Invest Like The Best
Episode 262 Adapt and Evolve
Invest Like The Best

Episode 262: Adapt and Evolve

Invest Like The Best

Episode 262

Adapt and Evolve

John Pfeffer is an entrepreneur and investor through his private family office, Pfeffer Capital. We cover the difference between value creation and value capture, why John has made such a big bet on Bitcoin, and why adaptation has become more important than ever.

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[00:03:08] - [First question] - John’s background and the experiences that shaped his worldview and sparked his curiosity

[00:07:34] - Aspiring to grow with a lack of inertia 

[00:10:31] - Why he invests primarily in technology and technology dependant businesses [00:15:22] - What it’s felt like being a tech investor from 2011 leading up to today

[00:19:26] - How he defines good and bad business

[00:21:24] - Why good businesses don’t often have technology disruption risks

[00:22:26] - An (Institutional) Investor’s Take on Cryptoassets; key points from his paper

[00:35:28] - What else is interesting in the crypto space and potentially strong business models that exist outside of Bitcoin 

[00:48:46] - How capital has changed over time and what makes capital efficiency or formation superior

[00:51:51] - Value creation and why a shift in value can affect your returns

[01:01:12] - Whether or not crypto and the founding protocols will fade out of the public eye

[01:11:52] - A consensus on store of value in crypto and how it could change

[01:18:03] - Why he is so heavily allocated to Bitcoin compared to other tokens

[01:25:19] - General take on the nature of buying and selling capital and European markets

[01:35:28] - The interconnectedness of the globe and the future of globalism

[01:39:46] - Why he doesn’t ask people where they’re from and how he prefers to get to know people that can sometimes be unorthodox

[01:41:59] - Market index investing and why it may not be the best strategy going forward

[01:47:36] - The kindest thing anyone has ever done for him

Adapt and Evolve

Introduction

Patrick
My guest today is entrepreneur and investor, John Pfeffer. John was a partner at private equity firm, KKR in the '00s, chairman of the leading French IT company, Groupe Allium in the nineties and now invests his own money through his private at family office, Pfeffer Capital. John is one of the smartest investors that I know and our conversation spans all John's experiences and ideas. We discussed the difference between value creation and value capture, why John has made such a big bet on one asset and why adaptation has become more important than ever. I hope you enjoy this conversation as much as I did with my friend John Pfeffer.

Formative Investing Experiences

Patrick
So John, this is going to be a wide ranging conversation. We had a really fun preparatory conversation last week and I've been looking forward to it ever since. Because of your interesting unique background. A completely open investing mandate, meaning you can invest in anything and do across the world, that understanding the lens through which you're coming at all this via some of your formative investing experiences would be a great place to start. Let's begin there. Maybe give the audience a thumbnail sketch of your background and maybe do so if you can, via what you view, looking back as of the formative investing experiences that formed your worldview and then formed your curiosity about the world.

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