Invest Like The Best
Episode 205 Cornerstone Investing Insights
Invest Like The Best

Episode 205: Cornerstone Investing Insights

Invest Like The Best

Episode 205

Cornerstone Investing Insights

Mario is the managing partner of Marathon Partners Equity Management. We cover how his firm figured out Blockbuster's DVD volume, why investors should visit distribution center, and how a few "cornerstone" investing insights have led to many of Marathon's long positions.

This episode is brought to you by:

Tegus. Tegus has built the most extensive primary information platform available for investors. With Tegus, you can learn everything you’d want to know about a company in an on-demand digital platform. Investors share their expert calls, allowing others to instantly access more than 10,000 calls on Square, Snowflake, or almost any company of interest. Visit https://www.tegus.co/patrick to learn more.

[00:02:34] – Doing a deep dive into the early days of Netflix

[00:06:50] – What was impressive about Reed

[00:07:34] – Visiting Netflix’s distribution centers early on and the lessons of those visits

[00:10:44] – Lessons learned from other distribution centers

[00:17:52] – What helps create good luck for a company

[00:19:17] – Why tequila was fun to investigate

[00:25:09] – Why tequila is different from other hard liquors

[00:27:40] – Finding the cornerstone insight in a company

[00:29:20] – What he’s learned about media-driven personalities and WWE

[00:34:30] – Lessons in starting a media company and developing IP

[00:39:00] – Having to battle activist shareholders in business

[00:42:43] – How the rate of return in deep investigations has changed over his time

[00:45:08] – Kindest thing anyone has done for him

Cornerstone Investing Insights

Netflix and Blockbuster DVD Story

Patrick
So Mario, You and I discussed a place to begin this conversation a couple of days ago, and I think it's hard to pick something better than an amazing story that you were a part of, that's been written about publicly in the book Netflixed. And I think you've never told the full story from your perspective in a setting like this, so I just think it's an amazing wedge into a conversation about doing extremely deep dives on companies. And I'll just leave it there. I'll let you begin with the Netflix DC story. You tell us how this started and walk us through it.

Mario
I haven't fully told it. I haven't told it at all.

Patrick
Good, I love being first.

Mario
For a while, I kind of considered it proprietary. This is a good time for a great reveal. We had an investment in Netflix. We've been fortunate enough to have a number of really good companies in the portfolio over the years, and Netflix was one of them. We got in there at a time when the company wasn't particularly in favor on Wall Street, so we got a fair amount of access. I tweeted at one point about a visit to a distribution center on Long Island. It was one of the most interesting DC visits I've ever had in my career.

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