The Meb Faber Show - Better Investing

In episode 228 we welcome our guest, Danilo Santiago, founding partner of Rational Investment Methodology. In today’s episode, we’re talking stocks and investment process.   We take a deep dive into Danilo’s fundamental process that is, to a large extent, automated by programs he developed over many years. We chat about circle of competence, and why Rational focuses on a quasi-static group of abou...

In episode 227 we welcome our guest, Alex Smereczniak, Co-Founder and CEO of 2ULaundry. In today’s episode, we’re talking about re-thinking the laundry and dry cleaning business. Alex cut his teeth in the business with a student-run startup at Wake Forest. We get into what he saw with existing startup models trying to scale the laundry business, and why he thought the model needed to be approached...

In episode 226 we welcome our guest, Vineer Bhansali, CIO of LongTail Alpha. In today’s episode, we’re talking current markets and tail risk hedging. We get into what has been going on in markets, and talk about asymmetric portfolio construction. We discuss recent market liquidity, and how it is the worst Vineer has seen in his career. We cover tail risk hedging, and walk through some examples of...

In episode 225 we welcome our guest, Eric Crittenden. In today’s episode, we’re talking managed futures and trend following. We get into investor behavior, and the challenges of getting people to allocate to managed futures, despite the data that shows they should. Eric has come up with a creative way to re-frame the conversation around managed futures to help investors break through, and deepen t...

In episode 224 we welcome our guest, Eric Kinariwala, Founder and CEO of Capsule. In today’s episode, we’re talking disruption of the $425 billion pharmacy industry.   We hear about the experience that sparked the idea for Capsule. We cover the state of the industry, and the feedback Eric received about the poor experience friends and doctors are having with the current pharmacy model.   We then d...

In episode 223 we welcome our guest, Steven Jorgenson, Managing General partner of Starbridge Venture Capital. Strap in and let your imagination run wild…In today’s episode, we’re talking about the space industry.   We cover the space economy. There’s a lot more to it than just the launch sector. We dig into microgravity, and the opportunity it offers research and development. We chat about terres...

In episode 222 we welcome our guest, Dakin Sloss of Prime Movers Lab. In today’s episode, we’re talking venture capital and investing in breakthrough scientific startups.   We get into the way Prime Movers Lab thinks about its place in the venture capital ecosystem and why Dakin believes the least useful thing they provide is capital. We talk about assessing entrepreneurs and companies and looking...

In episode 221 we welcome our guest, Chris Davis of Davis Advisors. In today’s episode, we’re talking stocks and investor behavior. We begin with Chris’s background and transition into some of his early lessons about investing and compound returns. We hit on investor behavior and trying to keep investors behaving in their own best interests. We discuss current markets, owning durable and resilient...

In episode 220 we welcome our guest, Andrew Beer of Dynamic Beta Investments. In today’s episode, we’re talking hedge funds and replication. We kick things off with some background that includes Andrew’s start in the industry with Seth Klarman’s Baupost Group in 1994. We discuss replication strategies, what Dynamic Beta is doing to try to outperform hedge fund portfolios, and most importantly, how...

In episode 219 we welcome our guest, Sir Paul Collier. In today’s episode, we’re talking economics and capitalism. We kick things off by covering some instances of the derailment of capitalism. We go all the way back to the mid-1800s to Bradford England’s industrial rise, the ensuing health crisis, and how capitalism responded. We walk forward to talk about the divide between metropolis and provin...

In episode 218 we welcome our guest, Adam Karr. In today’s episode, we’re talking stocks and investment process. We cover Orbis’ investment philosophy, and the relentless focus on companies trading at a discount to intrinsic value through a bottom-up analysis process. Adam offers thoughts on the current environment and why he thinks this looks more like the .com bubble, rather than the aftermath o...

In episode 217 we welcome our guest, Mary Wheeler, Founding Managing Director of BioRock Ventures. In today’s episode, we get into biotech and venture capital. We cover Mary’s deep background that ultimately influenced her investment focus on biotech. We cover her fund, BioRock Ventures, investing in biopharma startups, her core investment criteria, and keeping an eye out for companies serving unm...

In episode 216 we welcome our guest, David Samra, a managing director of Artisan Partners and founding partner of the Artisan Partners International Value Team. In today’s episode, we discuss David’s background and what led him down the path of value investing. We cover the characteristics that drive Artisan’s framework and investment process. With the recent market selloff in mind, we walk throug...

In episode 215 we welcome our guest, David Chan, COO and a founding team member of FarmTogether. We discuss the FarmTogether platform and making farmland investing more accessible. We cover farmland as an asset class, some history about the fragmented nature of farmland ownership, and the relatively small 2-3% ownership stake that is in institutional hands. We cover the broad models of farmland ow...

In episode 214 we welcome our guest, Jake Gibson, founding partner of Better Tomorrow Ventures. We discuss startup investing in the world of fintech. We get into some of the opportunities going forward, from disruption in products, user experience and distribution models, to how some non-fintech companies may be able to start leveraging the fintech infrastructure to integrate financial services in...

In episode 213 we welcome our guest, David Sanderson, founder and CEO of Reelgood. We get into David’s frustrating experience of juggling multiple streaming services and how that ultimately led him to launch Reelgood. We talk about the buildout of the product and how important data management and processing is to product implementation. Later on, we chat about the bet he and his company made on fr...

In episode 212 we welcome our guest, Eric Satz, the founder and CEO of AltoIRA. Eric shares the frustration he experienced trying to make private investments in his retirement account, and how that led him down the path of solving the problem and ultimately the launch of his company, AltoIRA. We discuss alternative investments and the case for holding them in retirement accounts. We get into the n...

In episode 211 we welcome our guest, Julie Novack, the CEO and co-founder of PartySlate. We discuss the party planning industry and how PartySlate is bringing something entirely different to the table with its content-rich platform and transparent crediting. We get into the frustration Julie faced logging hours online trying to plan a high-profile cancer research gala, and how that experience ulti...

In episode 210 we welcome our guest, Jonathan Treussard, Partner, and Head of Product Development at Research Affiliates. We discuss what’s currently going on in the world around us and how rapidly things are changing. We cover the idea of “nowcasting,” and how it’s different from the type of forecasting and opinion that prevalent, often unhelpful, and sometimes downright detrimental to investment...

In today’s episode we welcome our guest, Andrew Schulz, co-founder and CEO of NoiseAware. We discuss the miserable experience that led to the fresh idea behind NoiseAware’s smart sensor and noise-monitoring technology. We get into the product, use case, and the idea that customers can now have hard data on noise levels at their property, empowering them to be proactive if noise is out of hand, or...

Episode 208 is a Mebisode. Meb reads a recent piece that highlights the data and reality of market drawdowns, underperformance, and some statistics that illustrate that investors may not be prepared to face the reality of how long underperformance can last. Tune in for this and more in episode 208, including how Meb frames his market expectations. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone....

In episode 207, we welcome our guest, Jeremy Yamaguchi, founder of Lawn Love. We kick off the episode by getting into Jeremy’s background as a son of missionaries, starting his first company at the age of 16, and the curious mind and discerning eye for opportunity that has taken him down the path of entrepreneurship. We touch on the void he saw in lawn care and the technology that underpins the La...

Episode 206 is a Mebisode. Meb reads a few of his recently penned pieces. He covers the importance of being prepared for market turbulence with an investment plan. He then walks through some core ideas for building and maintaining wealth. He ties these ideas together with a chat on how he invests his own money. He concludes with some thoughts on investing in the time of the Coronavirus. If the mar...

In episode 205, Meb talks with Cornerstone Acquisition and Management CEO and Portfolio Manager, Derren Geiger. Meb and Derren cover Caritas Funds’ process for investing in onshore US oil & gas mineral rights and royalty interests. They get into sourcing opportunities, some detail on the royalty model, the role hedging plays in managing risk, and the balance of commodity exposure in the portfolio....

In episode 204, Meb talks with Foresight Mental Health co-founders Doug Hapeman and Matt Milford. They discuss Foresight’s origin story and the vision Doug and Matt had to apply technology to radically improve mental healthcare. They get into the lack of technology adoption by psychiatrists that exists today, and what it took to build a fully integrated model from scratch to serve patients and hea...