YouSaid · the spoken record

Christopher Zook

lines on the record: 72
first: 2021-12-13
most recent: 2021-12-13
sittings or episodes: 1
sources: podcast

Every line below is reproduced as it was said and linked to the record it came from. Nothing here is summarised or generated. Directory · Search · Corrections

“Have passion in whatever it is that you do. There's various points in time over my career where I've done things because they were profitable, not because I was passionate. And what I learned more than anything else at Datewith Destiny in 2013 was figure out what your passion is and then go figure out how to create an irresistible offer, which for us is we don't get paid unless people make money, to go figure out how to do that in a way that totally differentiates you from the marketplace because as our largest investor would say if he was on this call right now is he would say one of the reasons that we're with And most people go through life doing things that they're really not passionate about. And that's a shame because life is too short to not be passionate”
2021-12-13 · Capital Allocators · Christopher Zook – Thematic Investing and Raving Fans at CAZ Investments (Capital Allocators, EP.226) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“A hard one for me because of the fact that I disconnected from my father basically when I was 13, so I don't really have that. I can tell you probably, and my mother have a great relationship with her, but I was the man of the house starting when I was 13 years old. And so I was more the parent from that point on. So I would go back to something that absolutely my father prior to him getting off his pathway. He did talk to me about hard work. He taught me about attention to detail. And ultimately, if you set your mind to something, you can accomplish anything that you want. And so for that, even though I was separated from my father for the rest of his life, I absolutely love him and appreciate for the fact that he taught me at a very young age when it mattered. Set your goals, set your outcomes, and then go figure out how to go get it.”
2021-12-13 · Capital Allocators · Christopher Zook – Thematic Investing and Raving Fans at CAZ Investments (Capital Allocators, EP.226) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“You've got to hire the right people. And if you think that there might be a possibility, maybe that this is a bad idea to hire this person, don't hire them. And ultimately, that fits with that old adage, which is really, it took me a long time to learn, and I still struggle with it, but is hire slowly, fire quickly. I can think of two really big hiring mistakes that I've made over the years. Both of them ended up very, very not well. probably the best way to put that and it's because of the fact that I didn't go with what my discernment was or what my gut was telling me and I was like this we can make this work it'll be fine now if it's not really strong like this is a good idea don't do it”
2021-12-13 · Capital Allocators · Christopher Zook – Thematic Investing and Raving Fans at CAZ Investments (Capital Allocators, EP.226) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“But Lisa has been my partner in everything that we've done, not just as a spouse, but also she's just very wise. She's able to give me good counsel and every major decision is bounced off of her. There's only been two major decisions I've made in my life that just were really bad decisions. And both of them were ones where she was opposed. And I was like, I got this. I know better. And I learned my lesson that no, if she's really opposed to it, that Spidey Sense or gift of discernment, whatever it may be, I'm not going to go against what she thinks is wise.”
2021-12-13 · Capital Allocators · Christopher Zook – Thematic Investing and Raving Fans at CAZ Investments (Capital Allocators, EP.226) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“So Tony would be absolutely number one. The second biggest impact on my professional life My wife. Lisa has been my partner. We've been together since I was 15 years old. She's a couple years older than me and she likes to tell people she got me young enough to train me and there's a lot of truth to that.”
2021-12-13 · Capital Allocators · Christopher Zook – Thematic Investing and Raving Fans at CAZ Investments (Capital Allocators, EP.226) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“People that literally are all in it for themselves and are focused purely on what's in it for them. We have a big Harry Audacious goal as a firm, and it's to make $20 billion in profits for our investors over the next 20 years. Everything about our life every day is how we're going to make money for people, for them to support their family, their causes, their charities that they want to support is a pet peeve when investment advisors come in and just talk about how they're great and they're great and they're great. And by the way, did they mention that they're great? And that's the entire reason why they're saying why we should invest in their opportunity. And they may be great, but it should be a lot more about what's in it for the client as opposed to what's in it for them.”
2021-12-13 · Capital Allocators · Christopher Zook – Thematic Investing and Raving Fans at CAZ Investments (Capital Allocators, EP.226) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Lack of attention to detail. If I talk about attention to detail on the positive, I'd be remiss if I didn't say on the other side it's just people not paying attention to that detail that really ultimately may not seem like a big deal at the time, but it can be a sign of other things.”
2021-12-13 · Capital Allocators · Christopher Zook – Thematic Investing and Raving Fans at CAZ Investments (Capital Allocators, EP.226) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Daily habits my quiet time without question. My day starts with my quiet time. It's the most important thing. I'm a person of faith. And so that's a really, really critical place for me to get centered in my daily life and then move on to my exercises, et cetera.”
2021-12-13 · Capital Allocators · Christopher Zook – Thematic Investing and Raving Fans at CAZ Investments (Capital Allocators, EP.226) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I'm a golfer. I love the game. I love everything about it. I was a football player in college, blew up my knee, couldn't play football anymore, so I took up the game of golf, ended up walking on and playing at Texas Tech, was never good enough to travel, but I was able to be on the team. And ever since then, it's been a passion of mine.”
2021-12-13 · Capital Allocators · Christopher Zook – Thematic Investing and Raving Fans at CAZ Investments (Capital Allocators, EP.226) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“And the exclusivity that we're able to provide to them, and in some cases the customization where we can actually build a vehicle specifically for an investment advisor, well, a lot of people don't know this, but Tony and AJ and Josh are very connected in the investment advisor world and have been for a long time. They know a ton of investment advisors, so they're opening doors to those investment advisors so that those advisors can learn about how we can help them grow their business and how they can obviously do a better job for their clients.”
2021-12-13 · Capital Allocators · Christopher Zook – Thematic Investing and Raving Fans at CAZ Investments (Capital Allocators, EP.226) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“It's evolving, the power of the ecosystem is the ecosystem and the global network that we have, the bigger it gets, the better everybody benefits from that. Well, obviously Tony has an enormous microphone, but the vast majority of what we do is only available to qualified purchasers. So we have some things that are available to credit investors, but very, very, very little. So we are looking at strategic partnerships. We're very open to strategic partnerships about ways that we can allow a lot more investors to invest with us in what we do. But when we think about the relationship with Tony, investment advisors are some of our absolute largest fans of ours because we can provide their clients with access to things that they cannot get anywhere else. There are a lot of platforms out there that provide access, but very few of it curated that access and has more alpha as opposed to beta. A lot of investment advisors really prefer the alpha that we're able to generate.”
2021-12-13 · Capital Allocators · Christopher Zook – Thematic Investing and Raving Fans at CAZ Investments (Capital Allocators, EP.226) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Way is he says of all the people that have ever been through my programs, I'm not sure that anybody actually compared it back as well as Christopher Cannes because I have a bit of a photographic memory and so I can literally say the things that I learned eight years ago at Date with Destiny or at Business Mastery. And they still are very much on the top of my tongue. And we use them literally every day in the way we manage the business.”
2021-12-13 · Capital Allocators · Christopher Zook – Thematic Investing and Raving Fans at CAZ Investments (Capital Allocators, EP.226) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Focus goes, energy flows, when would now be a good time to do that is another one that I would say as Atonianism. Another one is complexity is the enemy of execution is another great quote there. Another one that I talk about all the time is in his course business mastery. They talk about the seven forces of business mastery and how basically all businesses can be broken down into seven categories and one of which is raving fans. When we built our promises, our number one promise that we make to our team as well as publicly to our investors is number one rule. Do what's best interest of the partners and make raving fans of our partners. So we use the raving fan concept extensively. Another one would be constant and never-ending improvement in canny, C-A-N-I, and just optimization. And I could literally go on and on because what blew Tony away, and I'm going to quote him and he's not going to mind me quoting him in this.”
2021-12-13 · Capital Allocators · Christopher Zook – Thematic Investing and Raving Fans at CAZ Investments (Capital Allocators, EP.226) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“For the last two decades plus. And because of that, it was like, okay, we got to get you in front of Tony because there's got to be something to do here that led to a meeting with Tony in Florida at his house, that led to us discussing how One Plus One could equal a lot more than two, and that led to our strategic investment that we accepted from Tony and Josh and AJ and others in May of this year. And what's so fascinating about that is not only is it just full circle and it's really kind of cool from that perspective, but what he teaches and how he teaches it for our team, they see how much value is added to their personal life, not just economically, but also the rest of their life and how we live our lives every day and how we talk and how we communicate internally as an organization. And it's been really a lot of fun. And he's a great partner.”
2021-12-13 · Capital Allocators · Christopher Zook – Thematic Investing and Raving Fans at CAZ Investments (Capital Allocators, EP.226) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Been driving so much of the decisions. Well, last summer, a year ago summer now, a referral of a referral introduced us to AJ Gupta, who is Tony's financial guy. If you read the book, Money, Master the Game, AJ is profiled in that book. So we were introduced to AJ. AJ looked into what we're doing and said, wait a second, how is it that those guys don't get paid unless they make money? I mean, that's as much alignment as you can have. They became investors in a couple things we were doing in the GP Stakes world. Tony was like, I don't get this. How in the world do they do this business model? I don't understand. I want to learn more. So that led to a dinner with AJ and Josh Robbins, who is Tony's son. And it was such an amazing evening because they didn't have any idea of my connection with Tony that I'd been to four live events that I'd done everything that he's ever done, basically. And I literally have managed this business with Tony.”
2021-12-13 · Capital Allocators · Christopher Zook – Thematic Investing and Raving Fans at CAZ Investments (Capital Allocators, EP.226) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“It's a fascinating story that he did not know most of the story until literally about eight months ago. And the story did start with me singing one of his commercials when I was literally 20 years old. I graduated high school earlier, I graduated college early. And so I was a young fellow that just really wanted to succeed and just started in the investment business. And I saw that. I said, I want to order that. Lisa and I did the 30-day program and set the goals that I mentioned earlier. And I told Tony this, and it was something that really took him aback the first time I had some time with him just one-on-one. And I said, other than my wife and my faith, there's nobody on this planet that has had more of an impact on my life than Tony Robbins. And that's a pretty cool thing for him to hear, and he hears that from a lot of different people. But so all along for the last 30 years of my adult life, he is...”
2021-12-13 · Capital Allocators · Christopher Zook – Thematic Investing and Raving Fans at CAZ Investments (Capital Allocators, EP.226) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Just get paid a percentage of the profits, and if there is no profit, we don't get paid. Well, everything then focuses around that same common objective, which is let's make a great return. We're not perfect and we're not going to be right every single time, but if the only reason we're doing it is because we really have conviction, then that ultimately is going to differentiate us from everybody else in the industry. Again, there's a lot of people that can provide access. Most people, though, are just doing that. Here's a menu do you want burger and a fries with that? How about we add on a Sunday for you? That's not the way we work. It is about let's make great investments, put a bunch of our own money in it, and then the rest of the world is welcome to come alongside of us, and they know that we're trying to create as much alpha as we can because everything is tied to that specific outcome. And there's others that I could list, but that's probably a good place to stop.”
2021-12-13 · Capital Allocators · Christopher Zook – Thematic Investing and Raving Fans at CAZ Investments (Capital Allocators, EP.226) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“That is not specific to our firm, and obviously, there's lots of people that have said this as well, but it really does come down to attention to detail. And if there's one thing that we tell all of our new hires and everybody that joins our team, it's that the work ethic everybody can do and everybody should do. But the attention to detail is really what separates the wheat from the chafe. And it's only by that attention to detail and being excellent in every single thing you do, whether it be returning an email, returning a phone call, looking at an investment, writing an IC memo, whatever it is, you need to be the best at it. And if you're not doing your very best, then you might as well not try. And then the last thing that I would say is putting ourselves on the side of the table with the investors goes back to maximum alignment, but it's just so much different to say it in a slightly different context. It means so much different. And that is, in most cases, we don't charge management fees at all.”
2021-12-13 · Capital Allocators · Christopher Zook – Thematic Investing and Raving Fans at CAZ Investments (Capital Allocators, EP.226) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Going to do number two unless we do number one. And so we were able to have this clarity of thought. Well, literally every single decision that we make internally, particularly when we're doing some of the innovative things that we do, what is our key priority? If we can't do that, nothing else matters. So have that key focus and know what the end in mind is that you're trying to accomplish brings a lot of clarity to decisions, to thought, and also to energy. The other thing is, and this is a line directly from Tony, where focus goes energy flows. If you're scattered around looking at so many different things, which is funny hearing this from somebody who looks at 1500 investments every single year, but our themes help us refine that down so quickly if it's not a fit to one of our themes, we're usually a quick pass. But if your focus is too misdirected or directed in too many different places, it's very difficult to apply enough energy to really move the needle. The other thing that I would say”
2021-12-13 · Capital Allocators · Christopher Zook – Thematic Investing and Raving Fans at CAZ Investments (Capital Allocators, EP.226) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“It's a challenge. Doesn't mean it can't work, but it's less likely to work. So maximum alignment equals maximum profits. The other thing is having a clearly understood primary outcome. When I was involved in helping with a number of people solve the Houston pension crisis a couple of years ago, the reason why it was stuck in legislation and even though the mayor was for it and the legislature was for it and the employees were for it, the reason it was stuck is that nobody could come up with what was the key priority. So one of my contributions was refining everybody down to what's our key priority. Number one, take care of the taxpayer. They're the one that are paying the bills for this. Number two, keep our promises to the people that we made promises to, the employees, the retirees. And then number three, if we can try to make the politicians happy. But we're not getting number three unless we do number two.”
2021-12-13 · Capital Allocators · Christopher Zook – Thematic Investing and Raving Fans at CAZ Investments (Capital Allocators, EP.226) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“That's a long list. I actually put in our, it's on our website. Everybody can go. It's up open for public review. But it was our second quarter letter was our 20th anniversary. So in that letter, I actually put a list that's a very long list of everything we've learned over the last 20 years. So some highlights that I would hit is that ultimately maximum alignment equals maximum profits. If you're not aligned with your investors, if we're not aligned with our team, if we're not aligned with our own philosophies, usually”
2021-12-13 · Capital Allocators · Christopher Zook – Thematic Investing and Raving Fans at CAZ Investments (Capital Allocators, EP.226) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Malls and retailers by way of Amazon and everybody else or just direct consumer business models that are really, really taking over so much of the consumer landscape. And then obviously in the GP Stakes business, we see so much money looking for home that it's going to go somewhere and a lot of it's going to end up in the private markets. And that's an industry that we think is going to continue to grow very fast.”
2021-12-13 · Capital Allocators · Christopher Zook – Thematic Investing and Raving Fans at CAZ Investments (Capital Allocators, EP.226) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I kind of touched on a little bit. Healthcare is going to change so dramatically over the next three decades. And we're involved in things everything from companies like Karis Life Sciences, which ran one of the largest funding rounds of 2021. Being able to look at somebody's blood and identify potential threats to their health years before it would actually show up in any other manner as an example. Obviously, in vaccinations and all those kinds of things, we have partners that are very, very much experts in healthcare. The disruptive technology, we're very involved in things related to agricultural technology, how food is being grown, how it's being created in some ways, not grown. Obviously, that's not a totally new thing, but how it's being created and delivered to consumers is a very, very big deal. And then obviously just the disintermediation of so many different industries, whether it be”
2021-12-13 · Capital Allocators · Christopher Zook – Thematic Investing and Raving Fans at CAZ Investments (Capital Allocators, EP.226) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“So the change of the consumer behavior is a big, big deal. And so we are very focused on how that is affecting media, how it's affecting marketing and advertisers and things of that nature. We've been very involved in esports. Those kind of go hand in hand, and what I mean by that is the target market for the sweet spot for advertisers that 18 to 40-year-old male and female, depending on what the product is. Well, those folks generally speaking are not watching cable these days. So how do you reach those eyeballs? And so as a result, you've got to do something different. Well, esports is a way to accomplish that. Live sporting events is another way to accomplish that, which is an area that we're very focused on. You look at esports and just it's such a massive sea change in the way that behavior is happening and what exactly those people choose to do with their time. So esports is a big part of that. Obviously healthcare.”
2021-12-13 · Capital Allocators · Christopher Zook – Thematic Investing and Raving Fans at CAZ Investments (Capital Allocators, EP.226) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“To the world that we're interested in a particular theme. Well, everybody who has a fund in that space should be calling us at that point because they want our money. And I understand that. And I would call me if I was them too. But we then are able to have both inbound and outbound. But a lot of our really successful investments have been us calling people and saying, hey, we're looking for the very best in agricultural technology as an example. We believe that the way that food is going to be grown is going to be different in the future. So we started asking around and kept pointing to the same firm, the same firm, the same firm. Well, guess what? We wanted to have a conversation with them. And we realized there was a couple of firms, two of which we passed on, one of which we invested with. So that's a good example of how that will be the case. And then on top of that, with 30 plus years in the industry personally and our firm having 20 plus years of experience with over 100 different sponsors, we have a pretty good idea.”
2021-12-13 · Capital Allocators · Christopher Zook – Thematic Investing and Raving Fans at CAZ Investments (Capital Allocators, EP.226) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Long and painful is the easiest way to explain that. And the themes themselves, they happen a lot more organically and gradually over time. And going back to that statement of the power of the ecosystem is the ecosystem, the power of our network is that we have so many different relationships that we can triangulate around to both people, team, process, candidly. I said this actually to my wife last night about something that we're looking at. If after three phone calls, we can't find someone who knows this team, then there's a reason why they're not known. And we're probably going to pass. Not always, but that's a good litmus test. So we're able to really triangulate across our investors, the sponsors that we work with, and then obviously everything we know sector-wise, industry specialists, people that we know that are focused on that particular industry as an example. So once we identify that theme, then we start broadcasting”
2021-12-13 · Capital Allocators · Christopher Zook – Thematic Investing and Raving Fans at CAZ Investments (Capital Allocators, EP.226) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Fire, if you will, to be able to do anything that we do, that's more of a traditional blank check type situation. We don't have one right now that's available for investors, so I can talk about it. But it's something to where we are able to make investments in everything that we do as opposed to the standalone vehicle that's a conduit into a particular theme or a particular investment. But it is always a mixture. Some of our strategic partnerships are just the fund and we get very preferential economics there. In some cases it's the fund and co-investments with preferential rights and preferential economics. In other cases, it's the fund, it's co-investments alongside that fund, and then everything that that sponsor does, we get preferential rights. And when you're writing multi-nine figure commitments to these partners, obviously you're able to get access to things that people would never get to on their own.”
2021-12-13 · Capital Allocators · Christopher Zook – Thematic Investing and Raving Fans at CAZ Investments (Capital Allocators, EP.226) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“In most cases, it's going to be either considered a public vehicle or a private vehicle. And so a private vehicle is very rarely going to get involved in anything in the public markets. So that doesn't mean we'll always do that, but that's where we have been historically. So from there, it becomes very thematic. And so one theme, one conduit. So just talking about GP stakes, we have our private equity ownership fund one, our private equity ownership fund two, and our private equity ownership fund three. And those are going to be a combination of fund and co-investments alongside of that fund and or direct investments that we choose to make in that space. And the case of like an open door, it's going to be literally a fund of just open door. And so our investors know they're buying a piece of open door, and that is specifically the only thing that they're buying. We do have what we refer to as our fund of everything, which is our diversified private investments vehicle, the market diversified.”
2021-12-13 · Capital Allocators · Christopher Zook – Thematic Investing and Raving Fans at CAZ Investments (Capital Allocators, EP.226) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Diversified way to participate with the eye-buying world there is today, there's multiple players now, and Zillow left the building, so now there's just basically open door and a few others. Open door, we thought it was going to be Coke and Pepsi, and now it's just going to be Coke and Coke. But that's the main driver. And so we do a tremendous amount of co-invests and direct investments. We also will invest in primary funds, but most of what we're focused on day to day are these big strategic partnerships that give us unique access and preferential access to co-investments and then the direct investments alongside people that we have a lot of confidence in.”
2021-12-13 · Capital Allocators · Christopher Zook – Thematic Investing and Raving Fans at CAZ Investments (Capital Allocators, EP.226) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“3D printed homes, and you'll be fascinated. But why did we invest in that specific company? It's because of the fact that there was no diversified way to invest in 3D printed homes. We believe that this”
2021-12-13 · Capital Allocators · Christopher Zook – Thematic Investing and Raving Fans at CAZ Investments (Capital Allocators, EP.226) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“It's one of the Places where the science becomes art, and with the right sizing and the right amount of diversification, everything becomes logical and makes sense for us and our personal capital and obviously for our ecosystem. So in some cases, the theme is best executed by owning a basket of multiple things within that theme, and in other cases, it's really just a specific company. So we're an investor in a company based in Austin by the name of Icon. And it's a really good example of a company that we literally were a seed investor in the company. We have a relationship with the team there. Most people don't know Icon unless they read the Wall Street Journal article two weeks ago that talked about how Lennar Holmes was partnering with this company in Austin to print with a 3D printer 100 homes outside of Austin. Well, that is icon. And if you have not seen the video, go to YouTube and type in icon.”
2021-12-13 · Capital Allocators · Christopher Zook – Thematic Investing and Raving Fans at CAZ Investments (Capital Allocators, EP.226) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Of these different themes, if you talk about GP stakes, you're really referring to a dial bon accord trying to take advantage of that. And in some of these others, OpenDOR is a specific company. How do you decide when to invest in a fund, when to invest directly?”
2021-12-13 · Capital Allocators · Christopher Zook – Thematic Investing and Raving Fans at CAZ Investments (Capital Allocators, EP.226) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Technology for us is that it's also the way that healthcare is changing. It's also the way that we're analyzing and evaluating data. A lot of people ask us if we're doing anything in crypto and we're not doing anything directly in crypto because we don't have an edge. We don't have an expertise. So we're partnering with our relationships in Silicon Valley to be able to do that. And, you know, we have one of our firms that literally on paper right now, one of our firms, they invested $2.5 million in Solano. And today that stake is worth over $4 billion. Well, I'm really glad we participated in that. We didn't have to make any decisions. We just trusted people that we know are really good at what they do to do their jobs. And that's how we've participated in the Zooms and the Pelotons and the DoorDashes of the world. And we have great strategic partnerships with many in Silicon Valley.”
2021-12-13 · Capital Allocators · Christopher Zook – Thematic Investing and Raving Fans at CAZ Investments (Capital Allocators, EP.226) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“So there we've participated in other areas like the ride sharing revolution, another really fun story that people like to tell is that I literally don't have a car. And for people in New York and San Francisco, that's not that unusual. But in Houston, Texas, I'm kind of the anomaly, to put it mildly. And the reason is because I was not a believer in ride sharing. And so in order to test that thesis, and this was many years ago, is I said, okay, fine, I'm going to give up my car. I can always get another one. And I'm just going to use Lyft nonstop for my transportation. We're going to track the impact. And I had a nice car, but not an extravagant car. And my cost of transportation went down 85%. Now, that's not true for every person, but because of my situation. That's what it was for me. And so it was something we were very convinced in. So we've been very big in the ridesharing around the entire world with positions on almost every continent now. And so...”
2021-12-13 · Capital Allocators · Christopher Zook – Thematic Investing and Raving Fans at CAZ Investments (Capital Allocators, EP.226) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I would consider to be some of the most grassroots research you can do. I sold my mom's house to Open Door. I looked at all the iBuyers, I looked at how it was working, I realized how much time it was going to save me, how the price was very fair, not the best price that I could have gotten, but a very fair price, and then ultimately we saw how easy they were going to be able to scale the business, to be able to get a share of the revenue on the cable that was installed and the repairs that were done, and the carpetry that was going to be put in, the paint job that was going to be necessary, and how they could vertically integrate the business so dramatically. So we invested in Open Door as a private company because of technology disrupting obviously the real estate agent world, as well as the change in consumer behavior to wanting it to be instantaneous, convenient, and basically never have to talk to anybody, which you don't ever have to do if you do something on Open Door.”
2021-12-13 · Capital Allocators · Christopher Zook – Thematic Investing and Raving Fans at CAZ Investments (Capital Allocators, EP.226) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“It's one of our favorite themes. We are so thematic that we try to bucket everything in two themes. And inside of disruptive technology, what we've looked for are things that are truly revolutionizing the way that we're functioning in our day-to-day lives. And it dovetails with another theme of ours, which is the change of consumer behavior. So a good example of that is one that we have been very involved in, which is Open Door. Open Door is a company that we invested in in the private markets because we saw this convergence of disruptive technology and change in consumer behavior. The vast majority of young people this day and age have grown up with something in their pocket that they feel like they can do almost anything on and they want to be able to do that, or at least on a website. Well, OpenDOR does that. For me, literally, part of the decision to invest in Open Door was driven by what I”
2021-12-13 · Capital Allocators · Christopher Zook – Thematic Investing and Raving Fans at CAZ Investments (Capital Allocators, EP.226) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Going to also have to pay less themselves, so that means your entry price has to be even better, and then also try to take advantage of this transition as it is occurring, which we have done through a number of the investments we've made.”
2021-12-13 · Capital Allocators · Christopher Zook – Thematic Investing and Raving Fans at CAZ Investments (Capital Allocators, EP.226) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“And the ability to live our lives the way we do. So now what you end up with when people are talking about the supply demand when COVID was ending, any surprises we get are likely to be on the upside. I don't know a single person that was forecasting $80 oil about a year ago. So if you don't have as much drilling activity, if you don't have as much production coming out of the ground, we're going to have to get it somewhere. It's going to come from overseas or it's going to come from here and we're going to have to drill for more. So what does that do from an investment thesis standpoint? It means that you have to be much more disciplined on evaluation because of the fact that your exit is going to be much more difficult. It's going to be much more challenging. It's not going to be like the old days where people had too much cash and they just bought everything they could find. Now you got to be sure you can cash flow out of it and you have to be sure that the buyer on the other end is going to be strategic and most likely is going to be”
2021-12-13 · Capital Allocators · Christopher Zook – Thematic Investing and Raving Fans at CAZ Investments (Capital Allocators, EP.226) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“It has impacted our thesis because of the fact that the industry is very capital starved right now and it's the result of that capital starvation is much higher prices than certainly a lot of people want to see at the gas pump and natural gas and heating their homes and things of that nature because while certainly energy transition is going to happen over time, it is that over time. And it's not a two-year process. It's a two decade to five decade to who knows how long process. So are we investing in the transition? Yes, we always have looked at where energy is an asset class like all others, fossil fuels or a piece of that puzzle, so is when, so is solar, so is hydro, so is everything else. So we've always looked at it collectively and holistically. Now there's more opportunities for the newer forms of energy production than there was in the past, but fossil fuels still are”
2021-12-13 · Capital Allocators · Christopher Zook – Thematic Investing and Raving Fans at CAZ Investments (Capital Allocators, EP.226) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“It's in very, very labor intensive. It's very capital intensive, and you have to have a lot of expertise in order to do it. But it literally is a choo-choo train that goes around on a single track. That's what it is. But when you can make four extra money in a short period of time by building it, that's an investment that we like, and it had a lot more visibility and a lot more predictability going back to that overriding theme and a higher probability of outcome that was positive, that's why we were more comfortable effectively investing in the picks and the shovels as opposed to the speculators that were wildcatting in the space.”
2021-12-13 · Capital Allocators · Christopher Zook – Thematic Investing and Raving Fans at CAZ Investments (Capital Allocators, EP.226) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“That the shales did and why we were able to unlock all of these resources. So when we did that investment though, it was very much a little bit more of the old-fashioned wildcatting days of you bought a bunch of acreage, you hoped to be able to drill into the shales, make a bunch of money, sell that acreage. And a lot of people did very well, but it was a much higher risk profile than we were comfortable with. Whereas in the midstream space, very close to the well head and only exclusively available in the private markets, there was this enormous demand that was growing to be able to handle processing and gathering and transportation to get what that new production was where it needed to be. And it was so simple. So many of these businesses that we made so much money from in the shale revolution, they were such simple businesses. It's to Choo Choo train that goes around on a track and you put the crude oil in there and then you take it to where it's supposed to go.”
2021-12-13 · Capital Allocators · Christopher Zook – Thematic Investing and Raving Fans at CAZ Investments (Capital Allocators, EP.226) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“In Houston, Texas, that's where we're based, and we have operations around the country, but we are based here. So we are in, quote unquote, the energy capital of the United States. So we know the space very, very well, have been involved in energy for all of my career. And when the shales started becoming a big deal, one of the things that's very powerful about our ecosystem, and it's a little corny, but it is true, the power of our ecosystem is the ecosystem. We have private equity firms, private credit firms. Their founders are investors of ours. They invest in what we do because they get the value proposition that we bring to the table. Well, the folks in energy were saying, Christopher, you really need to pay attention to this thing called shale. I'm like, shale, what is that? Like a granite countertop? What is that? Why do I care? And I know it's a little bit bigger than that. And so they walked me through, because I'm not an energy petroleum engineer. So they had to explain to me what it was.”
2021-12-13 · Capital Allocators · Christopher Zook – Thematic Investing and Raving Fans at CAZ Investments (Capital Allocators, EP.226) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Where the public will use very expensive currency to acquire smaller private companies bolt on new product lines, new geographic lines, and they can do it in a massively accretive way. That's where I think we're headed in the industry next. But I'm not a buyer of the publics right now. But at the right time, the right values, there are great opportunities.”
2021-12-13 · Capital Allocators · Christopher Zook – Thematic Investing and Raving Fans at CAZ Investments (Capital Allocators, EP.226) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“About a year and a half ago, two years ago, and particularly at the depths of COVID, we were very aggressively buying the publicly traded private firms. They were trading at compelling valuations with good dividend yields, and they've just gone up vertical. Now picking on anyone in particular, but some of them are up four or five times where they were last April. And they're now being valued differently than they used to be valued because of the fact that, A, a lot of them converted to C Corps would help a great deal. And, two, because of the fact that they're all about management fee profits and management fee profits are very predictable for the reasons that I just articulated. So now it basically becomes a cap rate trade. That's not something that we're really that excited about. So today as we sit, we're not real positive on the publics. We see a much better value in the privates, which ultimately could potentially be acquired by the publics, which we think is a network.”
2021-12-13 · Capital Allocators · Christopher Zook – Thematic Investing and Raving Fans at CAZ Investments (Capital Allocators, EP.226) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Delivery of results so that they can keep growing, but as long as they're meeting the expectations of their clients and their clients are happy, they're going to continue to grow”
2021-12-13 · Capital Allocators · Christopher Zook – Thematic Investing and Raving Fans at CAZ Investments (Capital Allocators, EP.226) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Higher returns at this valuation level that they did ten years ago simply because EBITDA multiples are higher, valuations are higher, exit values, maybe are higher, maybe they're not. But if you're a director of a public pension and your actual assumption is seven, and yes, XYZ sponsor gave you sixteen in their last vintage and this time you really think they're going to give you thirteen That's still your best option so you're still going to give them a billion dollars or a half a billion dollars to go do that 13 or 14 so yes to be very clear as an LP there are some pockets of the market that we're much less interested in because valuations are simply not attractive to put our own personal capital as a general partner we have to be comfortable with the performance of the underlying firm and their ultimate”
2021-12-13 · Capital Allocators · Christopher Zook – Thematic Investing and Raving Fans at CAZ Investments (Capital Allocators, EP.226) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“But ultimately, it's about their ability to grow their business and to grow their platform and to be consistent. And one of the things that I'm involved in outside of the workplace is that I was nominated and approved by the Texas Senate to be on the state of Texas Pension Review Board. And so we are the watchdog for the 100 public funds in the state of Texas. Well, one thing I can tell you definitively is that those folks have a problem. They have a 6 or 7% actuarial assumption that they've got to meet and there's zero chance that their public equity or fixed income buckets are going to meet that need, so they're having to do more privates. That is that big tailwind that I was talking about. Obviously, the tailwind of the growth of private equity and private investments as an asset class. But here's the interesting thing. And we've heard this from sponsor after sponsor after sponsor. Most of the investors recognize and realize they may not get access to the...”
2021-12-13 · Capital Allocators · Christopher Zook – Thematic Investing and Raving Fans at CAZ Investments (Capital Allocators, EP.226) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“For us as an owner of the GP business, the vast majority of the success is going to be the success of the franchise as opposed to an individual fund. So don't get me wrong, if a fund as a 2-2 grows versus a two gross, it's better for us.”
2021-12-13 · Capital Allocators · Christopher Zook – Thematic Investing and Raving Fans at CAZ Investments (Capital Allocators, EP.226) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Is the alignments that we have built in these transactions with all of our partners? Is what's good for them is good for us, what's not good for them is not good for us. And ultimately, what is best for the partner, the end investor, the end client, is still overwhelmingly what's going to drive the success of our investments. And that's why we really, really like that space because of that alignment.”
2021-12-13 · Capital Allocators · Christopher Zook – Thematic Investing and Raving Fans at CAZ Investments (Capital Allocators, EP.226) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Capital to work, and I've done it in a way that's easy for them. Well, guess what? That means the big are going to get bigger. That is exactly what's transpired. So some of the hypergrowth for some of these managers is because they are focused on growing their AUM, both through diversification of platform, geography, et cetera, but also from fund size. And the other part is being driven by the institutional investors and saying, look, I'm trying to limit my number of general partner relationships, so therefore I need you to take 250 next time or 500, or I got to pass. So we're seeing both sides of that. And what I have been pleased more than anything else on.”
2021-12-13 · Capital Allocators · Christopher Zook – Thematic Investing and Raving Fans at CAZ Investments (Capital Allocators, EP.226) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source