YouSaid · the spoken record

David Gardner

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90
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2026-04-24
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2026-04-24
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  1. “The new. I'm excited by AI. And that's not an industry, by the way. That is a plate tectonic shift for our society that's going to create many industries. Many of which don't even exist yet. Just as we were excited about the internet with Amazon, where my cost basis today is 16 cents, still holding, Uber hadn't even shown up yet. Google hadn't shown up yet. I mean, it will be years before AI companies that are amazing that are great stocks show up. So no one should feel anxious that they don't have an AI portfolio yet. But anyway, so I'm an early adopter, and then I'm connected to a community. The Motley Fool community, our forums, discussion boards, meeting people at book signings. The list goes, this conversation right now, you mentioned Stryker. I probably need to look back at that one. I'm curious how it's done. So I'm just always listening. Of course, social media is full of these kinds of opportunities.”

    2026-04-24 · Masters in Business · The Stock Picking Philosophy to Find the Next Amazon with Motley Fool's David Gardner · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  2. “So, the ideas come from first of all, I'm an early adopter. So I've got a closet full of things where I bought the thing early first gen, and it's not really working or wasn't relevant anymore. And so, but it also meant I bought Tesla very early on, and I tried online services with my scratchy phone. That sound we can all hear if you're over 40 years old today of logging on to AOL. So I love.”

    2026-04-24 · Masters in Business · The Stock Picking Philosophy to Find the Next Amazon with Motley Fool's David Gardner · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  3. “Yeah, and you know, even something as innovative as prediction markets, which I am fascinated by, are also being turned into quick, quick money and or sometimes questionable who can influence the outcomes of prediction markets. So these are unfortunate things where I think they're fascinating to follow. But if you're serious about your own money and you would like financial freedom one day, you're making a huge mistake if you go there. So back to your question. That's a non-negotiable for me. I don't like businesses that just fundamentally lead people who don't know math to give their money away regularly. I don't feel great about that if I'm a shareholder.”

    2026-04-24 · Masters in Business · The Stock Picking Philosophy to Find the Next Amazon with Motley Fool's David Gardner · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  4. “Yep. And I will say, I love sports. I know you do too. And I'm happy making a bet with friends. But if you really do the math of a 50-50 prospect where the house takes out its 10% and you just do your expected return and play that forward with all your money, I know where that goes. And you could have had 9 to 10% annualized returns.”

    2026-04-24 · Masters in Business · The Stock Picking Philosophy to Find the Next Amazon with Motley Fool's David Gardner · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  5. “I mean, every one of those questions I could possibly fill your ears up. So I will try to be brief. I love the questions. In reverse order, by the way, I'll say any non-negotiables, I don't invest in companies whose fundamental business is to take money from other people. And so you'll never see me recommend a so-called gaming stock. And I think sports betting is a joke, and it's, well, I think it always should have been legal. I think it is a sad waste of money for anybody who does the math. And so that would not be on my list. No motleful member has ever received a gaming recommendation from me.”

    2026-04-24 · Masters in Business · The Stock Picking Philosophy to Find the Next Amazon with Motley Fool's David Gardner · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  6. “Yeah. Well, one of my heroes is Clayton Christensen, who wrote the Innovator's Dilemma, and he's somebody who helped me understand and think about disruptive innovation. And I've always invested in the innovators. And back to your earlier question, Barry. I can keep holding my Netflix when it loses two-thirds of its value, when I believe in Netflix.”

    2026-04-24 · Masters in Business · The Stock Picking Philosophy to Find the Next Amazon with Motley Fool's David Gardner · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  7. “No background for this. This is such a fact paying five bucks for coffee. Are you serious? Right. So AOL. Was all just chat rooms, so all gonna be hype. No one will ever give their credit card over the internet. Tesla electric cars will never work. Intuitive surgical. Why would you have a robot when humans can do it just as well? Dot, dot, dot. The list goes on. All the way around”

    2026-04-24 · Masters in Business · The Stock Picking Philosophy to Find the Next Amazon with Motley Fool's David Gardner · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  8. “Great story. And, you know, so it's funny you mentioned the future and feeling like you're living the future. That's generally where I try to be as I pick my stocks. And just for the fun of it, one of my best stock picks in the last 15 years has been Tesla, which I picked in 2011, still holding. And I bought, I've owned a number of Teslas since. And I was driving around in Tesla in 2013. My license plate in Washington, D.C. is Future. No one else thought of it, so I'm watching out for the future in Washington, DC and I'm driving around going, I really am inside the future and I'm surrounded by not just other cars that aren't yet, but a whole industry gas stations, et cetera, of things not as much maintenance needed. So that's a great iconic example of for me, whether it's Starbucks back in the day, which was questionable for a lot of people because it looked like a fad. That was the big rap on Starbucks early 90s. Where have coffee houses ever come from in America?”

    2026-04-24 · Masters in Business · The Stock Picking Philosophy to Find the Next Amazon with Motley Fool's David Gardner · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  9. “That and I'm so glad to hear that for you in successful surgery, which is what we all want, robot or human. But yeah, it turns out there are lots of advantages to robot assisted surgery and intuitive surgical has really been the pure place small company. Stryker is a more bigger, diversified company. Anyway, but for each of these, like I just had.”

    2026-04-24 · Masters in Business · The Stock Picking Philosophy to Find the Next Amazon with Motley Fool's David Gardner · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  10. “Yeah, well, actually, intuitive surgical. Okay, yeah, yeah. But yes, you're thinking exactly the comments I was thinking.”

    2026-04-24 · Masters in Business · The Stock Picking Philosophy to Find the Next Amazon with Motley Fool's David Gardner · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  11. “And if you just look and ask who are the movers and shakers delivering products and services, electric cars, robotic surgery, coffee houses, better”

    2026-04-24 · Masters in Business · The Stock Picking Philosophy to Find the Next Amazon with Motley Fool's David Gardner · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  12. “It went up 30 times in value, and we've never been back on the view. And by the way, I'll return it any time. We'd love to close the loop on that story. But yeah, that was 1998 early TV appearance. We picked a stock for the ladies of the view. And then it was Starbucks. That's the punchline, by the way. I shouldn't have given that. But yeah, the stock dropped 30% in just a couple of months. And we went back on the show to update the story. And they booed us good naturedly. And they're like, oh, well, and we're like, keep holding though, keep holding. And then they've never invited us back since and it's gone up 33 times the value from our first appearance, not even including the 33% drop. So, I mean, that was an iconic moment. I didn't realize it at the time. But as I wrote Rulebreaker Investing, I was just thinking, that's my story because that's what most people miss. Most people are following the headlines instead of following real progress. And they're chasing stuff.”

    2026-04-24 · Masters in Business · The Stock Picking Philosophy to Find the Next Amazon with Motley Fool's David Gardner · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  13. “So, thank you. And I would say, first of all, it's not worth doing that for every investment. Certainly, if it were some dodgy crypto, I wouldn't be holding. But you used an important phrase a minute or two ago. You said top dog and first movie. So, when I look at important emerging industries and I see a company with a large customer base, they may not be profitable yet, but they're doing good things in this world, a world I want to live in. And their stock's down, their stock's been cut in half. What's the reason? Sometimes it's the CEO like Howard Schultz back in the day with Starbucks was just occasionally conservative. And the analysts were surprised as he underpromised and then the stock drops 15%, you know, and a week.”

    2026-04-24 · Masters in Business · The Stock Picking Philosophy to Find the Next Amazon with Motley Fool's David Gardner · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  14. “Yeah, well, thank you. These are some of the traits that I'm looking for in stocks. And I think before we start this, Barry, I should just, again, underline, I believe it is a worthy thing to choose stocks. I really want to find the best companies of our time, and I want to own them for a long period of time. And actually, for many people, it's actually easier to find Amazon or eBay back in that era or Nvidia more recently. But to actually hold them, to hold them, to allow them to multiply in the way that they will if you do, in my experience, that's hardest for those people.”

    2026-04-24 · Masters in Business · The Stock Picking Philosophy to Find the Next Amazon with Motley Fool's David Gardner · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  15. “Have we really got an era where you shouldn't even pay attention or care anymore and you can't probably beat the market because it would just be luck to pick Chick-fil-A over Kentucky fried chicken? I don't think so. I didn't think so back then. And so I would be definitely sounding that loud and clear today. There's even more big dumb money sloshing around than ever before because so much is just throwing it at everything and not discerning this one versus that one.”

    2026-04-24 · Masters in Business · The Stock Picking Philosophy to Find the Next Amazon with Motley Fool's David Gardner · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  16. “Yeah, exactly, which is their choice radical. So, those are the kinds of companies that I admire. And like, that's what I've always wanted the motley fool to be. So I would do that in earnest today in a way that I think would cut through a lot of the noise and people saying there's too many choices and all the rest. Standing for something and then living that every day, most of the best companies that I can think of do that. So I would be trying to do that, Barry. But yeah, it is a different world. I mean, one thing that's changed, I think for the worse, and I'm an optimist, Almost everybody's mailing it in with index funds these days. Like I was raised in an era where it was kind of normal, at least in my family, buy a stock. These days, the conventional wisdom has become you'd be crazy to buy individual stocks. That's so risky just index. And while I admire Jack Bogle deeply and I appreciate indexing, and the Molly Fool has always been a big supporter of index funds,”

    2026-04-24 · Masters in Business · The Stock Picking Philosophy to Find the Next Amazon with Motley Fool's David Gardner · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  17. “Well, I think, first of all, one thing that we know today that we didn't do back then that I think is very helpful in every era is to be a purpose-driven business and to state what is your mission, what is your purpose, and really hue to that and breathe through that and hire for that and promote because of that. And conscious capitalism is one of my themes as an investor and a board that I've served on. So I now have those eyes that I didn't have back then. And I think that that is such a strong thing. Most of the best companies I know look at crazy business of fast food chicken. Chick-fil-a is an amazing company. I wish it were a public market company. It would have been one of my stock picks, but they just fundamentally act differently than McDonald's and their competitors. And it's because it's like a leadership academy masquerading as a chicken joint.”

    2026-04-24 · Masters in Business · The Stock Picking Philosophy to Find the Next Amazon with Motley Fool's David Gardner · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  18. “So, it's important to remember those moments because we tend to forget them. We also forget the dawn of AI. This is first inning in this ballgame, and people will look back and go, it's also obvious in retrospect.”

    2026-04-24 · Masters in Business · The Stock Picking Philosophy to Find the Next Amazon with Motley Fool's David Gardner · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  19. “Yeah, and I think that's true. So you're right, premium experiences and premium services are where the web has ended up. However, there was a whole shift, 98, 99, 2000. You really couldn't charge for anything on the web. If we had tried to say, you now shall pay for our site or we have a subscription service, we would have been laughed at. At the same time, though, as a stock picker, I was picking AOL stock saying, I think this is an amazing company. And it sure enough was. It ended up being 150 bagger at its top. Didn't end there, but it was still a remarkable investment. And lots of people had followed us into AOL and other stocks like the Amazon. And it was really going against conventional wisdom at the time to say buy Amazon, buy AOL. And so I want people to remember that because now it looks so obvious. I mean, AOL didn't end well. Amazon has ended really, really well. It hasn't ended. Right. That's right.”

    2026-04-24 · Masters in Business · The Stock Picking Philosophy to Find the Next Amazon with Motley Fool's David Gardner · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  20. “Forward timeline. So, thank you for that memory because this is very important. Anytime a new technology shows up, it's generally we're fearful about it. What is AI going to do to jobs? Well, back then I had a”

    2026-04-24 · Masters in Business · The Stock Picking Philosophy to Find the Next Amazon with Motley Fool's David Gardner · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  21. “Yeah. So we launched the website alongside our AOL site with our first book, The Motley Full Investment Guide in the summer of 1996. And the website, AOL took part ownership in us. So we gave a minority interest in our company to AOL. And they're like, guys, go out on the web. Compete with your own site. Compete with us, Ted Leonzis, who is a real visionary. And Ted was like, guys, no one's making money on the web. Show anybody how to make money here.”

    2026-04-24 · Masters in Business · The Stock Picking Philosophy to Find the Next Amazon with Motley Fool's David Gardner · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  22. “Yeah, they're only charging $30 flat a month. And so all of a sudden, magnet sites like ours were not as popular. And then meanwhile, AWL, understandably, no harm, no foul here, but they were starting to launch AOL Finance and AOL stocks and competing directly with kind of where we'd camped out and built our holdings. It might be.”

    2026-04-24 · Masters in Business · The Stock Picking Philosophy to Find the Next Amazon with Motley Fool's David Gardner · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  23. “Because we had built a site that was really fun to visit. We had very active forums. We were publishing multiple times a day. Lots of people are showing up. There were even chat rooms back then, right? People were spending time online. And 40 cents for every hour. So we were starting to hire people. And then within a few years, AOL went flat rate. And all of a sudden, we had been the stars of AOL. They were putting us forth at their partners conference. We were on the cover of Fortune magazine just three years after we started print newsletter. We were right out front. And then we became kind of poisoned for AOL in this sense.”

    2026-04-24 · Masters in Business · The Stock Picking Philosophy to Find the Next Amazon with Motley Fool's David Gardner · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  24. “Correct, like $3.25. I think there is a to four at one point. And so the business model was remarkable for us. If somebody spent an hour at keyword fool, we would get 10% of that. So if they're paying AOL four bucks an hour, 40 cents for any hour that anybody would spend at our site. And so with a tiny staff and a big dog that was mailing out CDs and DVDs to get onto AOL services, cocktail coasters at parties.”

    2026-04-24 · Masters in Business · The Stock Picking Philosophy to Find the Next Amazon with Motley Fool's David Gardner · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  25. “Yeah, I would actually say 96 ish was when we started coming online on the web. But no, it was just keyword fool on AOL. But AOL was going through a period of dynamic growth. So it was fantastic for us. We launched in August by November. We were written up in the New Yorker in the talk of the town section. And then we had agents and publishers saying there's a book here, guys. And we're on television. We have a radio show coast to coast. We were like the early pioneers who believed in this new media and we were going offline as fast as we could while everybody else was trying to come online. Exactly.”

    2026-04-24 · Masters in Business · The Stock Picking Philosophy to Find the Next Amazon with Motley Fool's David Gardner · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  26. “So we really launched, first of all, Barry. It was August 4th of 1994. It was just on AOL because this is pre World Wide Web. People were not using that phrase.”

    2026-04-24 · Masters in Business · The Stock Picking Philosophy to Find the Next Amazon with Motley Fool's David Gardner · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  27. “That's right. They were given license to tell the truth. So I sort of loved it. Also, great lines like a fool in his money are soon parted, you know, gave us a steep hill to climb as we tried to build trust with people. Why would you call yourselves fools? And it started there and it started as a print newsletter. You mentioned that, Barry. It was July of 1993 was the first issue. $48 a year. The only people who subscribed are parents' friends. They were the only ones who pay us $48 a year. Our friends sure weren't going to for our financial advice back then. But as we started that newsletter, 1993, early 94, we were signing on using our modem, our telephone onto AOL, Prodigy, and CompuServe. The big three in the early private online services battle. And we were starting to discover this new medium and getting fascinated by it.”

    2026-04-24 · Masters in Business · The Stock Picking Philosophy to Find the Next Amazon with Motley Fool's David Gardner · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  28. “Shakespeare, those are some as you like it, Act 2 scene seven for those keeping score at home. But for me, this was a character I loved studying, certainly going through school, and everyone loves Shakespeare's Fools. They could tell the king or queen the truth, and they did so with humor.”

    2026-04-24 · Masters in Business · The Stock Picking Philosophy to Find the Next Amazon with Motley Fool's David Gardner · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  29. “Well, I quit that job with nothing to go to. And then my brother's best friend from Brown University, they both went to Brown. Eric said, hey, David, I went to Brown, but shockingly, I really know nothing about investing in the stock market. I'm from great education, great family. I'm a television sports producer. What's going on in stocks? So would you teach me? So I spent a couple of nights just sitting down with Eric going, you know, here's what I look at, here's what I do. I was raised in a family where you buy individual stocks. We're not just going to index here. We're going to be choiceful. And we had so much fun. Eric's like, why don't we open up? This is a newsletter. You have no job. Now you just work for a newsletter. I was like, okay, let's do that. And then I flipped through a book of quotations one night and I settled on a fool, a fool. I see a fool in the forest, a motley fool. And I just thought, you know, Shakespeare.”

    2026-04-24 · Masters in Business · The Stock Picking Philosophy to Find the Next Amazon with Motley Fool's David Gardner · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  30. “Definitely. You are right. And then so now we're going down memory lane. Is this where your audience wants, Barry? No, no, it is not what they want. Stay down memory lane here. They do not want that, but...”

    2026-04-24 · Masters in Business · The Stock Picking Philosophy to Find the Next Amazon with Motley Fool's David Gardner · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  31. “There you Might well have About to happen, and then Black Monday happened. Yeah, Bloomberg. CNBC. Right. I remember FNN was like an early player.”

    2026-04-24 · Masters in Business · The Stock Picking Philosophy to Find the Next Amazon with Motley Fool's David Gardner · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  32. “Let's Wizards and Charm. Elves, right? I think it was elves. That's really fun that you would go back and revisit. You know, I'll just say he was a wit. He was himself outside of Wall Street. I mean, he's sort of a journalist, but he enjoyed bringing together brilliant minds on Wall Street. You know, he had Peter Lynch. He would regularly focus Lynch and others. Peter Lynch, Lizzie.”

    2026-04-24 · Masters in Business · The Stock Picking Philosophy to Find the Next Amazon with Motley Fool's David Gardner · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  33. “An hour a week. I think it was an hour a week. It was generally Fridays. It would air different things to Mark's. But Friday night, you know, after the air. I remember.”

    2026-04-24 · Masters in Business · The Stock Picking Philosophy to Find the Next Amazon with Motley Fool's David Gardner · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  34. “Out of stockbrokers, children's mouths. I mean, Yeah. Well, I discovered that the downside was a job that just was kind of creatively deadening. It doesn't really reflect on Ruka Kaiser. It was the goal of that newsletter, just to supplement his TV show and all the rest. But after six months, I quit the job because I was just like, this is not fun”

    2026-04-24 · Masters in Business · The Stock Picking Philosophy to Find the Next Amazon with Motley Fool's David Gardner · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  35. “And that's because I was instructed. I was never took a journalism course, but I was just an English major. But they told me, you know, we have to balance it out here, David. In fact, Rukaiser is the personality. He's the color of this newsletter. Not you. We're stripping out the color and also you got to be, you got to talk about the downside of discount brokers and quick. And I was like, I don't want to do that. I don't see downside.”

    2026-04-24 · Masters in Business · The Stock Picking Philosophy to Find the Next Amazon with Motley Fool's David Gardner · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  36. “Longest running show on PBS, and he had a newsletter, a financial newsletter, and I got to write the back page of that newsletter for that first job. We're reaching hundreds of thousands of people, and I could pick whatever topic I wanted. So it was really fun, except it ended up not being fun. And the reason it wasn't fun is because I would pick a subject like discount brokers, which was a brand new, amazing thing back then in 1992. Schwab, what's that? Or Quicken. There's now software. You can DVD load onto your computer and track your finances and your stocks. So I would write these up and then the edited version would come back with all of my jokes, color, and fun stripped. And the second half freshly written by my editor explaining all the reasons you wouldn't want to use a discount broker or quicken.”

    2026-04-24 · Masters in Business · The Stock Picking Philosophy to Find the Next Amazon with Motley Fool's David Gardner · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  37. “Whatever it happened to be. Yeah, so I started out of college, took a couple years to read and write and travel a lot, got married without a job, and then it was time at the age of 24 to get my first job. And as it turns out, the newsletter that was supporting Lewis Rukaiser, you remember his show, Wall Street Week?”

    2026-04-24 · Masters in Business · The Stock Picking Philosophy to Find the Next Amazon with Motley Fool's David Gardner · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  38. “Contest, tell us a little bit about that. Sure. It was actually earlier than that, it was fifth grade, it was fourth grade, but my dad probably did what other dads did, pick stocks for their son in this all-boys school St. Albans School I went to in Washington, D.C. And I remember he had hardcourt brace Jovanovich. He had Getty Oil. These companies aren't around anymore too much, but that was my stock portfolio. And over the course of three months, I outperformed my classmates. And so I won a gigantic Hershey bar. To my 10-year-old eyes, it was the biggest Hershey bar I'd ever seen, but it was a wonderful introduction. You know, back, the real exercise then, Barry, was just to look in the newspaper to write down 16 and 5 eighths where the stocks closed. We would do that once a week over the course of three months and just start understanding the market. So that was an early experience, but really dad was so formative for me as an investor.”

    2026-04-24 · Masters in Business · The Stock Picking Philosophy to Find the Next Amazon with Motley Fool's David Gardner · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  39. “It was I don't recall Michael, and I'm really glad to see where he's gone on to great heights. But that was the summer I learned I was never going to want to go work on Wall Street. That was a really wonderful experience. I just realized it's not a culture that I'm going to probably spend time with as an adult. And so that was so helpful. I love the markets. I just wasn't a Wall Street person”

    2026-04-24 · Masters in Business · The Stock Picking Philosophy to Find the Next Amazon with Motley Fool's David Gardner · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  40. “Start running and then students. So it's always, I mean. Yes, sir It actually was a career plan as I came to UNC Chapel Hill as a freshman. I was telling people I think I'm going to go to work on Wall Street. I had a formative summer in between my sophomore and junior year where I worked at Solomon Brothers back in the day, the good friend era. I think Michael Lewis was writing Liar's poker somewhere around there. Late 80s.”

    2026-04-24 · Masters in Business · The Stock Picking Philosophy to Find the Next Amazon with Motley Fool's David Gardner · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source