The Business Brew

First and foremost, Bill owns stock in OppFi.  This episode is not an invitation or solicitation to buy or sell shares in FGNA, the entity that OppFi is merging with in a SPAC transaction.  Second, The Business Brew and Bill encourage listeners to do their own due diligence and talk to their financial advisor before purchasing or selling shares in any security. With that said, Bill wanted to inter...

William Green  is the author of  RICHER, WISER, HAPPIER: How the World’s Greatest Investors Win in Markets and Life  (April 20, 2021;  Scribner ). Green has written for many leading publications in the US and Europe, including  The New Yorker, Time, Fortune, Forbes, Barron’s, Fast Company, Money, Worth, Bloomberg Markets, The Los Angeles Times, The Boston Globe Magazine,  The New York Observer, Th...

Corey Hoffstein, host of Flirting with Models, stopped by The Business Brew to have a wide ranging conversation about markets and his career.  Corey is an amazing thinker.  Rather than summarize his thoughts we would direct listeners to his website:  https://blog.thinknewfound.com/author/choffstein/ . You can find his podcast links at  https://www.thinknewfound.com/podcast .   He's a great guy, in...

In this episode Preston Pysh joins The Business Brew.  Preston needs no introduction in the financial podcast world.  But just in case... Preston Pysh is an authority in business, investing, and leadership. His business podcast is globally ranked #1 on iTunes for stock investing and numerous other categories. On Amazon, Preston is globally ranked as a top 100 business author. His work has been tra...

Bill invited Aaron to stop by The Business Brew to have some fun and do a 4/20 episode.  While the conversation does touch on cannabis, the more important parts of the conversation involve Aaron's philosophy of work life balance.  Aaron is a strong advocate of the 24/6 workweek.  He is a staunch advocate of observing a work sabbath weekly.  We hope there is wisdom and entertainment in this episode...

In this episode Heather Brilliant stops by The Business Brew to discuss what it is like to run a valuation focused asset manager in 2021.  Heather has a unique view on asset management and what she is trying to accomplish at Diamond Hill.  She is stakeholder focused and believes constraining asset management capacity helps align client and manager incentives.     She currently serves as Chief Exec...

Please see  https://www.fgfinancial.com/corporate-overview/officers-directors/default.aspx for Kyle's official bio.     Kyle "stopped by" The Business Brew to discuss his role as CEO of Fundamental Global.  In that capacity, he is focused on four portfolio companies: Ballantyne Strong Inc, BK Technologies Corp, GreenFirst  Forest Products Inc, and SPAC that reached a definitive agreement to purcha...

Adam Robinson is the Co-Founder of The Princeton Review, a NY Times Best Selling author, and a US Chess Federation life master.  He currently works as a global macro advisor to the heads of some of the world's largest hedge funds through Robinson Global Strategies.     Bill has wanted to interview Adam since he heard Tim Ferris interview Adam at The 92nd St. Y.  You can find one of his episodes wi...

Sanjay  Ayer is a Portfolio Manager & Business Analyst at WCM; which he joined WCM in 2007.  His primary responsibilities are portfolio management and equity research for WCM's global, fundamental growth strategies. Since he began his investment career in 2002,  Sanjay ’s experience includes a position as Equity Analyst at Morningstar, Inc. in Chicago.    In this episode Sanjay "stops by" The Busi...

Elliot Turner is a co-founder and Managing Partner, CIO at RGA Investment Advisors, LLC.  RGA Investment Advisors runs a long-term, low turnover, growth at a reasonable price investment strategy seeking out global opportunities.  Elliot focuses on discovering and analyzing long-term, high-quality investment opportunities, and strategic portfolio management.   In this episode Elliot joins The Busin...

Liz Simmie is the Co-Founder of Honeytree Investment Management, a firm that lives ESG investing.  See the end of this description for Liz' official bio.    In this episode Liz Simmie stops by The Business Brew to talk all things ESG.  Unlike many "ESG" managers, Liz actually practices what she preaches.  Said differently, Liz is the real deal and doesn't just use ESG as a marketing tool.   The ca...

Ian Cassel is the CIO at Intelligent Fanatics Capital Management ("IFCM").  IFCM invests in the smallest public companies in the world. They focus on businesses that are run by management teams who are capable of growing those businesses while benefiting stakeholders. Ian also founded MicroCapClub.   In this episode Ian discusses how he became a microcap investor. One of his first successes was XM...

Oren Falkowitz is the founder of Area 1 Security. He was Chief Executive Officer of Area 1 2013-2020 and currently serves on the Board of Directors. Mr. Falkowitz holds numerous patents and is an avid wearer of bow ties on Thursday. Previously, he was the founder of sqrrl (acquired by Amazon) and held positions at the National Security Agency (NSA) and United States Cyber Command (USCYBERCOM). He...

The Business Brew is pleased to feature Derek Walin, @walin on Twitter, this week.  Derek is Bill's cousin.  They grew up together and Bill has known Derek since he was born.  As Derek grew, Bill watched him become the consummate entrepreneur.    Derek began landing "gigs" as a magician.  He would do magic for kids, elderly people, and anyone that would book him (by calling his parents).  After th...

Moses Kagan is a co-founder of Adaptive Realty, the Los Angeles-based real estate private equity firm. Since 2008, through Adaptive and predecessor entities, he has overseen the acquisition and rehabilitation of nearly 100 properties.    Adaptive is laser focused on sub institutional scale multifamily. So these are deals between three and 10 million dollars of total capitalization.  The firm is un...

Andrew Walker, a PM at Rangeley Capital, author of Yet Another Value Blog, and host of Yet Another Value Podcast stopped by to discuss SPACs and his investment philosophy.  We are releasing this episode as a bonus because there are some elements of it that require a faster release than normal. Areas discussed were SPACs, sum of the parts analysis, Getting Better as an Investor, and the current mar...

Mike is an ex-activist investor who writes about tech, corporate governance, the power of friction & incentives, strategy, interpersonal board dynamics, and activist fights.     In this episode Mike and The Business Brew discuss everything from corporate governance to the potential for charismatic personalities to use their brand to make a run at real companies.  Mike has a unique outlook on the w...

The Business Brew is joined by Shomik Ghosh. Mr. Ghosh is a Principal at Boldstart Ventures, a day one, pre-product partner for technical founders with portfolio companies such as Snyk, Kustomer, BigID, Superhuman, Front, and Security Scorecard. His career has spanned everything from fixed income sales & trading to investment banking to venture capital. He specializes in enterprise software for hi...

The Business Brew is joined by Jen Ross this week. Jen was a professional short seller. Consequently, she has a unique perspective. It took Bill a while to understand the role of short selling in a portfolio but Jen’s comment about the need (or lack thereof) to hedge a quality equity portfolio really helped Bill understand what risks to think about hedging via short selling. Her Bio very unique: J...

We are fortunate to be joined by Tyrone V Ross Jr. What started out as a connection over BitCoin turned into something much more important. In this episode Tyrone discusses many issues that seem to be forgotten as the stock market hits new highs. We cover a wide range of issues and potential financial solutions. We recommend listening to this one at 1x speed. As always, thank you for listening.

We were fortunate to be joined by Sean Stannard Stockton, CIO of Ensemble Capital Management.  Sean is one of the best generalist investors we know of. In this episode, Sean discusses:   Running an investment firm during COVID-19; The need for companies to lead by example; The willingness to remain open minded; Thinking about serial acquirers;  The potential perils of low/slow growth investing;  H...

This episode details the successful career of Jack Rohrbach. Jack began as a salesman and worked his way up. He made the most of every opportunity. While he often attributes his success to luck, it’s clear he was a team player who found out how to help those above him. In doing so, he became a leader.    Our favorite quote of the interview occurred when Jack was talking about his later career. Whe...

Tobias Carlisle is a well known author. He's written extensively about value investing.  In our view, Deep Value is one of the best investment books ever written. He is also the founder and managing director of Acquirers Funds, LLC. See acquirersfunds.com We hope this interview answers some of the tougher questions people have for him regarding “value’s” underperformance. And, more importantly, we...

 The second episode of The Business Brew features Dan McMurtrie, PM at Tyro Partners.  In this episode Dan pulls back the curtain on how a true hedge fund manager thinks.  He discusses:   A tough launch (13:20) Pivoting from "value" investing (17:50) Agency costs hurting "value" investments (20:35) Convergent & iterative thinking (32:40) Risk management and buying higher (44:20) The dangers of the...

Welcome to the first episode of The Business Brew.  Our first guest is Michael Mitchell. Michael is a former partner at Locust Wood Capital Advisors.  He describes himself as 80% Greenblatt and 20% Buffett.  Alternatively, he can be described as fundamental and opportunistic.  Labels aside, he's a great thinker and a cool guy.  So enjoy the episode and please subscribe to our feed.