professional decision-makers be more effective? And make sure you pick up your copy of the Rebel Allocator, available now on Amazon in digital, physical, and audiobook formats!
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5GQ Mark Moffett - The Human Swarm
05/17/2019
5GQ Mark Moffett - The Human Swarm
In this week's Five Good Questions, we're interviewing Mark Moffett about his book, The Human Swarm. Mark Moffett is a tropical biologist and explorer known for finding rare species and behavior in remote places. His research has extended from the architecture of rainforest canopies to the behavior of army ants. For the last six years he has been merging psychology and anthropology to investigate the role of social identity in holding societies together across species and in humans up to the present day. Five Good Questions 1. What is so remarkable about being able to walk into a modern day coffee shop? 2. What can ants, with their 250k neurons, teach us about human societies? 3. Can we ever get rid of societies? 4. Is it possible the psychological bias known as the “endowment effect” is an artifact of our avoiding violent territorial conflicts? 5. Tell us a funny or surprising anecdote about E.O. Wilson. And make sure you pick up your copy of the Rebel Allocator, available now on Amazon in digital, physical, and audiobook formats!
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The Hikecast 7
04/26/2019
The Hikecast 7
The Hikecast is a show where interesting people take me on their favorite hikes or walks and we talk about big ideas in an unconstrained format. No planned agendas, just deep conversations, recorded out in nature. The idea is for you to put on The Hikecast and get outside to simulate taking a hike with us. I want you to feel like you're there with us out in nature. Care to join us on a hike? :) My guest for this episode is Dan Sheehan. Dan is the general partner of Sheehan Associates Limited Partnership, an investment partnership created in 1999. Dan has a degree in economics from McMaster and an MBA from York. We went on a chilly hike in Toronto. Please enjoy this hikecast with Dan Sheehan. ********************* Also, please check out my first literary effort: The Rebel Allocator It’s a coming-of-age story of a young man who learns about business and life from an unlikely teacher. Imagine The Karate Kid meets Thorndike’s The Outsiders. You’re right, it’s probably not what you were expecting, but I have my fingers crossed that you’ll really enjoy it. It's available on amazon now in print, digital, and audiobook formats. With gratitude, Jake
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5GQ Betsy Atkins - Be Board Ready Part 2
04/12/2019
5GQ Betsy Atkins - Be Board Ready Part 2
In this week's Five Good Questions, we're interviewing Betsy Atkins about her book Be Board Ready. Betsy Atkins is a 3-time CEO, serial entrepreneur & Founder of Baja Corp. Betsy is a corporate governance expert with an eye for making boards a competitive asset. Her corporate board experience is vast and covers multiple industries, she has served on over 27 public boards and been through 13 IPOs. Five Good Questions (PART 2): 1. What should you look for when selecting board members? 2. How can you get the most out of your board? 3. How do you "future proof" your board? 4. From an investor’s perspective, what does a healthy board look like from the outside? 5. What’s the biggest mistake you see management make with board interactions? And make sure you pick up your copy of the Rebel Allocator, available now on Amazon in both digital and physical formats!
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5GQ Betsy Atkins - Be Board Ready Part 1
04/05/2019
5GQ Betsy Atkins - Be Board Ready Part 1
In this week's Five Good Questions, we're interviewing Betsy Atkins about her book Be Board Ready. Betsy Atkins is a 3-time CEO, serial entrepreneur & Founder of Baja Corp. Betsy is a corporate governance expert with an eye for making boards a competitive asset. Her corporate board experience is vast and covers multiple industries, she has served on over 27 public boards and been through 13 IPOs. Five Good Questions (PART 1): 1. What is the best way to get on a board? 2. What are the right or wrong reasons for someone to want to be on a board? 3. What makes for an effective board member? 4. What role do activist investors play? 5. What’s the biggest mistake you see first time board members make? And make sure you pick up your copy of the Rebel Allocator, available now on Amazon in both digital and physical formats!
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5GQ Joshua Miller - I Call Bullsh*t
03/29/2019
5GQ Joshua Miller - I Call Bullsh*t
In this week's Five Good Questions, we're interviewing Josh Miller about his book I Call Bullsh*t. Josh is a Master Certified Executive Coach and a creative leader in the personal and professional development field. His career experience spanned both the advertising world and the world of organizational development. In advertising, he was the Creative Lead. He was responsible for the campaign strategy for Fortune 100 brands. Today, he is an innovator, developing and supporting executive development and change management for many of the same companies. Five Good Questions: 1. You carry a fortune cookie around with you in your wallet. What does it say, and what is the significance? 2. What does it mean to you to live an authentic, happy life? 3. How do we separate out what we want versus what society tells us we’re supposed to want? 4. How do we keep a groove in life from becoming a rut? 5. If you could waive a magic wand and solve one small problem that you see tripping people up, what would you fix? And make sure you pick up your copy of the Rebel Allocator, available now on Amazon in both digital and physical formats!
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The Hikecast 6
03/01/2019
The Hikecast 6
The Hikecast is a show where interesting people take me on their favorite hikes or walks and we talk about big ideas in an unconstrained format. No planned agendas, just deep conversations, recorded out in nature. The idea is for you to put on The Hikecast and get outside to simulate taking a hike with us. I want you to feel like you're there with us out in nature. Care to join us on a hike? :) My guest for this episode is Tobias Carlisle. Toby is principal at Acquirers Funds, LLC, and serves as chief investment officer. He is best known as the author of Acquirer's Multiple, Deep Value, Quantitative Value, and Concentrated Investing. He has extensive experience in investment management, business valuation, public company corporate governance, and corporate law. We went on a blustery morning hike in Southern California. Please enjoy this hikecast with Toby Carlisle. ********************* Also, pick up a copy of my first literary effort: The Rebel Allocator. It’s a coming-of-age story of a young man who learns about business and life from an unlikely teacher. Imagine The Karate Kid meets Thorndike’s The Outsiders. You’re right, it’s probably not what you were expecting, but I have my fingers crossed that you’ll really enjoy it. It's available on amazon now in both print and digital formats. With gratitude, Jake
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5GQ Danielle Town - Invested
02/22/2019
5GQ Danielle Town - Invested
In this week's Five Good Questions, we're interviewing Danielle Town about her book Invested. Danielle Town is a New York Times bestselling author and corporate attorney who was afraid of stock markets until she realized she had been abdicating the power of her money and could create impactful generational wealth with an investing practice. She now invests and writes her newsletter, The Invested Practice, from Zurich, Switzerland. She wrote her book, Invested, with her investor father, Phil Town, with whom she also banters about value investing and life on their podcast, InvestED. Five Good Questions: 1. What kept you from learning about investing until you were in your mid-30s, despite having a dad who is a value investor? How did “voting with your money” draw you into learning about investing and help you overcome your fears? 2. I’ve long been fascinated by the “intangibles” of the investment process, like time management, mental and physical preparation, and environmental design. How did you curate your investment environment for success? 3. As a corporate attorney, you got a firsthand view of the asymmetry of information between what gets reported and what’s really happening in the messy world of business. How do you reconcile that in your analysis of a public company where that same asymmetry may exist? 4. Charlie Munger recently said, “If you have trouble finding good investments, join the club… my advice to the seeker of high compound interest is to reduce your expectations. Things are likely to be tough for a while.” My impression was that your dad might have piqued your interest in investing by showing you the magic of compounding returns. Do you think the returns of the last 20-30 years be available to us over the next 20-30 years? 5. How has your background in meditation helped you in investing? And make sure you pick up your copy of the Rebel Allocator, available now on Amazon in both digital and physical formats!
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5GQ Kenneth Jeffrey Marshall - Good Stocks Cheap
02/08/2019
5GQ Kenneth Jeffrey Marshall - Good Stocks Cheap
In this week's Five Good Questions, we're interviewing Kenneth Jeffrey Marshall about his book Good Stocks Cheap. Kenneth Jeffrey Marshall teaches value investing at the Stockholm School of Economics in Sweden, and at Stanford University. He also teaches asset management at UC Berkeley. A longtime value investor, he wrote the book Good Stocks Cheap: Value Investing with Confidence for a Lifetime of Stock Market Outperformance. He holds a BA in Economics from UCLA; and an MBA from Harvard. Five Good Questions: 1. Can you walk us through how you built your investing model? I especially liked your ideas that organize efforts around “Know what to do,” “Do it,” and “Don’t do anything else.” 2. Your book demonstrates a clear understanding of accounting. Has the rise of intangibles changed how you use and interpret financial statements? 3. There have been some great studies and white papers on reversion to the mean on returns on invested capital. Do those influence your evaluation of strategic assessment? Are we ever going to see profit margins mean revert again? 4. One of the biases you identify is called “miscontrast.” Can you explain what that is? Do you consider yourself an absolute or relative value investor? (It feels like a lot of the 13F ideas I’ve kicked the tires on the last few years during an expensive market suffer from this biases.) 5. What are the ancillary, non-monetary benefits you’ve found to being an investor? And make sure you pick up your copy of the Rebel Allocator, available now on Amazon in both digital and physical formats!
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The Hikecast 5
02/01/2019
The Hikecast 5
The Hikecast is a show where interesting people take me on their favorite hikes or walks and we talk about big ideas in an unconstrained format. No planned agendas, just deep conversations, recorded out in nature. The idea is for you to put on The Hikecast and get outside to simulate taking a hike with us. I want you to feel like you're there with us out in nature. Care to join us on a hike? :) My guest for this episode is Kim House. Kim has been an ordained Zen Buddhist Teacher since 2008. When not leading meditation and guiding students with their mindfulness practice, he works as an information technology consultant specializing in helping non-profits. Kim lives in Wisconsin in the warmer months with his wife. In the winter months Kim is often at his son and daughter-in-law's retreat center (floretreatcenter.org) in Uvita, Costa Rica. Kim helps with meditation at the many yoga and wellness retreats held at Flo. We went on a balmy afternoon hike near Uvita, Costa Rica. Please enjoy this hikecast with Kim House. ********************* Also, I'm announcing the release of my first literary effort: The Rebel Allocator It’s a coming-of-age story of a young man who learns about business and life from an unlikely teacher. Imagine The Karate Kid meets Thorndike’s The Outsiders. You’re right, it’s probably not what you were expecting, but I have my fingers crossed that you’ll really enjoy it. It's available on amazon now in both print and digital formats. With gratitude, Jake
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5GQ Brent Beshore - The Messy Marketplace
01/25/2019
5GQ Brent Beshore - The Messy Marketplace
In this week's Five Good Questions, we're interviewing Brent Beshore about his new book, The Messy Marketplace. Brent is the founder and CEO of adventur.es, a family of companies that acquires family-owned companies. He recently published “The Messy Marketplace: Selling Your Business in a World of Imperfect Buyers” and lives in Columbia, MO with his wife and three daughters. Five Good Questions: 1. There’s a tremendous amount of information that needs to be sorted through before a buyer can get comfortable purchasing an entire business. What percentage of information do you shoot for before making that final decision? 2. Like any investment, you often have to pay up for quality. What’s your thought process as you balance the quality of the business versus your purchase price? 3. How do you assess capital allocation skills in a small business? 4. What’s the most preventable deal breaker you see sellers making on a regular basis? What about buyers? 5. After analyzing more than 10,000 deals, what’s been the craziest clause you’ve ever seen in a contract? And make sure you pick up your copy of the Rebel Allocator, available now on Amazon in both digital and physical formats!
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