YouSaid · the spoken record

Chris Davis

lines on the record: 183
first: 2024-03-05
most recent: 2024-03-05
sittings or episodes: 1
sources: podcast

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“Shutting down his life. And it was very unusually positive. It's not a great book, but it was very emotional. I knew him a little bit. And he talked about these concentric circles. So he's like, you know, when he first found out, he's like, okay, I've got to get the firm secure. And then, you know, I've got to work on these relationships that I left hanging in different ways and I want to make peace with these things. And it sort of got smaller and smaller and smaller down to his immediate family and then just to his spouse. And I think that's sort of the right mindset to think about is these sort of concentric circles. And in some ways, the outer circle you think it's the biggest, it matters the most. I have a feeling the end, it may matter the least, but you still want to get it right. So I think about him in those circles and that chasing daylight idea.”
2024-03-05 · The Knowledge Project with Shane Parrish · Chris Davis: Three Generations of Wealth · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“So there's a lot there. And then, of course, I love having, you know, building a place where the people that have invested their careers there have felt like they've made a difference and that they've lived meaningful and substantial lives because I'm with them every day, I feel. And then finally where the clients that come along there feel like they were treated well and that they the advisors got a little better at their jobs because of how we did things. And it's just there was end really quickly by saying there was a man who ran one of the big accounting firms. I can't remember which one. And he died very young. In fact, he died within becoming a year or two of becoming the managing partner of the firm. I can't remember if it was E and Y maybe. And he wrote a book called Chasing Daylight in his last year. He only lived for a year. It was a bad brain cancer. He wrote this book about”
2024-03-05 · The Knowledge Project with Shane Parrish · Chris Davis: Three Generations of Wealth · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Love is that my daughters are friends, even though they're 13 years apart, and it's a very, very unlikely friendship. One is that Princeton kid running a big residential real estate operation and like, you know, and the other one invented a... The founder and CEO of what is, I can only be called a sex toy company.”
2024-03-05 · The Knowledge Project with Shane Parrish · Chris Davis: Three Generations of Wealth · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Well, I mean, for me, that is one where Charlie shaped that from the beginning. It's just living your funeral backwards and thinking about, you know, well, I'll give you an image that was true image. Talked about this recently, but this idea of I came up to this house after being out for a dinner and all my kids were there. And it was glowing on the inside. It was like Courier and Eve's. You know, it was so beautiful. And I saw all of my kids at the dining room table with their significant others and laughing. And it was this moment where I felt like I didn't even need to go in. And so that, you know, in that dimension of life, just this intense love and admiration I have for them. And my curiosity. How it's going to play out and the fact, I mean, one of the things I love.”
2024-03-05 · The Knowledge Project with Shane Parrish · Chris Davis: Three Generations of Wealth · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“So, you know, if I say I bought something at a 4% position and now it's 40 and it goes back to 20, I'm still fine. But the person that got in that day before isn't fine. But I feel intellectually at peace that that was the right way to do it. But of course, I still have my father's voice in my head saying, what a sucker. You know, you should have, you know, as I say, my father is giving away a scale of fortune every year that's just mind-blowing. And it is incredible the impact that he's had on a lot of kids' lives doing that. I will have less ability to do that, relatively, in all likelihood. But that's okay. I've liked doing it this way.”
2024-03-05 · The Knowledge Project with Shane Parrish · Chris Davis: Three Generations of Wealth · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Whereas in the funds, I do that all the time. And it's been a terrible mistake. So if I had never done that, you know, Costco would be whatever, 40% of my worth, Amazon would be 40%. Google would probably be 20% and Berkshire would be 20%. pretty much everything in there, those four or five positions. But I felt it was the right thing to put the money in the funds. And so the result is I have this enormous tax inefficiency. I'm selling things and realizing gains that I wouldn't do in my own life, but I'm doing it going back to the idea that we have a client where that's all they have. They can't take. And by the way, they might have gotten in the day before.”
2024-03-05 · The Knowledge Project with Shane Parrish · Chris Davis: Three Generations of Wealth · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Because it being in the funds meant that I was running my portfolio as theoretically quite a high net worth individual that would be willing to have 40% in a single stock. Easily. It wouldn't make me nervous at all. I can't run a fund that way, or I felt I couldn't. And so what that meant is that if I had simply bought each stock that I ever bought for the funds in a personal account and held it, then I simply never would have sold simply because something was getting too big.”
2024-03-05 · The Knowledge Project with Shane Parrish · Chris Davis: Three Generations of Wealth · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Stable and never wanting to go back to go. And going all the way back to the dog walking and how important it was to me to have money. And so my father would say that I should be embarrassed at how conservatively I've run my financial affairs and that I would have a conservatally different net worth if I had been willing. By the way, not just to be on margin, but not to have my money in the funds.”
2024-03-05 · The Knowledge Project with Shane Parrish · Chris Davis: Three Generations of Wealth · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yeah, that's true. That's true. Although, believe it or not, I didn't even have a mortgage because I always. Alice wanted this idea of just having a”
2024-03-05 · The Knowledge Project with Shane Parrish · Chris Davis: Three Generations of Wealth · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“No, and my father to this day thinks I'm the biggest sucker on earth. And that is often the way, you know, the generation, what happens is Started with nothing, you had to be such a risk taker. And then I think what happens is that propensity to risk falls over the generations, but often so does the corresponding ability to build wealth. And that did not happen with my father. I think partly because of the rivalry with his father. So they both went through life, you know, with a lot of margin calls and a lot of, you know, I took on quite a lot of debt to buy out the partners of the management company. So in that sense, you could argue I was on margin. And as my father said, nothing focuses the mind like a little debt. I was like, oh, you know, and that was in, you know.”
2024-03-05 · The Knowledge Project with Shane Parrish · Chris Davis: Three Generations of Wealth · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Well, I don't think there was any sense of a family business. You know, when I joined the mutual fund company, it was called venture advisors. My father had a partner. He had had a firm called Davis Palmer& Biggs, but he sold it in the 70s really pretty near the bottom. That was another opportunity for me to learn differently. We want to get through. We want to build something and stand for something. And my grandfather, you know, it was so clear that everything was being given away anyway. So I don't think we ever grew up with a sense, you know, if I look at, you know, my dad has six kids. And one's a medical doctor, one's a psychiatric practitioner. You know, By and large, they're good parents. But they all live differently, do different things.”
2024-03-05 · The Knowledge Project with Shane Parrish · Chris Davis: Three Generations of Wealth · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yeah, isn't that a good expression? And so smaller functioning boards, you know, people being, you know, you look at what happened at places like Hewlett-Packard. And Intel for that matter. I mean, these companies. Quite a well known expression that a great board can't make a great company, but a bad board can ruin a great company. And, you know, I would certainly argue that both Hewlett-Packard and Koch, the boards, had a lot of accountability for decades of bad decisions. And it was bad decisions on what is the board responsibility, which is who's in charge?”
2024-03-05 · The Knowledge Project with Shane Parrish · Chris Davis: Three Generations of Wealth · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“contributor be part is to try to bring that gram culture to these big companies to a big company like Coke and it's been fabulous it's a great group of people it's a great board they've gone into this you know having a small dinner of directors only the night before and it's just amazing how important that is and the degree to which you get trust and accountability and candor and Jamie Diamond famously said the bigger the group the better the news so you know that is”
2024-03-05 · The Knowledge Project with Shane Parrish · Chris Davis: Three Generations of Wealth · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Are we able to stop them from overreaching? Are the shareholders getting the information they should have to make an informed decision? Are the records being presented honorably, transparently? And then to weigh in on the big strategic decisions. Then the rest is whatever hygiene needs to happen. So that tone got set there at Graham. And of course, I would expect that that was always the case at a place like Berkshire where there's so much candor. Certainly that's been my experience. And then at a place like Coke, I would say that there have been different phases in Coke's histories. And you can read some of the things Warren has said about sitting on those boards in the past and they're not always super complimentary. But I think that one of the ways that I try to”
2024-03-05 · The Knowledge Project with Shane Parrish · Chris Davis: Three Generations of Wealth · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I mean, and of course the Graham family. I mean, it just, and so they had a tradition where the night before the board meeting, there was a dinner. The dinner was held at the CEO's house, and nobody else is invited, just the directors. And you sit and you have cocktails and you talk and you sit at the table and you talk about business and you talk about the world and you develop a deep culture of trust. You also develop an environment where you talk about the real issues. And then what happens at the board meeting becomes much more, it's perfunctory is not the right word, but to me it was a way of orienting a board that your focus is really on the long-term, you know, do we have the right people running the business”
2024-03-05 · The Knowledge Project with Shane Parrish · Chris Davis: Three Generations of Wealth · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Versus academics and lawyers and politicians, you know, you want people that have real skin in the game and are advocating and representing their investors, their clients. So it's a very, but it ain't easy. I mean, we're in a world where often regulation is for its own sake. And so I was very lucky that the gateway drug, it was like starting at the absolute top, which was, you know, the Washington Post. So, you know, there's Warren was on that board and Ron Olson to Barry Diller at the time Melinda Gates.”
2024-03-05 · The Knowledge Project with Shane Parrish · Chris Davis: Three Generations of Wealth · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Well, the board meetings, I mean, I've been. I think that a lot of average companies, board meetings are basically the lights go down, the PowerPoint comes on, there is a focus on pageantry process. And, you know, sort of checking the boxes, and I'd rather shoot myself in the face. I just, I mean, going back to the ADD, you know. But the first board I ever came, and I do think that's the way a lot of corporate boards work. And I think it's gotten even more so because I think investors are discouraged from going on boards by the regulations. I think the SEC's mistake to discourage money managers, especially long-term investors from getting involved in the governance of the companies that they manage. The compliance issues are real because you've got to be very careful about disadvantaging your clients or if you're burdened with inside information. But I think the importance of having owners of the businesses represented on the board.”
2024-03-05 · The Knowledge Project with Shane Parrish · Chris Davis: Three Generations of Wealth · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“You've got to figure out how to transition that relationship to being a person that you care about and admire and want to help, but that they're a peer at that point.”
2024-03-05 · The Knowledge Project with Shane Parrish · Chris Davis: Three Generations of Wealth · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Imagine the gossip of the Washington Post just going to be sold. The Grahams are going to be sold. Imagine that taking six or seven months. And imagine it never leaking I mean just that unbelievable character of the people involved in that. So, you know, and then of course Coke and Berkshire, I mean, so that part's amazing. And then, you know, I've got a family, I've got two living parents that are amazing. They do totally different things. And then I've got this group of kids where we've been able to transition. I would say the most dangerous thing in the world with a 12-year-old is to try to be his friend. But the worst thing with a 40-year-old is to try to be their parent.”
2024-03-05 · The Knowledge Project with Shane Parrish · Chris Davis: Three Generations of Wealth · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I mean, it's just fabulous. It's exciting, and you're watching things come together. So, you know, that whole column of life feels great. And I've got this group of friends from baptism to today that I love. I've got this experience of being on corporate boards of some of the greatest businesses on earth. And I never thought I would love that as much as I do. I mean, it's just I've loved watching how the Washington Post evolved. I mean, it was one of the great. Great examples in all of corporate history of fiduciary leadership and servant leadership of the Graham family to make the decision to sell the newspaper that it needed to be in safer and better hands. And it was just incredible thing to be able to sit at a table with people of that caliber and then watch a process.”
2024-03-05 · The Knowledge Project with Shane Parrish · Chris Davis: Three Generations of Wealth · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“They're just in the wrong job. Like, you know, in fact, we had one guy that it's actually become a little bit of a sore spot in the company because it was that sort of situation and we worked like hell. And I was like, you'd be so good in the corporate finance function of a company because, you know, you're not good at predicting how things could change, but you have a deep understanding of investing and capital allocation. And anyway, he ended up very early at Facebook and has done great. He's like, I wish you had fired me sooner. So everybody, the company's like, fire me next, you know, and so it's, you know, there was an expression in sailing that a bad day at sea beats a good day at the office. That's not true. One, a bad day at sea is really scary. And two, a good day at the office kicks ass.”
2024-03-05 · The Knowledge Project with Shane Parrish · Chris Davis: Three Generations of Wealth · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Some in their 40s, some in their 30s, and some in their 20s. And it's like the island of misfit toys. I like have no idea how we could have found each other otherwise. You know, I think our average tenure together is something like 14 years. But there are people that I've worked with for 30 and 25 and 20. And the newest one is probably been less than a year. And so it's a very gradual turnover process. But, you know, there is turnover, and there has to be because, you know, we have a responsibility to have the best team on the field, and that is the worst part of my job. But it's almost never the case that it's not because that person doesn't deserve success. It's just that they're doing the wrong thing. I mean, if they have that credential and that work ethic and that level of IQ and process.”
2024-03-05 · The Knowledge Project with Shane Parrish · Chris Davis: Three Generations of Wealth · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“And his stoicism, you know, this opportunity to behave well, that's what suffering is, an opportunity to behave well. And I always feel like, I hear you, Charlie, but please don't test me. I just don't want to be tested. But of course, life doesn't give you that option. Sooner or later, we're all going to be tested. It's a matter of whether it's sooner or later. So I feel like dispositionally happy so much of the time. Like if you were to ask me what are those moments in a year, it's like there's so many. I love the people I work with. I can't tell you what a privilege it is to really love your colleagues, like just to be curious about, you know, what they're up to and their lives. We have, you know, a small team, there are eight of us on the research side, but they're in every decade. One colleague in 60s, a couple of us in our 50s.”
2024-03-05 · The Knowledge Project with Shane Parrish · Chris Davis: Three Generations of Wealth · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“died at about eighty six, so she died in, you know, I was out of high school. I was priority in college when she died. But she would tell stories about World War I. And to this day, like I can even feel my heart rate going up as I'm saying it, how terrified I was of that idea of the guy blowing the whistle and going up and over the top. And in the mud and the rain and the machine guns. And I used to say as a little kid, I would sort of, you know, when you say your prayers at night, I would sort of say, you know, I hope I would be brave, but please don't ever test me. Like I never want to be tested. And I feel like that about, you know, health, about depression, about contentment, about sleep, you know, I feel like I'd like to think, you know, Charlie was so... So powerful about handling suffering.”
2024-03-05 · The Knowledge Project with Shane Parrish · Chris Davis: Three Generations of Wealth · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“And everything will change. And I don't want in that moment to regret that I didn't appreciate just how lucky I had it today, the day before all that changed. And so that is sort of a driving part of my mindset. You know, I had, believe it or not, I had an English nanny growing up. I had a very strange upbringing in some ways. So this is, you know, my dad had us out trying to gather kindling and, you know, my mom had this English nanny named Ellen Wigglesworth. And Ellen Wigglesworth was born in 1898. And she lost her fianc ⁇ in World War I. And that's when she came to the States and she ended up being my mom's nanny in the 30s. And, you know, she was in my life.”
2024-03-05 · The Knowledge Project with Shane Parrish · Chris Davis: Three Generations of Wealth · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Each day is just to say that. This is the day the Lord has made. Rejoice and be glad in it. And I feel like I've had such a super abundance in my life. Like it is, and that tomorrow, you know, the phone could ring and somebody could say it's malignant, or they could say there's been an accident.”
2024-03-05 · The Knowledge Project with Shane Parrish · Chris Davis: Three Generations of Wealth · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“the fundamental message and its danger in our society of victimhood, I think, is a dangerous message versus the empowering message of the degree to which you have agency for your life. And I feel like that is a message of Christianity historically that I really admired, especially in Protestantism, this idea of taking being accountable for your choices and for your life. Anyway, all to say that I do think that it is very often the case that people do not have control over their happiness. But having said that, what I was going to tell you is there's a psalm that begins, behold the day the Lord has made rejoice and be glad in it.”
2024-03-05 · The Knowledge Project with Shane Parrish · Chris Davis: Three Generations of Wealth · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“To just simply not take it for granted, but just feel deeply grateful that I tend to wake up reasonably content. You know, there's a, this is a little bit strange thing to say, but there's a psalm. And by the way, I should say I'm actually quite agnostic. I'm not a deeply religious person. I also admired the church as an instrument of social improvement. I think that.”
2024-03-05 · The Knowledge Project with Shane Parrish · Chris Davis: Three Generations of Wealth · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“And yet I have, even though I can't physically, I haven't experienced insomnia, I have a deep visceral sense of what hell that must be. And similarly with happiness and depression, I see people that are depressed and I feel so lucky that I'm just dispositionally have a tendency towards happiness and contentment. And it certainly came from my dad had it, my grandfather had it, my grandmother. I mean, I just feel I grew up very, very lucky that way. My sister, my closest friend has that. We talk about it a lot. It's like it, and so I know enough about unhappiness and depression to know that it's saying, well, why don't you just change your attitude does not work. And so I've learned enough.”
2024-03-05 · The Knowledge Project with Shane Parrish · Chris Davis: Three Generations of Wealth · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Well, I've had a lot of experience with depression and others and some growing up and some through marriage. And it's a little bit like insomnia. Like if you I have almost a sleeping superpower. It's like I'm not even supposed to say that out loud because my closest friend who's also my partner at work and as I say we were raised together sent infants and he's hugely important person in my life and he has a terrible time sleeping. And it's like I've learned that my talking about how I can fall asleep. Like if you told me I can lie down here and have a nap for 15 minutes, I would have a nap for 15 minutes. Like I'm really good at sleeping. It helps me with jet lag. I can like you get anywhere you say it's time for bed. It's like I'm ready for bed.”
2024-03-05 · The Knowledge Project with Shane Parrish · Chris Davis: Three Generations of Wealth · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yeah, I think that's the real truth of it, is that your kids are going to imitate you. And it's maybe the most important thing you can do as a parent is model happiness, not desperation, not greed, not need for other people's approval, not, you know, just try to model happiness. And whatever that means in how you live, and if there are people that develop money and it really makes them happy to have that big house, well, chances are that, you know, that they may have a view with their kids that I want my kids to have everything. You know, I can't think of anything better than my children living in a mansion that I produced for them. And, you know, if it's sincere and happy, I don't think that, I don't think you've created a miserable child if you're a happy, engaged human being. And so that's why I think the formulas, I think the falseness is what kids sniff.”
2024-03-05 · The Knowledge Project with Shane Parrish · Chris Davis: Three Generations of Wealth · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I remember going to Switzerland in Stadt, there's a very famous hotel, the Palace. It's up on this hill. And my grandfather, even when he was the ambassador of Switzerland, used to brag that he would never stay there because it's a terrible hotel for skiers. He stayed at a little place called the Arcon Siel because it was right at the base of a lift. And he said, This is a Skier's hotel. Well, he was not suffering being slope side, but it made sense. And so I think that's sort of the idea. It's that, you know, putting your kid in the servant's wing versus, hey, kids, we got upgraded. We got upgraded because I worked my ass off. And isn't this amazing? You know, and letting them savor and laugh and enjoy that, you know, that's...”
2024-03-05 · The Knowledge Project with Shane Parrish · Chris Davis: Three Generations of Wealth · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Or that they're not trustworthy. So I've seen just as much damage done by wealthy families trying to build character as I've seen the opposite. I would say my father had a very difficult relationship with his own father, and I think a big part of that was his own father was so puritanical and would make him carry his skis and walk up the hill for the first in order to get a lift ticket or they're going to build a pool and so they'll get out there and dig for two weekends until their hands were sort of bloody and you know the grandfather was always trying to teach them a lesson and it had felt false it felt false to my dad it felt and so they ended up really not close whereas my dad my dad just loved life and so he embraced and it's true we didn't stay”
2024-03-05 · The Knowledge Project with Shane Parrish · Chris Davis: Three Generations of Wealth · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“He's like more ice cream. Why haven't we flown this way apart? But of course being able to love and cheer that. You know, it's not going to be perfect. I mean, that's one, again, where Charlie says, if you want your kids to be as ambitious and as hardworking, it's unlikely. But Barry Diller tells a great story. I don't think he'd mind my telling it. You know, Barry grew up in relative privilege. He would say, you know, and he had a friend that was from one of the wealthiest oil families in LA. And the parents made him sleep in the servant's wing of their mansion. And he just talked about how deranged it all seemed. Like it was signaling to the kids that you don't love them.”
2024-03-05 · The Knowledge Project with Shane Parrish · Chris Davis: Three Generations of Wealth · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“like oh you're in our private villa bungalow out here with the private and stuff whereas the lowest end place was one where the kids ended up playing soccer with the people that worked in the kitchen and running around in the scrub and the dirt and sort of having a great time and he talked about there was a yiddish word and of course i don't remember what it was but he talked about that's what people really crave they crave connection and so it's not really about the luxury it's about the connectedness and so you know staying in a very luxurious place that feels very simple and connected fabulous use of funds you know staying in the four seasons where your children are given a butler and a ski valet probably probably not as good”
2024-03-05 · The Knowledge Project with Shane Parrish · Chris Davis: Three Generations of Wealth · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Of what you feel is reasonable. Like what we all want to be is at the high end of value. You know, David Brooks wrote a beautiful article about traveling in Africa, eight or nine different places. And he asked his kids at the end what their favorites were. And it ended up not just to be not correlated to the amount that the place cost, but to be inversely correlated. And he said the reason is the nicer the place the more they tried to isolate you.”
2024-03-05 · The Knowledge Project with Shane Parrish · Chris Davis: Three Generations of Wealth · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Traveling coach today is a lot worse than traveling coach 30 years ago. But I hated the idea of having my kids in business class. It just felt like it didn't feel right either. So I hit on this idea about when they were your kids age of I'll split the difference with you. Like, I literally will write you a check. You can choose. Like, we'll get you a seat in business class, or you get $700. And it is amazing how into that they were. They even started with this view of what if we find a cheaper flight? I was like, no, no, no, no, no. But I think it is okay. And again, going with the travel is a huge gift and slumming it isn't necessary. It's trying to find that line.”
2024-03-05 · The Knowledge Project with Shane Parrish · Chris Davis: Three Generations of Wealth · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“No matter where we're standing Well, you know, this isn't a trick. I don't know how well this would work for your kids. But we had that with airline travel because, you know, my grandfather famously wrote his will in the beginning words of it say, I'm writing this myself on, you know, TWA flight 323 economy class underlined. So, you know, first class was always an absolute no-no. It was like ordering filet mignon on a menu like it would still, I could still feel my dad's blood pressure going up if any one of us tried to order a steak at a restaurant. But, you know, it got to where.”
2024-03-05 · The Knowledge Project with Shane Parrish · Chris Davis: Three Generations of Wealth · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I got to do this. And, you know, and I got to get a big house here. And then, you know, now what? Now my kids are all trying to figure out, well, can we get so, you know, instead, we have, we literally have a campground in Maine, you know, little cabins. And it's a place that we're very happy because it feels sustainable. Not going to Aspen is not because I don't think I would love it. I know I would love it. And Southampton, Aspen, you know, Palm Beach, I'm sure I would love it. Look, people are not crazy. If people go to Palm Beach, it's because it's pretty great and they pay a lot of money to go there. It's probably pretty great. I just feel like, why do I want to get on that trolley? I feel like Crystal Meth is probably pretty great too. I just think it's probably better not to get started”
2024-03-05 · The Knowledge Project with Shane Parrish · Chris Davis: Three Generations of Wealth · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“And then what? How the hell are my kids or my grandkids going to afford all afford to have homes in Aspen? So they're going to instead end up going to a place like Taos and feeling like failures. Whereas my kids feel like Towson's the greatest place on earth. Well, they've never been to Aspen to try just as well. And so going back, I'm very prone to envy in myself. I'm not proud of that. I can be a very competitive person. And so a big part of checking that weakness in me is not to get in that pool. And so, you know, I don't go to Southampton not because I don't think it would be lovely and not because there aren't some amazing, interesting people that I admire hugely that live there. And they live beautifully there. It's because if I got there, I would feel like...”
2024-03-05 · The Knowledge Project with Shane Parrish · Chris Davis: Three Generations of Wealth · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“And Taust, New Mexico is a very old school kind of place. It's steep, it's technical, but it is the opposite of aspen. And so, you know, for me, it was this sort of idea, well, I could just keep going to Taos. My kids are going to be great skiers, but it's going to be a place that they could likely afford for generations. You know, we've got a condo with orange shag carpet. And my daughter met her husband. He's from Taos. And, you know, and so it feels like a family spot. Whereas if we ended up with an aspen, I just think the total cohort would change.”
2024-03-05 · The Knowledge Project with Shane Parrish · Chris Davis: Three Generations of Wealth · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“He grew up loving skiing. And my dad is a fabulous skier, and so my grandparents were good skiers. But they were so worried about spoiling us so that I grew up skiing in upstate New York in a town called the mountain was called Snow Ridge. It's in Booneville, New York, or near Booneville, New York, which is, you know, it's just a farmhill. But, you know, as we were doing better, my dad wanted us to ski in nicer places and so on. And we went to all different places, but we always stayed in pretty modest way. He would, you know, make a big deal out of buying our ski equipment, you know, secondhand at the end of the season. But we ended up in Taos, New Mexico. Now there were some other reasons we ended up out there. We had an office in Santa Fe for various reasons.”
2024-03-05 · The Knowledge Project with Shane Parrish · Chris Davis: Three Generations of Wealth · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Well, it's gonna be whatever. I mean, of course, one of the great things about making money is you can sort of have what you want. And I think the question is, how do you try to do a good job deciding what you want? Obviously, I mean, and you know him. I mean, one of the great gifts to humanity has been Morgan Housel. And, you know, the psychology of money is like the perfect reminder that what we really want, you know, what kids crave is time with their parents. And, you know, you end up in the Hamptons on the cocktail circuit and biking in your lycra with all your private equity buddies. I mean, can you tell I got a chip on my shoulder about that? But, you know, and all your business school buddies. So I just think, you know, I'll give a good example.”
2024-03-05 · The Knowledge Project with Shane Parrish · Chris Davis: Three Generations of Wealth · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“To his ability. And so everybody made an equal sacrifice. And then that was the trip kitty. But I just think having a group of friends that has persisted from childhood, in fact, three of us were baptized together as infants. I mean, that's one is a partner at work. We've been partners for 30 years. He runs all of our clients side. But there are people that I admire, and they're truth tellers, and so we raised our kids altogether. I think that helps a lot. I just think this idea that you make a lot and then you begin to separate yourself, separate yourself more and more, I think that's the message that you're sending your kids, is that there's no continuity or they're more special than their cousins who didn't do so well. I think it's a...”
2024-03-05 · The Knowledge Project with Shane Parrish · Chris Davis: Three Generations of Wealth · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“And I had a good group of kids that I grew up with, and we all raised our kids together, so I think we also had a peer group of friends that achieved different things in different ways. So, for example, we do a trip every 18 months, the same group of friends does a trip together, and we've done it since we were teenagers. We would spend some time together in the summers, but then everybody lived. So we would always have a weekend where we all got together. The way we pay for that trip is it used to be that, you know, whoever, what friend who's a teacher, you know, that he would dictate the amount of the trip. But, you know, as I said, how many times do we need to canoe down the Housatonic? Can we do something more? And so we all decided we would contribute one week's pay. So it was, you know, sort of from each according.”
2024-03-05 · The Knowledge Project with Shane Parrish · Chris Davis: Three Generations of Wealth · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“My father once made a very off-color comment, but I'll share it because he said, you know, I don't go to strip clubs because if I don't like it, it's a waste of time. And if I do, it's going to be very expensive. And, you know, why do you want to create an environment where, you know, you would have to endow? I mean, think of what that lifestyle would cost.”
2024-03-05 · The Knowledge Project with Shane Parrish · Chris Davis: Three Generations of Wealth · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I just think that, you know, if you do the Southampton Palm Beach Aspen, you're creating kids that either you're going to have to leave them a hell of a lot of money to maintain that lifestyle. But even then, even if they maintain the lifestyle, they do so purely because they can brute afford it, not because they are interesting or substantial people. And I think you surround them with a lot of, I think, unhappiness. Both sides of my family, I was very lucky that we never, to this day, I like to brag that I've never been east of Bishore on Long Island. And somebody would have to be a New Yorker to know what a humble brag that is. But basically east of Bayshore is where the Hamptons are. And I've been... Lifelong New Yorker, I've never been to the Hamptons. I've never. And, you know, I...”
2024-03-05 · The Knowledge Project with Shane Parrish · Chris Davis: Three Generations of Wealth · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Money too. He gave money to his kids, but they, you know, they're good citizens. On balance that swing a cat through the munger clan and you're hitting above average people in their value system, in their intelligence and IQ. And so I would say I don't know the secret. I know what doesn't work. What doesn't work? What doesn't work is giving your kids a lifestyle where they will feel like a loser if they are unable to maintain that lifestyle on their own merits.”
2024-03-05 · The Knowledge Project with Shane Parrish · Chris Davis: Three Generations of Wealth · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I think having grown up in New York and really not been a part of that, I think we felt a little bit like outsiders growing up. And I think the 70s everybody was an outsider, so there was probably some of that. But I look at my kids and I'm so proud of them. And they all worked through, you know, we did have the same rule like three weeks without a job as long as you're in school. And then three months without a job, you know, how long you can live at home. And, you know, my parents were very straightforward about that. And so, you know, and I look at Charlie Munger's got great kids. Like they're all.”
2024-03-05 · The Knowledge Project with Shane Parrish · Chris Davis: Three Generations of Wealth · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“That was not me. I actually married a woman that had a four and five-year-old when I was only 28. And then we had a child together. We actually functionally adopted a boy in there as well. to me was maybe the greatest source of joy in my life. I mean, I talk to almost all my kids almost every day. I don't think I was ever a helicopter pair. In fact, their line was I somehow managed to turn every activity into a helmet sport. And there's some truth to that. But I just loved raising kids. And I've actually got three grandchildren now. And it just, you know, COVID, I had all of my children came and lived with me and my grandchildren and my mother. And it was a glorious time. I mean, I just, so I've always loved kids. I've loved little kids. You know, I would say that I think”
2024-03-05 · The Knowledge Project with Shane Parrish · Chris Davis: Three Generations of Wealth · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT