YouSaid · the spoken record

David Fagan

lines on the record: 55
first: 2025-08-03
most recent: 2025-08-03
sittings or episodes: 1
sources: podcast

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“David, this has been absolutely amazing. Thank you so much for making time for us. And not just on the podcast, but also spending time with us and the mastermind community and teaching us about accountability and habits. Where can the audience learn more about you and do you have any concluding remarks?”
2025-08-03 · We Study Billionaires · TIP742: Invest like a Business Owner w/ David Fagan · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“And not just in the cheeky way of saying, yeah, we have one of those. His name is William. I think it very much depends on what is it that you're optimizing for. And you just, you have to be aligned with those values. And then the rest would take care of itself.”
2025-08-03 · We Study Billionaires · TIP742: Invest like a Business Owner w/ David Fagan · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“One of the things we do, for example, we have the support team rate the host from a scale from one to five and then we literally have a company handbook where it talks about if the hosts are not nice to work with, you know, they can't be a part of the team. We don't have that for our support team. We probably should have, but we don't have that. And I would also say we probably don't need that because the people who seek a job in support are just wired a little bit different than whenever we would open up for Clay's position. We got like 100 applicants. A lot of people want to be minus celebrities in investing space and be paid to do the hobby. So it requires a very special personality such as Clay to stay grounded and sort of like stay humble when a lot of things are happening around you. I kind of feel like I was trying to avoid saying a lot of different things there in what I said before, but it's really important. So to answer your question.”
2025-08-03 · We Study Billionaires · TIP742: Invest like a Business Owner w/ David Fagan · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“And we have obviously way more people than we have hosts on the show. But the show or the hosts get all the attention. And so it's very important to have a culture, at least it is for me, where we don't work with big egos. Because it's just not fun. And then it also depends on what is it that you're optimizing for. So if we were optimizing purely for dollars, there have been different situations in the lifetime of TAP where we could have work with some high-profile names and gone a route that's quite different than what we're doing today. And we could have built up some franchises around different people. And, you know, if we optimize for money, that is probably the way to go. But then it would have eroded the culture. And we optimize for a wonderful culture. And so we do different things on the team that's absolutely ridiculous from a”
2025-08-03 · We Study Billionaires · TIP742: Invest like a Business Owner w/ David Fagan · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“But that's been absolutely wonderful. And I don't think that there is any, I don't think there is like a one size fits all type solution to that. I think it's very important that you have the same values though. You still need to have the same values even if you operate very differently. If you don't have the same values, it's going to be tricky and luckily William has the same value, so it's not difficult at all. It really depends on what kind of life you want to live. We have a, it sounds absolutely terrible because all companies, of course, have a culture and all so many companies feel that they have an amazing culture and then perhaps that's not the case. And whenever you speak to the founder, sometimes they talk about a culture being better than perhaps other people in the organization. You know, one thing that's very telling of our culture is that what people see is the hosts.”
2025-08-03 · We Study Billionaires · TIP742: Invest like a Business Owner w/ David Fagan · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“But then your partner still has to execute it. So if it's only a little bit better, you're going to get up with a better resolve for both of you if you give in. And then, of course, you have this one out of 10 times where you just have such a high conviction that you're right. And then if you find the right caliber of business partner, you know that he's going to or she is going to disagree and commit. And that's really where you are being tested. And if you find the right person, that is exactly what's going to happen.”
2025-08-03 · We Study Billionaires · TIP742: Invest like a Business Owner w/ David Fagan · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“One mentor model I would like to share with the audience is that be ready to give in. Like every time I work with someone, I give in a lot, probably nine out of 10 times. And of course, whenever you have that approach, you also need to make sure that you partner up with high caliber people who don't exploit it. But there are different ways you can sort of identify those people. But I want to give you three scenarios here. So why do I give in so much whenever I work with other people if we have different opinion? Well, your partner's idea might be better than yours. That is definitely possible, especially in my case. It could also be that your ideas are equally good. But if it's your partner who are executing on it and the ideas are equally good, I can guarantee you that you should follow your partner's idea because he's, after all, the guy executing. And then there's also the situation where your idea is still better.”
2025-08-03 · We Study Billionaires · TIP742: Invest like a Business Owner w/ David Fagan · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“One thing I would say is that people do chains, yes, but they don't change because you want them to change or at the pace you want them to change. Like it goes to David's point before about a partnership is like a marriage. No, I can say I've married almost 15 years. Your wife is not going to change because you want her to change and you're not going to change because your wife wants you to change. It just doesn't work like that. And so You need to Every good marriage, you need to be respectful, you need to listen, and you know”
2025-08-03 · We Study Billionaires · TIP742: Invest like a Business Owner w/ David Fagan · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Team up with your friends because they're your friends. I have some wonderful friends I would never go into business with because I'm quite sure we will not be friends if we did that. So please don't get me wrong whenever I'm making those observations. Another observation I wanted to share here. Audience is that if you want a lot out of life and business, you have to ask for it. Ask for everything though, because if you ask everything, you end up with nothing. If you like David and me and you like your love working, why not work with friends? Probably going to sound a little spoiled, but I don't want to be one of those guys to say that I don't have time for my friends because I've worked too much. And I'm like, I love working. I love my friends. Can we get the best of both worlds? And so, of course, make sure it's for the right reason.”
2025-08-03 · We Study Billionaires · TIP742: Invest like a Business Owner w/ David Fagan · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Probably don't want to partner up with him. Or he really believes in the company, but he doesn't, he hasn't accumulated $40,000. Then that's probably also the wrong person to team up with. And so what ended up happening was that he got an exemption for the $40,000 and he turned out to be a terrible business partner. And there are still different issues and there were legal actions and there was just absolutely terrible. And so of course this is just an anecdote. But to me, I think that there are some things that is somewhat evergreen there. And then I would also say that”
2025-08-03 · We Study Billionaires · TIP742: Invest like a Business Owner w/ David Fagan · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Don't really need the cash, so why would I do this? Well, you know, it's like, do you want to make sure that he's committed? That's point number one. But there are also different kind of signaling into it. And so it wasn't, I don't know, I don't know if I'm going to offend it in one here, but I don't remember it as a big commitment. It was in the $40,000 range. And of course, we all come from different walks of life and to some people. $40,000 is a lot of people, but I would imagine here if you're looking for a business partner in Denmark and it's in the $40,000 range and he was looking at candidates in their 40s and 50s. It's not a lot of money. And so if the person doesn't forgot that money, like there are different reasons for it, right? Like one of them is. Person has the money but doesn't believe in the company.”
2025-08-03 · We Study Billionaires · TIP742: Invest like a Business Owner w/ David Fagan · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“As an alliance, I look at as a partnership. And so one of the things that I've learned as I've gotten a little older has been always to look at the track record of that person. Success leaves clues. And of course, this is a little bit different if you're hiring someone right out of college or if you're teaming up with someone who's 60. Of course, there are different type of clues you're looking for. One example that is top of mind is a good friend I have who At the time in his 40s, he wanted to run a company and he was looking for a business partner. And one of the things I said to him was that he should find a business partner who should put money down to enter the partnership. And my friend was like looking at me like,”
2025-08-03 · We Study Billionaires · TIP742: Invest like a Business Owner w/ David Fagan · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“And different things you want to be without. And if you opt out and say, I just don't want those problems, then you can't run a business. And it's just that simple. You can't only have all the good stuff. And then something comes in for left field. And I know like the situation for you guys, of course, was a little bit different because you have an actual office and, you know, we're small company with 20 people and it's all virtual and so on. So it's a little bit different for us, but we didn't have a protocol that said, in case of the world shutting down due to a pandemic, this is what you do. Here are the 12 steps one by one. We didn't have that protocol, so we had to figure that out. So I wanted to go back to this framework here of partnering up and partnering up, it could be equity, it could be a 50-50 partnership and a 200 partnership, but whatever it might be, it could also be you are being an employer and hiring employee, whatever it is. I look at this.”
2025-08-03 · We Study Billionaires · TIP742: Invest like a Business Owner w/ David Fagan · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“You know, I'm very happy that you say that, David. I kind of feel like I'm a one-stream banjo with quote after quote of quote, but like you can have anything but not everything, right? And so if you want to achieve something really valuable in relationships, it's not, I mean, like any wonderful relationship, there are going to be ups and downs. Hopefully a lot more ops than downs, but it's a packet steal. And I feel that with myself, I see that with friends, where a certain stages of your life, you become a bit more complacent. And there are different types of pain you're just not willing to do anymore. Someone is probably good, but you can't really, the things in life that you want to do, even if you don't need the money, still come with some pain. You know, like if you run, if you want to run a successful business, there are going to be different frictions.”
2025-08-03 · We Study Billionaires · TIP742: Invest like a Business Owner w/ David Fagan · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“So whenever I hired Claire Kyle, you know, I hope they would stay with TAP for at least a decade and way longer. It was the same thing whenever William joined the team. And I know that the world isn't always that kind that you're not going to work for decades, wonderful people always, but that is the mindset I go into my why with from the professional and from the personal side. And so William taught me this wonderful mental model of don't work with friends before you're 40 and then only work with friends after you're 40. And I think that there is like everything that William says there's an element of wisdom, there's a huge element of wisdom there. And so that is just something that financial independence allows you to do. How do you look at that framework, David?”
2025-08-03 · We Study Billionaires · TIP742: Invest like a Business Owner w/ David Fagan · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Kits enough money to do anything but not nothing. And so the idea of optimizing for happiness is also why I would have friends who say, I reach my number, why would I ever work? And why I have other friends who say I have so much money, so why wouldn't I continue working? This is so much fun. It's all part of the idea of optimizing for happiness. And so a big part of my why is I really enjoy being on this metaphorical journey with wonderful people. And so we get wonderful applications from people who have been listening to the show in college and then they ride out of a very, very nice Ivy League school. They want to join CIP. And I've always said no. We didn't have a professor from Howard who wanted to join the team. But I believe that all good things in life come from compounding. And the same goes for relationships.”
2025-08-03 · We Study Billionaires · TIP742: Invest like a Business Owner w/ David Fagan · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Like I do, because, well, perhaps you're right, perhaps that is a deeply broken, terrible person, or perhaps that person just have different values in you. Not because he's not enlightened enough or not just because like, no, he's just wide a little bit different than you. And that's why he's still super happy living a different life than you. And so it's going to sound a bit like a cliche. One point in time, I'm going to try to start a sentence without saying it's going to sound like a cliche. But it didn't happen this time. David, but I sort of like look at this through the lens of optimizing for happiness, which I think we all do to a large extent, even though we might not think about it like that. And, you know, some people would say, oh, I work hard to make sure I can give my kids, I don't know, $10 million the time I'm not here. Or they might say, I'm doing this, and then I make sure to give all the money away because I don't want to spoil my kids or perhaps Buffett said it best when he talks about giving his.”
2025-08-03 · We Study Billionaires · TIP742: Invest like a Business Owner w/ David Fagan · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Thing I need to defend Buffett. So please don't get me wrong. Again, he had no clue who I am. I don't think Buffett wakes up in the morning and thinks, oh my God, if only I was as interested in architecture like my friend Charlie, or if I would build my own boat, like I don't think he wakes up thinking like, I think he's 100% aligned with his inner scorecard living a life that's true to his values. And so whenever I get asked for advice and also why I ask you, David, about your wise, it goes back to this idea of how are you aligned with your values? And if I don't know your values, I can't tell you what to do. But that's key here. And it's probably quite easy to look at different successful people and then say, oh, you know, this person, you know, there's probably also an element of sour grapes there. Like, yeah, but, you know, he doesn't live a good life.”
2025-08-03 · We Study Billionaires · TIP742: Invest like a Business Owner w/ David Fagan · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“The way you structured your life, David said, okay, six o'clock in the morning, and then, you know, and then exercise and you want to read and you want to do, and they're like, oh my God, it sounds so stressful. Well, but it's the right mix for you because that is the way you want to live your life. And everyone loves Buffett, right? But then the hardcore value investors that generally tend to like Monger more than Buffett. And one quote that's getting thrown around a lot is this manga quote of I'm going to butcher it completely, but like trading small pieces of paper is a wasted life. And so I think a lot of people resonate with the breadth of manger and I think that's absolutely wonderful. And then they look at Buffett's like, oh, didn't he really shouldn't he be spending more time with his kids or isn't he too much of a one string banjo just sitting there reading 10Ks and Moody's and whatever? And I don't necessarily.”
2025-08-03 · We Study Billionaires · TIP742: Invest like a Business Owner w/ David Fagan · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Thank you for sharing David. And I think it's very different from person to person what the why is and what I would encourage you to not necessarily you, David, but because I think it sounds like you got it covered. But if there's something to clone from the audience, and it sounds very generic, it probably is, but I would like to sort of like appeal a few different layers on that. I often get asked for advice, which is, of course, wonderful. It's also a little ironic, they say that no one's a prophet in his own country and I couldn't imagine people be more unimpressed by the type of advice I give than my family. So whenever I get escort advice, it's always wonderful. People think I have something to contribute. But I more or less always say the same thing, which is I don't know what decision is the right for you, but it has to be aligned with your values. And so some people would probably look at”
2025-08-03 · We Study Billionaires · TIP742: Invest like a Business Owner w/ David Fagan · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Least your own small pocket of the world. And there's a self selection there, of course, because whenever you achieve a financial independence on certain age, it's typically because you have that competitive side of you. It's fun to compete. It's fun to win. And most people are just not smart enough to compete in such a brutal world of capitalism and do that part-time. And then you have this thing where even if they can't, like they perhaps don't signal the right thing to their team. Oh, I'm just doing this part-time, but you're supposed to do this full time. It's like, there are a lot of different threads we can pull from this. David. So I think I want to throw it over to you and sort of like here, what is your why? Let's start with that.”
2025-08-03 · We Study Billionaires · TIP742: Invest like a Business Owner w/ David Fagan · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I hit this number, they would go to have a care in the world anymore. Like, of course, the world isn't that kind. You hit a certain number and you have different problems. It's just the name of the game. And, you know, I feel I've been on this journey with different friends. This was actually something we talked about here before we hit record where, you know, you meet old friends, new friends on this path to financial independence. It's just very interesting to see what happens to yourself, but also to other people whenever they achieve whatever their number is. Most people, they lose their drive. The set of goal, they achieved it, and then they stop. And they say, you only have one life, why spend it on working if you don't need to? And of course, then you also have other people who say you only have one life, so why wouldn't you spend doing that and changing the world?”
2025-08-03 · We Study Billionaires · TIP742: Invest like a Business Owner w/ David Fagan · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“David, I'm going to put you on the spot here. I can't help myself. And I'm going to reference a bunch of different calls we had. People didn't tune into. So it's kind of like unfair. But I do remember we had a call where we talked about financial independence. And one thing that stuck with me was that you said that once you reach your financial goals, it's really all about your why. And I just think that was such a brilliant observation. I always think I've said that multiple times here on the show. It's been such a big part of my journey. I just burningly wanted to become financial independent. And that feeling and achieving that feeling and the opportunities and so on and so forth. But it also brings you a myriad of different questions you never had before. Like I was probably naive is I'm probably still naive, but I remember thinking whenever”
2025-08-03 · We Study Billionaires · TIP742: Invest like a Business Owner w/ David Fagan · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Is like a long train ride. Like you stop from time to time to pick up different passengers who want to be a part of your journey. And then sometimes you also stop and some of those people jump off. And it's not because of a fallout, could be, but most, most often it's not because of a fallout. It's just you're no longer on the same journey. Perhaps you chose a different journey. Perhaps your friend wanted to be on another train and that's perfectly fine because the best things in life come from compounding. And if you're lucky enough to find someone who wants to be part of your journey through life, that's amazing. And if not, that's also kind of fine. So anyways, to me, that has been very helpful to think about friendships that way.”
2025-08-03 · We Study Billionaires · TIP742: Invest like a Business Owner w/ David Fagan · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“In life, are there for reason or season and not for a lifetime? And I would just encourage people to think that's perfectly fine. And whenever I say mutual beneficial, I'm not talking about it from a money changing hands kind of way. But from whenever you meet up with your friends, you should both leave with this positive energy and looking forward to seeing your friend again and not feel like, oh, I just checked off a box of, oh, I'm so grounded and I hang out with my kids from the block whenever I grew up. And so now, you know, I reset the counter to zero and then I in another month from now I'm going to reset the counter again. Even if you haven't enjoyed it, they haven't enjoyed it. Because you feel that there's some kind of moral obligation to do so. Believe me, I made the mistake myself. So that's why I'm saying this. And so it sounds beautiful to have the same friends throughout your lifetime. But let me give you another perspective. Life...”
2025-08-03 · We Study Billionaires · TIP742: Invest like a Business Owner w/ David Fagan · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Footballer, and you want to play at the best team in the world, say you want to play for Liverpool FC. I refuse to say PSG for anyone listening to this show. And 99% of people have no clue why I would refer PSD and what we're talking about. That is not the best team in the world. Anyways, what are the odds that Liverpool is going to win the next Champions League only for local players? It's just, it just won't happen, at least not the way football is today. And so you need to look outside of your local pond to compete on the world-class level. And I'm not saying that we all compete on Chemist League Championship kind of level, but I think it's an interesting mental model where there is something to be said about friendships and loyalty. And I think loyalty is great, but you have to be loyal to another person for the right reason and because it has to be mutually beneficial. And most relationships.”
2025-08-03 · We Study Billionaires · TIP742: Invest like a Business Owner w/ David Fagan · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“And you're sort of like having an idea of what they would do in this situation. So to me, that's been immensely helpful too. I want to talk a bit here about friendships and probably not on the note of grading people. I don't necessarily, I kind of feel it, my example came across a bit more transactional probably that I wanted it. But my point is about friendships is that I think that I become a bit more pragmatic because I used to think that it was better to have friends from the time whenever you grew up because there were more pure friendships. And I'll be the first to say if you do have that, I think it's wonderful. So please don't get me wrong as I'm going to Buff to say something different here, perhaps or it's going to sound different. I also think it really depends on what kind of friendships and relationship you want to have. And so let me give you a mental model here. So say that you are a”
2025-08-03 · We Study Billionaires · TIP742: Invest like a Business Owner w/ David Fagan · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yeah, I think that you bring up some great points. The very interesting point about AI, it's like, I feel a discussion about how to use ChatGPT or whatnot as a mentor might already be outdated whenever we're going to publish this. It's just like, yeah, I don't know. I use ChatGT for everything these days. And it seems like it's getting better every week, not every month now, like every week. It's absolutely amazing. You know, in terms of I once had a like formal mentorship whenever I was a graduate, it was extremely helpful for me. And it played a big role in changing jobs. And so for me, it was very valuable. And then I, like so many others probably listen to the show, I had, you know, Buffett and MongereS. I don't know exists, but it's like informal mentors because, you know, you read everything that they have said and done.”
2025-08-03 · We Study Billionaires · TIP742: Invest like a Business Owner w/ David Fagan · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“If you're an eight, you want to surround yourself with people who are nine. If you're nine, you want to find people who are 10, but then I don't even know if we can agree on the numbers. But then we also run into this issue that we run out of numbers. What do you do whenever you're 10 or whatever? I never had that problem. But how do you think about this idea, David, of surrounding yourself with higher caliber people than yourselves? And how does the math add up?”
2025-08-03 · We Study Billionaires · TIP742: Invest like a Business Owner w/ David Fagan · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Because you become the average of the five people you surround yourself with. And of course, it's a little bit tricky, you know, whenever you say like, what is smart? Could you define smart? And all of a sudden, I kind of feel like I'll be painting myself into a corner. But we have Ralph from our community because we talked about this together. And he said that I think he called it like a high caliber person or low caliber person. And so perhaps that's a bit more inclusive than saying just smart. But I think that perhaps some of the listeners or perhaps all the listeners can resonate with that you meet a person and then for whatever reason you're like, ooh, that's a high caliber person or that's a low frequency person because of what they say and what they do. And so if I, because I have this excessive need to be very quantitative, so my apologies. If we say that we then assign a value from one to 10, like what's the caliber of that person?”
2025-08-03 · We Study Billionaires · TIP742: Invest like a Business Owner w/ David Fagan · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Going home or walking home from work. And I should say that I don't have a five minute drive like you, David. I have a five second walk from my bedroom to my office. So after I'm done with the day, I actually go for a walk, sort of like to walk home from work. Then I feel I can be a better version of myself and a better husband and I got to be present because otherwise there's just your business going on in my head. So I go for a walk just short of an hour after work going back home from work and reflecting on what did I achieve that day what should I achieve tomorrow stop planning the day for tomorrow and type that up and so it's a little counterintuitive but you need to have time not to be efficient to give yourself an overview to be efficient and you know a successful habit that I would like to explore a bit here together with you David is this idea of surrounding yourself with people who are smarter than you”
2025-08-03 · We Study Billionaires · TIP742: Invest like a Business Owner w/ David Fagan · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“That is absolutely amazing, David. I wish I had that discipline. You know, one of the community members and a good friend of mine, Thomas, he once said to me, if you don't waste hours, you're going to waste years. And I found that to be extremely helpful, partly because I sometimes need an excuse for being efficient. So it's sort of like a way of saying, oh my God, it's probably because I'm not going to waste years. I do think that Thomas is right that you want to avoid being in a negative spiral where you're so busy that you don't have time to question if your time the right way. And so one way I would go about this is I would go for a walk. I think some people generously call it a walking meditation meditation. I don't necessarily know if I'm on that level, but there is something to be said about”
2025-08-03 · We Study Billionaires · TIP742: Invest like a Business Owner w/ David Fagan · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“That's a good point, David. And that is very often why we as investors don't want to see the dividends. So again, it really depends on how you're being taxed. David, I wanted to jump to the second segment here about successful habits. And I know that you run a very successful business. And I know that you mentioned on one of the calls we had in our mastermind community that you like to exercise and you like to read the first hour of do I say every day? I wish I had that discipline. Could you talk more about your habits? It's very inspiring.”
2025-08-03 · We Study Billionaires · TIP742: Invest like a Business Owner w/ David Fagan · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Little, he might have four kits, so it's like it sort of makes sense. From that standpoint, why you might do that. Plus, you know, the idea of reinvesting in new projects always makes sense whenever you're sitting in an Excel sheet. But whenever you run your business, you learn that you don't always have projects for that extra cash. And sometimes you meet or you might have projects, but you don't have the right people on the team to take on those projects or like it doesn't really fit with the culture you want to have. And like there's so, I don't know. I guess this is just my way of saying that, yes, there is a lot of corrupt management out there. And yes, a lot of them are probably self-serving. But whenever you are sort of like on the other side of it, you just, you sometimes look at”
2025-08-03 · We Study Billionaires · TIP742: Invest like a Business Owner w/ David Fagan · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Dividend yield, and you might be thinking there as budding your stock investor like why doesn't he buy back shares? He's like, yeah, you know, no one's crazy. Perhaps he doesn't optimize for your shareholder yield. But if all of your money is in a hundred million dollar listed equities and also remember you as a budding stock on the list, you also hate whenever they sell stock. So you don't want him to sell stock. And then he's like, you also don't want him to take a salary because that's not the way to do it. We learn from one buffet, not more than $100,000. And you also don't want him to give himself stock options. You don't want any of that. Okay, great. But then he has a, let's call it 2% yield. That's $2 million pre-tax. And of course, $2 million is a lot of money pre-tax, but also keep in mind that he has 100% of his net worth in the stock. So if he wants to diversify a little, he probably also want to enjoy life.”
2025-08-03 · We Study Billionaires · TIP742: Invest like a Business Owner w/ David Fagan · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Impose a bit more fiscal discipline on yourself. I mean, I still make plenty of bad decisions, even whenever we have less cash. But you think about it a little bit differently. And so I think that's part of it. And then there's another part of it where whenever you see enough projects fail and you see how brutal capitalism is, you kind of like to get paid while you wait and while you own an asset. And so if you have, let's say that you have a founder and it might be a listed company, now the founder might own, I don't know, let's just say 20% of the company, that stay is worth $100 million. And let's not talk about different share classes, but if you have the founder and perhaps also CO and chairman, which you can't even if you only have a 20% depending on the bylaws and so on and so forth, from his perspective, well, perhaps it's nice to have a two or three”
2025-08-03 · We Study Billionaires · TIP742: Invest like a Business Owner w/ David Fagan · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Understand why a company would pay out dividends and feel like it's hurting shareholders. And very often they're right. So I should also say that, but the premise here for this segment is this premise of investing is best done when it's most business-like, businessman, investor, vice versa. And so I think I see dividends a little bit differently after I have run my own business for some time. And I wanted to provide a few different examples. I've tried accumulating cash in the business of TIP and I've realized whenever I do that, I do stupid things because I don't know. It might be a stick thing and hopefully other managers are doing a better job of that. But sometimes whenever you have too much cash laying around, you do stupid stuff. And so, and like you would start bad projects, for example. And so whenever you take out cash from a bank account, you”
2025-08-03 · We Study Billionaires · TIP742: Invest like a Business Owner w/ David Fagan · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“And David, I think another angle I wanted to include here is dividends. I want to say that it's a topic that's divisive. I don't think it is. I think more or less everyone disagrees with me, so it's probably not divisive at all. But I've increasingly started to like companies paying dividends. And I couldn't understand it at all before. And generally, whenever I see different write-ups, I would read a soft stack or something to that. And generally, there is a selection bias. And I hope this comes across the right way. A lot of people who do substacks, you know, they're up and comers and they might not have a huge network, but like very smart and they want to find compounders and they love doing stock research. And all of that is wonderful. There's a lot of great research out there. And then they don't really.”
2025-08-03 · We Study Billionaires · TIP742: Invest like a Business Owner w/ David Fagan · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Invest those free cash flows into, say, a low cost index fund with low turnover and minimal tax distributions. I mean, that can be an incredibly powerful path and wealth creation just by itself, right? And, you know, as Munger said, you know, the first rule of compounding is don't interrupt it unnecessarily. So if you can just let that compounding engine run both inside your business and inside your public investments, I mean, you don't have to make it complicated. You just have to kind of let time do its thing sometimes, right? And so I think, you know, you've got to incorporate that a little bit as well. Let's take a quick break and hear from today's sponsors.”
2025-08-03 · We Study Billionaires · TIP742: Invest like a Business Owner w/ David Fagan · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I always can't help myself but like chris them about the business they're in so regardless what kind of line of business they're in i'm just curious about business models and you know and then many of them are telling me oh no you shouldn't invest in this business like management is terrible business terrible and so i sometimes feel like people with a corporate job have a higher tolerance for poor management because they've seen companies thrive even with poor management so sometimes it's just easier for them to pull the trigger whereas I sometimes feel like I'm just way too lazy whenever it comes to that because I said very very high standards whenever it comes to management integrity and then you know sometimes you still get disappointed I want to throw to you again here David”
2025-08-03 · We Study Billionaires · TIP742: Invest like a Business Owner w/ David Fagan · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“At the same time, the wonderful thing about the bug stops is that you have control, and then all of a sudden you're watching from the sideline and you see the CO do something ridiculous. You're like, yeah, you can sell. But perhaps the market also thinks it's ridiculous and it just tanked 20%. And you're like, should I take that loss or is it temporary? Or it's one of those things where you just like, yeah, that's hate the game, not the player type of thing. I think there's an element of that. The other thing I would also say is that I feel sometimes that people who have a let's call a conventional corporate job sometimes I feel they have different advantages because from running my own business, I think I sometimes have too high standards whenever it comes to other to management look in various listed companies of how they should behave. And the irony is that whenever I meet different community members or whatnot.”
2025-08-03 · We Study Billionaires · TIP742: Invest like a Business Owner w/ David Fagan · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Be said about watching your basket very carefully. And so I think as business owners, you probably have this assessed need. I probably shouldn't say we as a business owners because I kind of feel like I'll be dragging you down. David, to my level. So I can probably just speak to myself. But I think some business owners definitely in my case, I think that having that being used to having control, you know, and then go into public markets where you don't have any control, at least with the amount of money that I'm moving around. It's not like Buffett is calling me, asking me for directions for Halloway or anything like that. I'm sure if you have a lot of money and you invest in smaller companies, it might be different, but you don't have any control in public markets. And I find that to be liberating and frustrating at the same time. So it's liberating because you know that having control is time consuming and the bug stops with you. And that can sometimes be annoying.”
2025-08-03 · We Study Billionaires · TIP742: Invest like a Business Owner w/ David Fagan · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“So, David, one thing I would like to add is that from speaking with successful business people daily, I think that whether you come from perspective of being a business owner, just you are in business, you really learn and have this deep respect for how fragile all businesses are. And to your point about taking risks, and it's actually very risky to take risk, even though it probably sounds counterintuitive. So these models that we have, and I think it's perfectly fine if you extrapolate, you have revenue and your earnings per share, so whatnot, like you sort of like need to have an idea of what's going to happen. But of course, the world isn't that kind. And I'm sure the people who prepare those models also know that. The world is just very, very choppy. It doesn't go up in a straight line. Carnati had this wonderful principle of put all your eggs in one basket, then what's the basket carefully? And I don't want this to sound like an endorsement of just on one stock. That's not at all what I'm saying, but I do think that there is something to...”
2025-08-03 · We Study Billionaires · TIP742: Invest like a Business Owner w/ David Fagan · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Stuck with me like that Bill Miller quote that I completely butchered where I talked on the show about like figuring out what that is. And I think to some extent, I'm not saying that I'm the only person in the world who know the key metrics of Spotify. I think it's out there in public space. But I think it's very interesting once you Once you look at this from a perspective of a business owner, it's just, it feels a little bit different. Whereas whenever I started, I had more like the analyst cap on where it was like, okay, I'm going to track revenue and I'm going to check profits. And I guess that's what it's all about. And you're like, well, there are so many of those other metrics that's just not in the gap accounting.”
2025-08-03 · We Study Billionaires · TIP742: Invest like a Business Owner w/ David Fagan · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“And they learned that through actually from some of the creators that they have because creators are so used to put different things behind a paywall, you can just think of all the things that a platform like Spotify can do, even though I came for the podcast part. But then you see what's going on. And so I think you can learn a lot from that. And I remember whenever we had Bill Miller on the show, like he's been on the show multiple times, but I think it might be the first time we had him on. where he talked about there were like two or three key variables you need to figure out where the best is and then you know the rest is more or less noise i'm completely paraphrasing what he's saying here but that that is that is how i remember it and to me like i've been invested in spotify multiple times and and then you're like huh okay i i feel i sort of understand the podcast business i feel i also understand spotify and then it's just like it's”
2025-08-03 · We Study Billionaires · TIP742: Invest like a Business Owner w/ David Fagan · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“You have to experience the power of having the platform. And there's a lot of things that this podcast and this podcast network is is not. But you have so and so many people coming to the platform. And once you have the platform, you can do other things. And you see that with Spotify, for example. They started in music and then they got hundreds of millions of people on the platform. And then they said, okay, let's do podcasting. And then they completely changed their podcasting sector, which is also one of the reasons why I invested in them in the first place because I saw what was going on. And I could see why there would be the industry standard. And then they said, well, we have all of these people. Let's set up a new vertical. Okay. Let's do audiobooks. Sort of extends. You have music. You have podcasts, your audiobooks. And now, you know, they're doing all these tests with education.”
2025-08-03 · We Study Billionaires · TIP742: Invest like a Business Owner w/ David Fagan · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yeah, definitely. And if I was really, really smart, I would learn from other people's mistakes and what other people learned. And I wouldn't have to grow wise out of pain and figure it out myself. I remember it might have been 10 years ago, eight years ago, something like that. And I listened to this presentation that Rit Hoffman did, the co-founder of LinkedIn. And I think that even that recording was like 10 years old at the time. And you talked about the importance of distribution. Like it wasn't about having a great idea or even to some extent execute on that idea. It was like if you have distribution, that's really where the value is. And I remember it really was something that stuck with me ever since. But then to your question about Spotify, it's almost like you had to experience it yourself. Or perhaps if you're not a slow learner as I am.”
2025-08-03 · We Study Billionaires · TIP742: Invest like a Business Owner w/ David Fagan · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Temporary decline of maybe 15 or 20 percent in my portfolio. So we learned so much from our mistakes. So how wonderful really is it to be able to learn those lessons as an entrepreneur to kind of develop the grit you need to be an investor? Because I mean, at some point you're going to get tested and to be able to have some of those lessons to carry you through in those moments are wonderful, you know. couple thoughts too partly to your point on concentration, being comfortable with fewer holdings because you know your business so well. A business owner teaches you the importance of longevity. I mean, I think most business”
2025-08-03 · We Study Billionaires · TIP742: Invest like a Business Owner w/ David Fagan · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Those lessons can kind of battle test you a little bit for your investing career later in both business and investing, your temperament really matters. And so if you can learn patience, that's going to really help you as an investor. And, you know, going through some challenging times in business can help you prepare for maybe the fortitude you need to kind of withstand significant drawdown in the market or an individual holding that you had that kind of went sideways a little bit. So, you know, I guess when I think back to some of my more stressful times in my business career, you know, whether I was dealing with tax auditor or being dead wrong on a segment that I was allocating capital to or maybe even having to let go of employees. I mean, that's never a good day. Those experiences for me were far more challenging than seeing what ends up being a”
2025-08-03 · We Study Billionaires · TIP742: Invest like a Business Owner w/ David Fagan · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Buffett's quote on being a better investor and businessman because he does both to me just frames an intense career of focus and continuous learning, which of course we all know. I mean, whether you run your own operate a business or you're investing in the markets, it doesn't matter which side you come from first, whether it's entrepreneurship or investing. Understanding cost, margins, competitive advantage, these are universal, right? So if you can apply your knowledge across both silos, that can give you a huge advantage, right? And so I think I'll start by answering your question about the advantages and disadvantages from the perspective of someone who started out as an entrepreneur first and then became an investor because naturally that's been my experience stake. So, you know, when you start out as an entrepreneur, you learn some really hard lessons.”
2025-08-03 · We Study Billionaires · TIP742: Invest like a Business Owner w/ David Fagan · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT