Five Good Questions Podcast: Recent Episodes

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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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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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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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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?

1. 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?

2. 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?)

3. What’s the most pervasive and pernicious myth in finance that just won’t die?

4. What’s the most likely mistake a business analyst will make over the next decade?

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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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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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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 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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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

1. Perhaps you could explain what Job to Be Done (JTBD) and Customer Jobs mean through the example of buying a Snickers vs. Milky Way?
2. What is the problem with Chasing Visible Figures and how it relates to creative destruction?
3. What are the forces of progress and how do they fit with JTBD?
4. What do systems have to do with innovation?
5. What does Clayton Christensen have wrong?

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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:

1. What do you think about the online brokerages now charging $0 for most trades?
2. 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?
3. You successfully executed dozens of acquisitions during your CEO tenure. What are the keys to good M&A and what are the risks
4. 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?
5. 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 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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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 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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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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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 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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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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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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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 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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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?

1. 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?

2. 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?

3. 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?

4. 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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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!

View Details

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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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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In this week's Five Good Questions, we're interviewing James Clear about his book Atomic Habits.

James is an author, entrepreneur, and photographer. He writes about habits and human potential on his website JamesClear.com. His focus is self-improvement that is supported by scientific research. James’s work ends up being one-part storytelling, one-part academic research, one-part personal experimentation.

Five Good Questions: 

1. What makes being thoughtful about our habits so important?
2. What are a few best practices for good habit hygiene?
3. What habit would you guess is a commonality among great investors? Or maybe, we should invert and ask what are the bad habits of investing? I’m imagining checking stock prices too often has to be up there?
4. Is there a dark side to habits? Is it possible that too much structure can sap away spontaneity, joie de vivre, and being present?
5. What’s the one bad habit that’s been hardest for you to personally break?

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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 Darren Virassammy. Darren is the founder of 34Strong, a strengths-based coaching and consulting agency. His company has been recognized as one of the fastest growing in his area. Darren and I met in our first year of business school and we've been fast friends ever since, and I've always loved his infectious positive energy.

We went on a crisp morning hike around Folsom Lake, CA.

Please enjoy this hikecast with Darren Virassammy.

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. I’m looking at a December release date and am so excited to get this out to you.

With gratitude,
Jake

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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 Brad Kearns. Brad is the host of the podcast "Get Over Yourself." He's also a NYT best selling author, a Guinness World Recorder holding speed golfer, and the former #3 world-ranked pro triathlete.

We had perfect weather for a hike in my backyard of Folsom Lake, CA.

Please enjoy this hikecast with Brad Kearns.

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. I’m looking at a December release date and am so excited to get this out to you.

With gratitude,
Jake

View Details

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 Christopher Kelly. Chris is the founder of Nourish Balance Thrive, a functional medicine practice for athletes.  He is a computer scientist and pro mountain biker.  Chris was doing machine learning for a hedge fund when chronic health issues lead him tackling health for himself.  All of that learning lead him to founding his own company to help others.  He's one of my favorite thinkers in the space and his NBT podcast is a treasure trove of health info.

We went on a gorgeous hike near his home in Santa Cruz, CA.

Please enjoy this hikecast with Chris Kelly.

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Hi there!

I hope you're having a great 2017!  Here's a quick video update while we're between seasons of Five Good Questions.

Topics include:
Omaha
Toronto
Mexico
Lake Shasta
Ireland

A business development

2 recent books I enjoyed

Plus, a big reveal at the end...

See you soon for Season 4!

With gratitude,

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Aswath Damodaran holds the Kerschner Family Chair in Finance Education and is Professor of Finance at New York University Stern School of Business. Before coming to Stern, he also lectured in Finance at the University of California, Berkeley. He has been voted "Professor of the Year" by the graduating M.B.A. class five times during his career at NYU and was profiled in Business Week as one of the top 12 U.S. business school professors. Professor Damodaran currently teaches Corporate Finance and Equity Instruments & Markets. His research interests include Information and Prices, Real Estate, and Valuation.

1. Why has access to increased data and computing power ironically made us more dependent on and susceptible to storytelling?

2. What makes numbers so powerful? How do we guard against being fooled by numbers, especially when we’re fooling ourselves?

3. There seems to be competition amongst many firms on who has the most “unbiased” process and is the most quantitatively-driven. What are some potential shortcomings of being so quant focused?

4. Your book is chock full of great insights on some of the biggest business and investing stories over the last few years including, Amazon, Uber, Valeant, Ferrari, GoPro, Yahoo and Vale. To take one interesting example, can you walk us through how both numbers and narrative impacted your valuation of Uber?

5. What’s the one narrative today that’s likely to eventually cause the most financial pain over the next 3-5 years?

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Sean Iddings is co-founder of the Intelligent Fanatics Project which helps investors and entrepreneurs see further by standing on the shoulders of organizational and leadership giants. The book series, of the same name co-authored by Ian Cassel, is the introduction into the overall project. Sean is also a member of MicroCapClub and runs Unconventional Capital Wisdom, a registered investment advisor in New York State.

http://amzn.to/2nQlEu2

1. What is an “intelligent fanatic,” and why do we want to recognize them as investors? What are some qualities you didn’t like in some of the leaders or their organizations you highlighted in the book? Why?

2. Who was John Patterson and how did he embody an intelligent fanatic?

3. Finding a Jeff Bezos or Warren Buffett after they’re big and famous seems easy. How do we find an intelligent fanatic early enough to invest in them to really see the benefits? Are there markers we can look for a priori to success?

4. A large addressable market with a big runway for growth was a common theme among everyone profiled. The timing also happened to coincide with an epoch of unprecedented economic growth in the US. If you consider that the tide might not be coming in as quickly in the developed world as it once was, are the spectacular results of an intelligent fanatic still replicable?

5.Many of the intelligent fanatics chose a lowest-cost-provider business model to succeed. Is that the most likely way to succeed for them? Or are there others who were able to create differentiated products instead?

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Dr. Michael Shermer is the Founding Publisher of Skeptic magazine, a monthly columnist for Scientific American, a regular contributor to Time.com, and Presidential Fellow at Chapman University. His new book is "Skeptic: Viewing the World with a Rational Eye." He is also the author of “The Moral Arc: How Science and Reason Lead Humanity Toward Truth, Justice, and Freedom”, “The Believing Brain: From Ghosts and Gods to Politics and Conspiracies”, “The Mind of the Market”, “Why Darwin Matters: Evolution and the Case Against Intelligent Design”, and “The Science of Good and Evil”. He has been a college professor since 1979, also teaching at Occidental College, Glendale College, and Claremont Graduate University, where he taught a transdisciplinary course for Ph.D. students on Evolution, Economics, and the Brain. As a public intellectual he regularly contributes Opinion Editorials, book reviews, and essays to the Wall Street Journal, the Los Angeles Times, Science, Nature, and other publications.

Dr. Shermer received his B.A. in psychology from Pepperdine University, M.A. in experimental psychology from California State University, Fullerton, and his Ph.D. in the history of science from Claremont Graduate University. He appeared on such shows as The Colbert Report, 20/20, Dateline, Charlie Rose, and Larry King Live. His two TED talks, seen by millions, were voted in the top 100 of the more than 1000 TED talks.

1. How has reasoning and scientific thinking changed the way we view morality and created a more just world?

2. Why do people think that things are bad and getting worse when, in fact, they are good and getting better? That is, why all the doom and gloom pessimism when optimism and gratitude should be the response to all the progress we have realized in our time?

3. There are many reasonable and smart people on both sides of the climate change issue. What are your thoughts these days?

4. There are many products that seem to fall into the “can’t hurt, might help” category. Is there anything wrong with taking advantage of the placebo effect?

5. Are there any investment takeaways from your research and insights?

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Dov Baron has been sharing his wisdom and expertise privately and on international stages with professional leaders for more than 30 years. He has interviewed and worked with leaders featured on Oprah, Ellen, CNN, Fox, MSNBC, CBS, Huffington Post, Larry King, New York Times, Washington Post, Forbes, and the Wall Street Journal.

Dov was named by Inc Magazine as one of the Top 100 Leadership Speakers.
His current podcast “Leadership and Loyalty Tips for Executives” is the #1 podcast for Fortune 500 Executives.

In addition to being a speaker, author, and a radio host, Dov Baron is the leading authority on Authentic Leadership and creating a corporate culture that generates fierce loyalty, particularly when dealing with Millennials.

http://amzn.to/2m2KMhE

1. Why is loyalty the single most important characteristic of any organization?

2. It’s easy to imagine finding meaning if you work for the Red Cross, Patagonia, or maybe Whole Foods. But if you’re in a more “regular” business, how do you find that all-important meaning for you and your employees? Especially given that surveys find doing meaningful work as highly important to millennials?

3.What’s a Chief Relationship Officer?

1. Vulnerability is a hot topic these days, and everyone agrees that it’s an important part of leadership. But what are some tactics we use to actually be vulnerable, especially if it’s not something we’re predisposed toward?

2. What are the 4 C’s?

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Maureen Monte is a leadership and team consultant with over ten years experience in building winning teams. She has a BS & MS in Mechanical Engineering and an MS in Leadership and her client list includes Kellogg, SalesForce, Huntington National Bank, and La-Z-Boy. She is the author of Destination Unstoppable which documents the true story of helping a talented but dysfunctional boys varsity hockey team become state champions - in six weeks. Her process works in the locker room and the board room!

1. How did an elite high school hockey team become the narrative of your story?

2. Why are sports teams such an apt environment for strengths-based work?

3. What’s the secret to good team chemistry? How about outside of the sports world?

4. What’s an abundance mindset and why is it so important to cultivate it? Does our society have a bias toward some strengths?

5. What’s a trust bank?

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David Hassell is the founder and CEO of 15Five, the leading web-based employee feedback and alignment solution that is transforming the way employees and managers communicate. Named "The Most Connected Man You Don't Know in Silicon Valley" by Forbes Magazine, David has also been featured in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Inc., Entrepreneur, Wired, Fast Company, and the Financial Post. You can learn more about 15Five and David Hassell at www.15five.com.

1. Children ask upwards of 300 questions per day. As adults we only ask a handful. Why do we change, and are we missing something as adults by asking fewer and less thoughtful questions?

2. You have two “must ask” questions every boss should be asking. What are they, and why are they so effective?

3. What are some tips for managing introverts?

4. What are the best questions to ask to help a remote team succeed?

5. How have you personally used asking better questions to influence the evolution and success of your company, 15 Five?

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Jack Vogel, Ph.D., conducts research in empirical asset pricing and behavioral finance, and is a co-author of two books: DIY FINANCIAL ADVISOR: A Simple Solution to Build and Protect Your Wealth and QUANTITATIVE MOMENTUM. His academic background includes experience as an instructor and research assistant at Drexel University in both the Finance and Mathematics departments, as well as a Finance instructor at Villanova University. Dr. Vogel is currently a Managing Member of Alpha Architect, LLC, an SEC-Registered Investment Advisor, where he heads the research department and serves as the Chief Financial Officer and co-CIO. He has a PhD in Finance and a MS in Mathematics from Drexel University, and graduated summa cum laude with a BS in Mathematics and Education from The University of Scranton.

http://amzn.to/2kXjWnh

1. Let’s start with some basic definitions that seem to trip people up. What are the differences between “growth” and “momentum” strategies?

2. You argue in your book that value and momentum investing are like cousins, or two sides of the same behavioral coin. So why does the idea of momentum investing remain so repulsive to most value investors? Why the religious zealotry in an industry that prides itself on being hyper-rational?

3. If you’re index fund investor, you’re effectively investing in both value and growth strategies at all times. Why might you be better off with a basket made up of value + momentum instead?

4. There are so many different ways to slice momentum. What criteria did you find that worked to define the quality of momentum and what were some reasons all momentum isn’t created equally? And where does trend following fit in? Is there any timing information in momentum?

5. For a concentrated value investor, can adding momentum be as simple as, if individual Stock A and Stock B are on par, pick the one with the strongest relative strength? Or are you in favor of a more diversified approach?

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In this week's Five Good Questions, we're interviewing Erik Kobayashi-Solomon about his book The Intelligent Options Investor.

Erik Kobayashi-Solomon is a 20-year veteran of investment banking, hedge funds, and third-party analysis industry. He is also the co-founder of IOI Investor Services, LLC, a company that helps institutional and individual investors close the gap between their investment responsibility and their skill set. His book, The Intelligent Option Investor, was published by McGraw-Hill as a well-regarded contribution to the value investing community.

1. Many value investors may feel like options are dangerous, I know I did. Why was I wrong to be fearful and how can options be a useful tool for an investor?

2. Assuming your analysis leads you to believe a company is undervalued, why might options be better expression than just buying and holding? What about the element of timing that options introduce?

3. If you don’t believe in the Efficient Market Hypothesis, why should you be especially attracted to options investing?

4. What is delta, and what can it tell us about Mr. Market?

5. What are LEAPS and are they a good first step for a traditional value investor to dip their toe in the options water? How would address the concern that an investor might feel about getting comfortable with the relative trade-offs of premium price vs. tenor and strike price?

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Suzanne Heywood is a Managing Director of EXOR. Suzanne grew up sailing around the world on the Schooner Wavewalker (she is currently writing another book, “Wavewalker” about this experience which included getting shipwrecked in the Indian Ocean). After university she started her professional career in the UK Government at the Treasury and then went on to become a Senior Partner at the management consultancy firm McKinsey. Suzanne is also a board member of CNH Industrial and The Economist and Deputy Chairman of the Royal Opera House. She has a MA from Oxford University and PhD from Cambridge University. Suzanne is an expert in organizational design and for many years led work on this topic for McKinsey globally.

1. What are the keys to effective communications with employees during a reorg?
2. Walk us through what a successful reorg looks like.
3. What’s the 20-30-50 rule of thumb?
4. What are the biggest mistakes made during a reorg? Why do reorganisations fail?
5. If you have to let someone go, what are some creative ways to do so in a classy and humane way?

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Alex Soojung-Kim Pang is the founder of The Restful Company and a visiting scholar at Stanford.   He spent more than a decade as a science and technology forecaster, most recently as a senior consultant at Strategic Business Insights. Alex received a Ph.D. in History and Sociology of Science from the University of Pennsylvania.

http://amzn.to/2jmwHcM

Five Good Questions:

1. What’s Wallas’s four-stage model of creativity?

2.What’s the Default Mode Network?

1. Our society idolizes the 80-100 hour work week as a requirement for success.  How do you explain the paradox of the most productive and creative people working much less than that?  Also, what is this notion of “deep play” that a lot of creative people practice?

2. What was a Bill Gates’s “Think Week” and what can we learn from it?

3. How has your daily, weekly, monthly, and yearly schedule changed based on what you learned writing a book about rest?  How has it impacted how you think about work and creativity?

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Marko Dimitrijevic is the founder and chairman of Volta Global, a private investment group in venture capital, private equity, real estate, and public markets. Marko Dimitrijevic has more than 35 years investing experience and has founded and managed two investment management companies with over $3 billion in assets. He is the author of Frontier Investor: How to Prosper in the Next Emerging Markets. Marko is a pioneer in conducting on-the-ground due diligence, particularly in frontier markets.

http://amzn.to/2jNNx0N

1. Can you give us a feel for how bad the home country bias is, and why it exists?

2. Let’s talk about some execution details. Aside from a passport, how do you research frontier markets? Would an individual’s best bet be country specific ETFs? What are your thoughts about hedging currency risk?

3. Which investment style pairs best with frontier market investing? Deep value, GARP, activist something else?

4. What’s the story of the evolution of Singapore and how does it illustrate the success of frontier market investing? Where’s the next Singapore?

5. Economic progress has typically followed the pattern of farming to manufacturing to service / knowledge economy. Is it possible that the disruption of robots and AI which are already displacing human labor will make it impossible for frontier countries to gain a foothold on the ladder?

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Samuel Arbesman is a complexity scientist and Scientist in Residence at Lux Capital. He is also a Senior Fellow of the Silicon Flatirons Center for Law, Technology, and Entrepreneurship at the University of Colorado and a Research Fellow of the Long Now Foundation. In addition to Overcomplicated, he is the author of The Half-Life of Facts.

http://amzn.to/2iU3Mst

Five Good Questions:

1. I view this book as a beautiful blend of technology and philosophy. What is the difference between “complicated” and “complex” in your view?
2. What is “the kluge” and how is becoming an impactful part of our lives?
3. How is a top-down, physics-inspired approach to technology losing ground to a bottom-up, biology-inspired approach?
4. What are some ways we can fight the increasing complication we see in technology? What’s a T-shaped individual?
5. Is it just part of human nature to seek band-aid solutions which add to the eventual complexity and frailty of our systems?

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Martin Ford is a futurist and the founder of a Silicon Valley-based software development firm. He has over 25 years experience in the fields of computer design and software development. He holds a computer engineering degree from the University of Michigan and a graduate business degree from the University of California, Los Angeles. Martin is an expert on the subject of accelerating progress in robotics and artificial intelligence—and what these advances mean for the economy, job market and society of the future.

http://amzn.to/2iU3q5j

1. The decimation of the value of human labor due to technology has been proclaimed and proven wrong for time immemorial. Humans have always found new ways to contribute and avoid obsolescence, transitioning from hunter gatherers to farmers to manufacturing workers to service providers. Why is this time different?
2. Why are white collar jobs the most at risk? Are there any industries that may be a last stand for human labor?
3. What are the investment implications of a world where robots allow for most of the gains to flow through to capital owners and there’s nothing left for labor? Are we heading toward a type of technofeudalism?
4. I lean libertarian in my views, but you convincingly advocate for a basic guaranteed income, which sounds very socialist on the surface. I was surprised to see Friedrich Hayek was also a strong proponent. Can you explain your reasoning, especially in the context as a technological dividend for society?
5. In your view, does the singularity look more like the movie Wall-E where humans become feeble and are cared for by benevolent robots, or more like The Matrix where the robots eventually want to enslave us to protect themselves from humans pulling the plug? Or maybe a third option?

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Adam Kucharski is an assistant professor in the Department of Infectious Disease Epidemiology at the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine.  His research uses mathematical and statistical models to understand disease outbreaks.  In 2014, he was recruited to analyze the Ebola epidemic in West Africa.  Adam earned his PhD in applied maths at the University of Cambridge.

1. What is it about gambling that seems to attract world-class mathematicians throughout history?

2. What mathematical techniques have been best applied successfully to gambling?

3. What was the genesis and evolution of Monte Carlo simulation?  What are its shortcoming?

4. Why is poker such a good challenge for artificial intelligence?

5. In free chess, computers-plus-human hybrids are still currently getting the best of computer-only opponents.  What are the implications for other domains like gambling and investing?

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Julius Bailey is an Associate Professor of Philosophy at Wittenberg University. He is a philosopher, cultural critic, social theorist, and diversity lecturer. Julius is the founder of Project Eight, a youth service organization that focuses on leadership and civic participation. He holds Masters Degrees from Howard (Philosophy) and Harvard Universities (Af Am Studies) and a Doctorate from University of Illinois (Philosophy and Education).

1. How would you define “hip-hop”? A lot of people confuse it with rap music, but it’s really so much more culturally, right?
2. How did gangsta rap impact hip-hop?
3. Warren Buffett has often espoused following your own personal inner-scorecard. How does that tie in with hip-hop and authenticity?
4. There appears to be a zero-sum-game mentality with many MCs where they build their reputation through bragging about their own success and dissing or diminishing others. I know my personal favorite artists have been the ones who are more vulnerable and less about describing money, cars, alcohol, and women. How have rapper’s philosophic outlooks evolved over time?
5. Who’s on your Hip-Hop Mount Rushmore?

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John Burke serves as the President of Trek Bicycle Corporation. John joined Trek Bicycle Corporation, which his father founded in 1984, and has been its CEO since 1997. He served as chairman of President George W. Bush's President's Council on Physical Fitness & Sports. John is an avid cyclist who has finished Ironman Wisconsin twice as well as completing the Boston and New York Marathons.

http://amzn.to/2fBYYGa

1. You describe yourself as independent, and it’s clear you don’t care which side of the aisle an idea comes from if it makes sense to you. How do we break the stranglehold the two parties seem to have right now?

2. If you could make only three specific changes, what would they be? What are the prime movers we might focus on to make the biggest differences?

3. It seems like one party wants to “do more with more” and one leans toward “do less with less.” With technology constantly increasing human capabilities, how come no one is saying “let’s do more with less”? Is a low-performance government just a given?

4. Is Social Security truly fixable? Or will we just default slowly through printing and watering down our fixed liabilities?

5. What can we do to fix a tax code that so clearly plays favorites and is overly complicated?

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Benjamin Bergen is a professor of Cognitive Science at UC San Diego.  He teaches and does research on language and the brain.  Ben’s the author of two books; Louder than Words, which proposes a new theory of how people understand the meanings of words, and What The F: What Swearing Reveals About Our Language, Our Brains, and Ourselves.  He earned a PhD in Linguistics from UC Berkeley.

http://amzn.to/2fTisa9

1. Is there truth to the myth that swear words come from a different part of our brains?  What’s aphasia?

2. How do swear words operate with their own grammar?  It seems like fuck is a Swiss Army Knife of words.

3. There appears to be a Gresham’s Law to swear words where once a word takes on a taboo meaning, it drives out all of it’s non-profane meanings.  How do swear words evolve?

4. What’s the story behind Samoan children’s first word?

5. Is the internet leading to a homogenization of swearing?  It seems like new swear words could bubble up more readily through the use of hashtags, but are we also losing some local color in the process?

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In this week's Five Good Questions, we're interviewing Sundeep Bajikar about his book Equity Research for the Technology Investor.
http://amzn.to/2elyFVD

Sundeep Bajikar is a portfolio manager of the Acteve Model Portfolio, which is based on a value investing philosophy and process described in his book Equity Research for the Technology Investor. Previously, Sundeep was a Wall Street analyst for 9 years at Morgan Stanley & Jefferies. He spent the 9 years before that in the technology industry at Intel. He holds an MBA in Finance from Wharton, and M.S. degrees in Electrical and Mechanical Engineering from the University of Minnesota.

Five Good Questions:

1. If you’re a generalist investor, do you have any business venturing into technology investments? Or are you setting yourself up for failure by venturing outside your circle of competence? Or is it that exact mindset that creates the opportunities?
2. What are your views on discussing investments with others? It seems like a difficult balance of gaining valuable insight vs. tainting your own views?
3. There are so much data out there. What do you focus on? What’s your key message to individual investors?
4. Most historical “technology” investments (airplanes, cars, radios, internet) have shown a few big winners, but mostly a lot of zeroes for shareholders. It seems all the value flows through to the consumer. How do you avoid that as an investor?
5. With such a wide range of outcomes in tech, how do you handicap the odds and magnitudes of different outcomes to get a ballpark of a probabilistic future?

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In this week's Five Good Questions, we're interviewing Malcolm Balk about his book The Art of Running.
http://amzn.to/2dUpCvI

Malcolm Balk is a runner, coach, Alexander Technique teacher, cellist, and father of two based in Montreal, Quebec. Malcolm trains colleagues from the Alexander world to teach The Art of Running which is based on his book of the same title and which aims to help runners improve their performance and enjoyment.

Five Good Questions:

1. Who was Alexander, what was his technique, and how does it relate to running?
2. What is S.M.A.R.T. running?
3. In our achievement-driven society, emphasis is placed results over process. Your book argues putting process over results, which happens to fit with how some of the best investment thinkers view the world. Why do you put process over results?
4. What’s the mantra/checklist I should be telling myself while I’m running to maintain good form?
5. What’s the connection between running and deep thinking exercises, like reading?

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In this week's Five Good Questions, we're interviewing Jeremy Miller about his book Warren Buffett's Ground Rules.
http://amzn.to/2fibqAi

Jeremy Miller is a research analyst at a large New York-based asset manager.

Five Good Questions:

1. Having thoroughly read the partnership letters and presumably followed Buffett closely after that period, what percent of Buffett’s current wisdom would you guess he had by 1970 when he closed the partnerships?
2. Who was Harry Bottle, and why was he so critical to the decentralized model of what Berkshire has become?
3. Everyone remembers American Express as a formative investment for Buffett because he moved from purely quantitative to more qualitative, but a strong argument could be made that his Dempster investment was also highly formative. What did he learn from that experience?
4. Buffett has famously said that he believes he could still do 50% per year on a small portfolio. Do you agree or disagree with his claim?
5. What’s the difference between conservative and conventional?

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In this week's Five Good Questions, we're interviewing Jeff Gramm about his book Dear Chairman.
http://amzn.to/2eQaVZV

Jeff manages a hedge fund and teaches value investing at Columbia Business School. His recently published book, Dear Chairman: Boardroom Battles and the Rise of Shareholder Activism, has been praised as "a terrific read" by Andrew Ross Sorkin in the New York Times, "a revelation" by the Financial Times, "a grand story" by The Wall Street Journal, and “an engaging and informative book” by The New Yorker.

1. I’ve heard you previously interviewed and have been impressed with your thoughts around governance and board dynamics. How can boards help management make better strategic decisions, especially with respect to capital allocation?
2. I’ve heard Munger say you could teach an entire MBA just from studying GM. Could you walk us through some of your insights, specifically during the period of Ross Perot’s involvement?
3. Of all of the stories, which one was your favorite to research?
4. We all see these major headlines of activists battling with management, but what percent of the work would you guess is being done behind the scenes?
5. The arc of activism seems to have gone from Graham’s “would you mind releasing some of these pent up assets, please?” to Icahn’s 1980s hostile takeovers to Loeb’s poison pen and quite personal attacks. Maybe it’s softening a little from there? Where do you see the future of activism going from here?

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Wrapping up Season 2 of Five Good Questions.

Hi!

We hope you enjoyed Season 2 of Five Good Questions. I'm still in awe at the intellectual generosity of these amazing authors!

It's time for me to hit the road for shareholder meeting season. If you'll be in Toronto for Fairfax or in Omaha for Berkshire, shoot me an email or come up and say hi. I'd love to meet you and chat.

I'll also be traveling to China for a few weeks of exploring with my wife. We're evening doing a marathon on the Great Wall-- wish me luck!

I've already got a massive stack of books cued up for next season, and I may or may not be working on my own book. More details to follow...

Thank you again for supporting 5GQ's mission of creating more inspired readers.

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Jason Zweig is an investing columnist at The Wall Street Journal and editor of Benjamin Graham’s The Intelligent Investor. He's also author of Your Money and Your Brain (2007), on the neuroscience and psychology of financial decision-making, and The Devil’s Financial Dictionary (2015), a satirical glossary of Wall Street jargon.

1. The entire book was written with tongue in cheek and there are some hilarious definitions. What inspired you to write a book of this nature?

2. I enjoyed the entry on the term “panic” and how it related in multiple ways to the Greek god Pan. Can you explain the multiple parallels that exist?

3. I like to imagine two intersecting continuums for intelligent investing. On one of them is a “be the casino” approach most like Joel Greenblatt vs. a highly concentrated, individual company research like how Charlie Munger ran his fund. On the second continuum you have an all-weather, always-invested-and-rebalancing approach most like Ray Dalio vs. a fear-and-greed, holding-cash-for-opportunities-approach of Seth Klarman. In which quadrant would you find yourself drawn to or at least want your money managed?
   [All Weather]

↑

[Be the casino] ← → [Concentration]

↓

[Opportunistic]

1. I found it surprising to be reminded how much of the terminology of Wall Street is derived from gambling parlance. “Making a bet,” “blue chip,” etc. Do you believe that the markets are like large casinos or do they actually serve to allocate resources to worthy enterprises?

2. What is the one quality people should work hardest to cultivate in order to succeed as investors?

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Edward Chancellor is a financial historian, journalist and investment strategist. In 2008, he joined GMO’s asset allocation team. He graduated from Trinity College, Cambridge with first class honours in Modern History, and from St Antony's College, Oxford with a Masters of Philosophy in Modern History. He is a former deputy US editor for Breakingviews.com, and worked for Lazard Brothers in the early 1990s. Edward is the author of Capital Account, Devil Take the Hindmost, and Capital Returns.

1. Let’s start with the basics: what is the Capital Cycle theory? I’d seen it explained in different ways over the years, but never this clearly and obviously. I feel kind of dumb for not understanding sooner the seemingly larger investment implications of this theory.
2. What’s a real life example that most clearly illustrates a successful investment using the Capital Cycle theory framework? Additionally, what do you make of the game theory aspects of individual companies faced with competition over-investing in their industry?
3. How does the Capital Cycle theory of investment different from value investing? Isn’t the goal of both to buy during peak pessimism? For Capital Cycle, you’re buying when management is pessimistic and not re-investing in a low return environment. For value investing, you’re buying when the market is depressed about the future prospects of the business. What’s the difference, if there is one?
4. Where have investors gone wrong when using the Capital Cycle theory? I’m imagining a technologically obsolete industry facing extinction, say the wagonwheel industry. At some point there were no real returns on invested capital in that business to be had. Might we mistakenly expect a low point in the cycle to rebound when really it’s heading to zero?
5. Other than in-person meetings to determine if the subject is even on their radar, how do you properly evaluate management’s capital allocation skills? Let’s take Jeff Bezos. He’s been re-investing in Amazon continually for a few decades with very distant future return prospects. Is that good capital allocation or madness? How can we tell the difference?

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Steve Kamb is the founder of NerdFitness.com, a worldwide fitness community dedicated to helping nerds, desk jockeys, and self-aware robots level up their lives. He's also the author of the book, Level Up Your Life, that gives people a blueprint for prioritizing adventure, growth, and happiness by turning life into a giant video game.

1. Video games often get a bad rap as large time-sucks. This may be fair in some instances, but how have video games shaped your personal development?
2. I loved how you demolished two of the most common excuses people use: “I don’t have time” and “I can’t afford it.” Can you explain what those excuses really mean and how they hold people back?
3. You’ve checked some pretty cool adventure boxes already. How do we go about building our own awesome life quests?
4. There’s a popular saying that we are the average of the five people we spend the most time around. Who are the type of people we should seek to surround ourselves with? Everyone assumes the generic: “people better than us,” but you had a more nuanced view in your book which I found helpful.
5. How have your thoughts on health and fitness evolved since you first founded nerdfitness, and what’s your current routine look like given that you’re likely managing more balls in the air than ever?

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Meb Faber is a co-founder and the Chief Investment Officer of Cambria Investment Management. Faber is the manager of Cambria’s ETFs, separate accounts and private investment funds. Mr. Faber has authored numerous white papers and several books: Global Asset Allocation, Shareholder Yield, The Ivy Portfolio, Global Value, and Invest with the House. He is a frequent speaker and writer on investment strategies and has been featured in Barron’s, The New York Times, and The New Yorker. Mr. Faber graduated from the University of Virginia with a double major in Engineering Science and Biology.

1. It seems like a basket composed of each gurus’ highest conviction pick would be a smart strategy. Yet you found their top pick was the worst performer of their top 10! How is that possible? And what can we do to benefit from that information?
2. If I believed in following a copycat 13F strategy, how would I go about doing that in an intelligent, systematic manner?
3. Only 25% of stocks are responsible for all of the market’s gains. What implication does this have for stock picking vs. indexing?
4. As ETFs proliferate and various strategies become available, do you think people will still pay 2% and 20% for these kind of strategies when you could have all of them for a fraction of the expense?
5. I know this doesn’t fit your investing style, but if you had to pick one of these managers to invest 100% of your net worth, who would it be and why? You have to factor in age and length of potential service to you.

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Bogumil K. Baranowski is a New York City-based value investor, author, and investment professional with over a decade of experience. He works at Tocqueville Asset Management, where he is the founder and portfolio manager of a private investment fund. He was born in Poland, educated in Paris and Brussels. He enjoys making a difference in people's lives through writing and teaching. He is the author of Outsmarting the Crowd: A Value Investor's Guide to Starting, Building, and Keeping a Family Fortune.

1. I loved that you stressed the importance of saving. I repeatedly tell clients that saving is the most important part, and if they do that correctly, they don’t really need me on the investment front. When you think about the path to wealth, it goes Earn, Save, Invest. Most of us can’t control how much we earn day to day, or our investment returns. Yet we all can control how much we save. Why does the world seem preoccupied with earning and investing and ignores saving?
2. You’re a fan of averaging down slowly, perhaps buying 1% bites at a time of an individual business. Is that difficult to do when it seems like good companies (which I know you’re a fan of) always seem to be trading at their 52-week high? Solutions, other than just extreme patience?
3. When public school and teaching to standards testing seem to crush the creativity and joy of learning from many, how does one properly go about learning things for one’s self? What are some keys you’ve found to successful self-learning.
4. You rightly advise not to check stock quotes too often. What about if you’re a professional investor? How often do you check your portfolio and watch list? Be honest. :)
5. Your book covers how to start, build, and keep a family fortune. I’d like to know about how we can keep a family fortune please?

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Gene Hoots is the chairman of CornerCap Investment Counsel, an advisory firm that he co-founded in 1989. He has worked in finance and investments for over fifty years. His career in the corporate world included 21 years with R. J. Reynolds Industries where he spent a decade managing that company’s $4 billion employee benefit and savings plan investments.

1. Have Americans had it too easy for too long? What does the word “duty” mean to you, and why is it so important?
2. What was it like leaving the corporate world and starting your own business? Are there any lessons you learned that would be helpful to others who want to start an investment business?
3. You presided over RJR’s massive pension plan in the 1980s. What was it like there? What do you think about the M&A world having been so close?
4. Who was Malcolm McLean and how did you meet him? What was so special about him?
5. What lessons did you learn from the late 90s tech bubble? Do any of them seem especially pertinent to today?

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Adam Levin is a consumer advocate with more than 30 years’ experience in personal finance, privacy, real estate and government service. A former director of the New Jersey Division of Consumer Affairs, Levin is Chairman and founder of Identity Theft 911, Chairman and co-founder of Credit.com and serves as a spokesperson for both companies. An expert on personal finance, credit, identity management, fraud and privacy, he writes a weekly column which appears on Huffington Post and ABCNews.com. He is a frequent guest on television, and has appeared on Fox News, Fox Business News, Good Morning America, Fox & Friends, CBS Nightly News, ABC World News Tonight and scores of radio stations throughout the country. He lives in New York City with his wife and son.

1. Identity theft seems like something that everyone thinks only happens to other people. I watched the first season of Mr. Roboto, so assume I’m an expert hacker now. :) But seriously, how big are the risks we talking about here, based on probability and impact of lost time and money?
2. I think everyone knows not to advertise your social security number to the world, but what are a few of the easiest changes people can make that could make the most impact in protecting themselves?
3. How has social media really changed the identity theft game?
4. I have about a million online logins; it’s daunting. How should I manage them? Are passphrases the right idea?
5. How has technological progress like the Internet of Things made us more vulnerable that we realize? Also, I found the concept of medical identity theft to be especially scary. What’s that all about?

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Chris Mayer is the Investment Director of Bonner & Partners, a financial research firm. He is the author of Invest Like A Dealmaker: Secrets from a former banking insider, World Right Side Up: Investing Across Six Continents and, most recently, 100 Baggers: Stocks that Return 100-to-1 and How to Find Them.

Five Good Questions:

1. What are some of the key ingredients that might point to a 100x investment return? Do we just have to depend on luck and strike oil or benefit from a big pharmaceutical drug approval, or is there any skill involved?
2. When I was teaching at UC Davis’s MBA program, we did a study where we examined the performance of investing gurus vs. various value investing studies (Tweedy Browne, Magic Formula, What Works on Wall Street etc.). It was amazing how the studies trounced even the pros. One reason is likely liquidity, the bigger pros couldn’t get into smaller investments that the study did, which could constrain returns. But another hypothesis I had was that because the studies are so mechanically driven and only sell after certain time periods, perhaps the studies participated in some of the market irrationality to the upside for a given stock. A guru would have taken advantage of the downside irrationality of a low P/E, but then sold out before it ever got to an extreme high P/E. How does this fit into your “coffee can” approach.
3. Your book is full of off-the-beaten path stories, including a tontine. What the hell is a tontine? ;)
4. We all know about Graham and Buffett, but what made Keynes such a great investor?
5. Buffett has a great article from way back in the day called “How Inflation Swindles the Equity Investor.” It’s early Buffett, so it’s a little technical, but I thought you did a great job of simplifying it in your book and explaining how light-asset businesses are a better bet in inflationary environments. Can you walk us through your reasoning?

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Tadas Viskanta is the Founder and Editor of Abnormal Returns. Tadas is a private investor with over 25 years of experience in the financial markets. He is the co-author of over a dozen investment-related papers that have appeared in publications like the Financial Analysts Journal, Journal of Portfolio Management among others. Tadas is also the author of the well-received book: Abnormal Returns: Winning Strategies from the Frontlines of the Investment Blogosphere that culls lessons learned from his time blogging.

Five Good Questions:

1. With traditional media, TV, bloggers, twitter, etc., there’s so much information flow these days. It can feel overwhelming. How do we go about curating signal from noise?
2. As special businesses have transitioned from primarily key PPE advantages (more readily quantifiable by accounting) to instead relying on IP, knowledge, network effects, intangibles (less quantifiable and more subjective), you could make an argument that the balance sheet is increasingly divorcing from economic reality. Given this trend, does a quantitatively driven approach to value investing still work in the future?
3. I’ve heard many great investors say you shouldn’t compare yourself to the S&P, and yet every does. What do you personally use for your benchmarks?
4. You often hear that ETFs are a better mousetrap? What exactly makes them so much better than mutual funds?
5. You have an interesting quote: “The primary role of the financial system is to coax risk-adverse investors into risky securities.” What did you mean by that, and do you think it’s even more of an issue with zero interest rate policies like we see today?

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Robert P. Murphy is Research Assistant Professor with the Free Market Institute at Texas Tech University. In addition to The Primal Prescription, Murphy is the author of several economics books for the layperson, including Choice (Independent Institute 2015), The Politically Incorrect Guide to Capitalism (Regnery 2007), and the textbook Lessons for the Young Economist (Mises Institute 2010). He blogs at ConsultingByRPM.com.

1. Everyone has a sense that the healthcare industry is a mess in the US. Obviously it’s a big story with a lot of moving parts, but how did we all get into this mess?
2. You wrote this with the help of a medical doctor, and with your background I’d expect you focused more on the economics side of things, but what would be the prescription for us as individuals to give us a better chance at surviving the “sick care” sinkhole? What does “primal” mean?
3. Based on the continued trajectory of the Affordable Care Act, where do you see the likely future of the healthcare industry heading?
4. As a society, what are some steps we can take to start fixing healthcare, or is it a lost cause?
5. Many futurists are excited about the advances in medical technologies, like DNA sequencing, robotic surgery, stem cells, home medical tricorders, etc. Is it possible that technology will bail us out of the holes our government has dug?

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David is the Betty R. Miller Professor of Chemistry and Chemical Biology and department chair at Cornell. He specializes in organometallic chemistry with a particular expertise in the organic chemistry of lithium. David is an avid student of markets, economics, and geopolitics and writes a Year in Review posted at Peak Prosperity and Zerohedge. Dave has been cited in the Wall Street Journal and The Guardian and has appeared on Russia Today.

1. What were the 3 biggest events in 2015 (or building over the last few years) that you think will have a big impact on 2016? What’s your long range prognosis?
2. This is your 7th year in review that you’ve produced. What have you learned over that time from doing this incredible amount of informational synthesis every year? Do you dread Decembers yet? :) What have you gotten most wrong?
3. How did you get started and what insight has being an organic chemistry professor at Cornell given you?
4. I love that at the beginning of every review, you include how your personal portfolio is positioned. There are so many voices out there sharing their opinions in the financial world, but we never know if they have any real real conviction behind what they’re saying. It drives me nuts. Why are you willing to be so transparent and show your personal skin in the game?
5. You have roughly 20% of your net worth in precious metals. I found the fervor both for and against gold to be almost religious in nature. What are your thoughts about gold?

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Victor Ricciardi is an Assistant Professor of Financial Management at Goucher College. Professor Ricciardi is a leading expert on the academic literature and emerging research issues in behavioral finance. He is the editor of several eJournals distributed by the Social Science Research Network (SSRN) at www.ssrn.com, including behavioral finance, financial history, behavioral economics, and behavioral accounting.

1. What’s the bias with the biggest impact that’s the least understood or noticed?

2. Wisdom of the crowd usually exists only when there’s a diverse population. Given the typical investor is pretty homogenous (white, affluent), should we expect the wisdom of the crowd to not apply to the stock market? What about changing demographics with whites becoming a minority and women now earning more bachelor’s degrees than men?

3. Financial literacy scores in the US are pretty dismal, which to me really calls into question the validity of the Efficient Market Hypothesis. How can we improve financial literacy?​

4. Investors nearing or reaching retirement are often those searching for yield. In a low interest rate environment like today, that yield is often unavailable without considerable risk attached. Do you think there’s a lot of unknown risk being assumed right now by people who can least afford to take it?

5. ​Conventional academic wisdom has it that the price of a security going down means there’s greater risk (due to a higher beta), and that risk and return are positively correlated. Value investors believe that a lower price, all things equal, actually represents less risk while offering a greater potential reward. What are your thoughts on the subject?

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Gareth Jones is a Fellow of the Centre for Management Development at London Business School and a visiting professor at Spain’s IE Business School in Madrid.  Rob Goffee is Emeritus Professor of Organisational Behaviour at London Business School, where he teaches in the world-renowned Senior Executive Programme.  Goffee and Jones consult to the boards of several global companies and are coauthors of Why Should Anyone Be Led by You? and Clever, both published by Harvard Business Review Press.

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Arthur T. Benjamin is a professor of mathematics at Harvey Mudd College who specializes in combinatorics.  He is known for mental math capabilities and "Mathemagics" performances in front of live audiences.  His mathematical abilities have been highlighted in newspaper and magazine articles, at TED Talks and on The Colbert Report.  He is the author of several books, including The Magic of Math: Solving for x and Figuring out Why.

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Michael J. Mauboussin is an investment strategist and has been in the financial services industry for more than twenty-five years. He has also taught at the Columbia Graduate School of Business since 1993, and is on the board of trustees at the Santa Fe Institute.
He is the author of two previous books, Think Twice: Harnessing the Power of Counterintuition andMore Than You Know: Finding Financial Wisdom in Unconventional Places and is coauthor, with Alfred Rappaport, of Expectations Investing: Reading Stock Prices for Better Returns.

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William Green is the author of "The Great Minds of Investing."  He has written for The New Yorker, Time, Fortune, Forbes, Fast Company, Bloomberg, and The Economist.  He edited the Asian, European, Middle Eastern and African editions of Time.

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Tren Griffin works at Microsoft.  Previously, he was a partner at Eagle River, a private equity firm controlled by Craig McCaw, with investments in the telecommunication and software industries, including McCaw Cellular, Nextel, Nextel Partners, XO Communications, Teledesic, and many start-up firms.  His early career included five years working and living as a business consultant in Korea and Australia.  Tren blogs about investing and other topics at 25iq.com.  He is the author of The Global Negotiator: Building Strong Business Relationships Anywhere in the World; Korea, The Tiger Economy; Taiwan's Economy; Ah Mo: Legends from the Northwest; and More Ah Mo.

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Kabir Sehgal is the New York Times and Wall Street Journal bestselling author of five books including Coined: The Rich Life of Money And How Its History Has Shaped Us.  He has written for MarketWatch, New York Observer, TheStreet, CNBC, Quartz, ZeroHedge, and Atlanta Business Chronicle.  He has appeared on CNN, PBS, NPR, C-SPAN, Bloomberg, CNBC, Fox News.  He was a vice president at J.P. Morgan and is a Grammy winning producer.

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After serving as a Captain in the United States Marine Corps, Dr. Gray received a PhD, and was a finance professor at Drexel University.  Dr. Gray’s interest in entrepreneurship and behavioral finance led him to found Alpha Architect.  You can learn more about his firm at http://alphaarchitect.com.

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Dorie Clark is an Adjunct Professor of Business Administration at Duke University’s Fuqua School of Business and the author of Reinventing You (Harvard Business Review Press, 2013) and Stand Out (Portfolio/Penguin, 2015), as well as the e-book Stand Out Networking.  A former presidential campaign spokeswoman, she is a frequent contributor to the Harvard Business Review, TIME, and Entrepreneur.  Recognized as a “branding expert” by the Associated Press, Inc., and Fortune, Clark is a marketing strategy consultant and speaker for clients including Google, Microsoft, Yale University, Fidelity, and the World Bank.  You can follow her on Twitter @dorieclark and download her free 42-page Stand Out Self-Assessment Workbook.

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Andrew Palmer is the business affairs editor of The Economist, with responsibility for the business, finance and science sections of the newspaper.  He was previously finance editor, banking editor and Americas editor, among other roles.  He has been with the Economist Group since 1996, and lives in London.

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Author Background:

Gary Antonacci has over 35 years experience as an investment professional focusing on under-exploited investment opportunities.  His research introduced the investment world to dual momentum, which combines relative strength price momentum with trend following absolute momentum.  Antonacci is recognized as a foremost authority on the practical applications of momentum.

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Author Background:

Born in Montreal, Gillian Zoe Segal has lived in Manhattan since she was eight years old.  She received a Bachelor of Arts from the University of Michigan and a law degree from the Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law.  She is also a photographer.

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Author Background:

Bonnie Marcus, M.Ed., is a certified executive coach, speaker and author. A former corporate executive, Bonnie founded her firm, Women’s Success Coaching, in 2007 with the mission to help professional women promote and position themselves for success. Her latest book, The Politics of Promotion: How High Achieving Women Get Ahead and Stay Ahead, provides a road map for women to navigate the complexities of their workplace to get the promotions they deserve. A contributing writer for Forbes and Business Insider, Bonnie has also been published in Entrepreneur, Women in HR, Reader’s Digest, Diversity MBA, and CIO Magazine. She has been featured in Fast Company, Fortune, the Wall Street Journal, and Huffington Post.

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Author Background:

Paul Allen is a Professor Emeritus at Mississippi State University.  He holds a CPA, DBA (Doctor of Business Administration), MBA, BPA (Bachelors of Professional Accountancy) and previously worked as a senior accountant for 5 years with Exxon Co. USA .  He has been widely published in accounting, finance and marketing journals.

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Author Background:

Michael Yogg is trained as both a historian and an investor.  He holds three degrees in history from Yale and Harvard and worked in the investment business in Boston from 1978 until 2012, in positions ranging from analyst and research director to portfolio manager and chief investment officer.  Before that he taught history at Harvard, and before that served as an officer in the U.S. Navy.  He knew Paul Cabot personally from 1978 to 1994.

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Author Background:

Barbara Oakley, PhD, PE is a professor of engineering at Oakland University in Rochester, Michigan and a Visiting Scholar at the University of California, San Diego.  She is the author of A Mind for Numbers and co-teaches Coursera – UC San Diego’s massive open online course “Learning How to Learn.”

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Author Background:

Ron Fierstein was a young lawyer on the team of litigators from the prestigious patent law firm of Fish & Neave representing Polaroid in its epic patent battle with Eastman Kodak over instant photography technology.  He had the unique experience of working closely with Polaroid’s founder and star witness, Dr. Edwin Land.  After leaving the practice of law in the early 1980s, he enjoyed a long and successful career in the entertainment industry, representing artists in the recording (Suzanne Vega, Shawn Colvin, Mary Chapin Carpenter) and theater (Harvey Fierstein) industries.  He is a co-producer of the current Broadway hit, Kinky Boots.

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Author Background:

Samuel Arbesman is a complex systems scientist and writer, whose work focuses on the nature of scientific and technological change.  He is currently a Senior Adjunct Fellow of the Silicon Flatirons Center for Law, Technology, and Entrepreneurship at the University of Colorado and a Research Fellow of the Long Now Foundation.  He lives in Kansas City with his wife.

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Author Background:

Barbara Gaughen Muller is the founder of Gaughen Global public relations and co-author ofRevolutionary Conversations, The Tools You Need for the Success You Want.  Her late husband, Robert Muller, was the Assistant Secretary-General of the United Nations for 40 years.  Barbara is the president of the UNA-USA Santa Barbara & organizer for the Rotary World Peace Conference.

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Author Background:

Scott Fearon has spent thirty years in the financial services industry.  Since 1990, he has managed the hedge fund Crown Capital.  The fund has significantly outperformed the S&P 500 by investing in fast-growing companies while shorting the stocks of “dead companies walking,” businesses on their way to bankruptcy.  Scott holds a BA from Stanford University and an MBA from the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University.

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Author Background:

Nick Gogerty is a financial expert with experience in technology and asset allocation.  He’s worked with some of the world’s largest hedge funds, banks, and science research institutes.  Nick is also a guest lecturer at Columbia’s Executive MBA program on innovation and macro-economics.  He’s interested in large complex problems and making difficult things easier to understand.

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Author Background:

Michael Shearn founded Time Value of Money, LP, a private investment firm, in 1996, to devote his attention to selecting and researching stocks and private investments.  He launched the Compound Money Fund, LP, a concentrated value fund, in 2007.  Shearn serves on the Investment Committee of Southwestern University, which oversees the school’s $250 million endowment.

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Author Background:

After serving as a Captain in the United States Marine Corps, Dr. Wesley Gray became a finance professor at Drexel University.  Dr. Gray’s interest in entrepreneurship and behavioral finance led him to found Alpha Architect.  Wes earned an MBA and a PhD in finance from the University of Chicago and graduated magna cum laude with a BS from The Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania.

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Author Background:

Jeroen Bos, a Dutch investor, has worked his entire career in the financial services industry in England.  He worked for many years at stock broker Panmue Gordon, in the City of London.  It was here that his interest in value investing  developed.  This process accelerated after the October 1987 market crash, during which time he took inspiration from the Intelligent Investor by Benjamin Graham.

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Author Background:

Mr. Faber is a co-founder and the Chief Investment Officer of Cambria Investment Management. Faber is the manager of Cambria’s ETFs, separate accounts and private investment funds. Mr. Faber has authored numerous white papers and three books:Shareholder Yield, The Ivy Portfolio, and Global Value. He is a frequent speaker and writer on investment strategies and has been featured in Barron’s, The New York Times, and The New Yorker. Mr. Faber graduated from the University of Virginia with a double major in Engineering Science and Biology.

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Author Background:

Andrew Orr holds Bachelor and Master of Arts degrees in English, and loves all things science fiction.  Some of his favorite science fiction writers include Arthur C. Clarke, Ray Bradbury, and Philip K. Dick.

He dreams about one day hitching a rocket ride into space, and wonders when real-life humans will set foot on the Red Planet.

He lives near Seattle with his wife and daughter.

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Author Background:

Vitaliy N. Katsenelson, CFA, is Chief Investment Officer at Investment Management Associates in Denver, Colorado. He is the author of The Little Book of Sideways Markets and Active Value Investing. He immigrated to the United States from Murmansk, Russia in 1991. From 2001 to 2007, Katsenelson taught investment classes at the University of Colorado at Denver, Graduate School of Business.

Each year in June, Vitaliy hosts VALUEx Vail, an invitation-only conference where serious value investors share ideas and learn from each other’s experiences, while enjoying family fun in the gorgeous Colorado Rockies.

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Author Backgrounds:

Mohnish Pabrai is the Managing Partner of the Pabrai Investment Funds and Dhandho Holdings. Since inception in 1999 with $1 million in assets under management, Pabrai Investment Funds has grown to over $690 million in AUM with an annualized gain of 17.7% (versus 5.2 % for the Dow). He is the author of two books, including The Dhandho Investor. Mohnish is also is the Founder and Chairman of the Dakshana Foundation, which is focused on providing world-class educational opportunities to economically and socially disadvantaged gifted children worldwide.

Guy Spier is the manager of Aquamarine Fund, an investment partnership inspired by the original 1950’s Buffett partnerships. In 2007 he made headlines by bidding $650k with Mohnish Pabrai for a charity lunch with Warren Buffett. Guy recently published his first book, The Education of a Value Investor. In 2009, Spier and his family moved from New York to Zurich, Switzerland to escape the noise of Wall Street. He attained his MBA from Harvard Business School and has a First Class degree in Economics from Oxford University. He spoke at TED India and co-hosted TEDx Zurich.

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Author Backgrounds:

Mohnish Pabrai is the Managing Partner of the Pabrai Investment Funds and Dhandho Holdings. Since inception in 1999 with $1 million in assets under management, Pabrai Investment Funds has grown to over $690 million in AUM with an annualized gain of 17.7% (versus 5.2 % for the Dow). He is the author of two books, including The Dhandho Investor. Mohnish is also is the Founder and Chairman of the Dakshana Foundation, which is focused on providing world-class educational opportunities to economically and socially disadvantaged gifted children worldwide.

Guy Spier is the manager of Aquamarine Fund, an investment partnership inspired by the original 1950’s Buffett partnerships. In 2007 he made headlines by bidding $650k with Mohnish Pabrai for a charity lunch with Warren Buffett. Guy recently published his first book, The Education of a Value Investor. In 2009, Spier and his family moved from New York to Zurich, Switzerland to escape the noise of Wall Street. He attained his MBA from Harvard Business School and has a First Class degree in Economics from Oxford University. He spoke at TED India and co-hosted TEDx Zurich.

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Author Background:
Lawrence Cunningham is a leading authority on corporate governance culture and on Berkshire Hathaway and Warren Buffett. He has written several books on value investing and is the authorized editor of The Essays of Warren Buffett: Lessons for Corporate America. A popular professor of business law at George Washington University, his latest book is Berkshire Beyond Buffett: The Enduring Value of Values, in which executives from dozens of Berkshire’s subsidiaries cooperated.

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Author Background:
James Grant is a financial journalist, historian, and the founder and editor of Grant’s Interest Rate Observer, a twice-monthly  journal of the investment markets.  His new book, The Forgotten Depression, 1921: the Crash that Cured Itself, is a history of America’s last governmentally unmedicated business-cycle downturn.

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Author Background:

Tobias Carlisle lives in Santa Monica, CA where he is the founder and portfolio manager of Eyquem Investment Management LLC.

He is best known as the author of the well regarded website Greenbackd.com, the book Deep Value: Why Activists Investors and Other Contrarians Battle for Control of Losing Corporations, and Quantitative Value: A Practitioner’s Guide to Automating Intelligent Investment and Eliminating Behavioral Errors. He has extensive experience in investment management, business valuation, public company corporate governance, and corporate law.

Prior to founding Eyquem in 2010, Tobias was an analyst at an activist hedge fund, general counsel of a company listed on the Australian Stock Exchange, and a corporate advisory lawyer. As a lawyer specializing in mergers and acquisitions he has advised on transactions across a variety of industries in the United States, the United Kingdom, China, Australia, Singapore, Bermuda, Papua New Guinea, New Zealand, and Guam. He is a graduate of the University of Queensland in Australia with degrees in Law and Business Management.