Invest Like The Best
Episode 87 Pulling the Thread
Invest Like The Best

Episode 87: Pulling the Thread

Pulling the Thread

Tren is a director at Microsoft and has written several books. We cover concepts of value creation vs value capture, attributes of scalable businesses, and how hip-hop can help to reach more people.

This episode is brought to you by:

CFA Institute. CFA Institute, the global association of investment professionals whose mission is to lead the investment profession by promoting the highest standards of ethics, education and professional excellence for the ultimate benefit of society. CFA Institute serves a global community of investment professionals, working to build an investment industry where investors' interests come first, financial markets function at their best and economies grow. The Chartered Financial Analyst credential is the most respected and recognized investment management designation in the world.

[00:02:26] – (First question) –  key levers of the universal business model

[00:04:26] – How do you know when you’ve achieved real value creation

[00:06:24] – Importance of value capture and how they enhance value creation

[00:09:08] – Price power

[00:10:28] – Are discussions of moats more useful to businesses than to investors

[00:13:12] – What Tren learned during his early years working with Craig McCaw

[00:16:36] – The skill of capital allocation

[00:18:37] – How would Buffett and Munger bet on tech if they were starting out today and their philosophy of betting against change

[00:21:57] – How Tren became so fascinated with Charlie and what he’s learned from him

[00:25:21] – Most memorable moment or lesson from Charlie

[00:28:19] – There are more pockets of Alpha

[00:19:20] – How he thinks about factor investing

[00:31:25] – What are the scalability features that make a business attractive

[00:35:37] – Exploring some of the other important levers of businesses, such as subscriptions, customer acquisition cost, and more.

[00:37:11] – Wholesale transfer pricing

[00:39:18] – Pros and cons of subscription business models

[00:43:14] – Magic of getting products distributed

[00:44:58] – Best sale Tren’s ever made

[00:46:46] – Most important lesson for young people

[00:49:01] – Any businesses that are piquing Tren’s interest right now

[00:50:16] – Tren’s interest in hip-hop and how it helps him reach more people

[00:53:49] – A look at some interesting quotes from Jim Barksdale

[00:58:22] – Learning by doing

[01:01:06] – Period of his career that he felt most alive

[01:03:03] – Advice for young people thinking about business and entrepreneurship

[01:04:56] – Why are so few people passionate about what they do for a living

[01:10:44] – Kindest thing anyone has done for Tren

Pulling the Thread

Introduction

Patrick
My guest this week is a bundle of curiosity, and that is one of the nicest things I could say about anybody. For several years, Tren Griffin has been writing a weekly blog post that highlights what he has learned from various investors, business people, musicians, comedians and more. Lately, he's also been tackling individual businesses and broad topics like scaling, competitive forces and product-market fit. Tren's full-Time job is serving as a director at Microsoft. He's also worked with, or for several well-known business people and investors like Craig McCall and written several books, including one on lessons for entrepreneurs, one on Charlie Munger and another on negotiation.

We discuss value creation versus value capture, alpha and investing, sales, hip-hop and why he teach high school students about convexity through a drunk driving analogy. I could have talked to Tren for much longer than I did, but sadly, we both had flights to catch. If you take anything away from this, I hope it is just how much fun it is to be curious about business and how you can learn a tremendous amount if you just keep reading about the things that interest you and talking to others. Please enjoy my great conversation with Tren Griffin.

Access the full transcript
Sign in or register to view episode transcripts.

Contact

Get in touch at help@joincollossus.com