YouSaid · the spoken record

Fred Martin

lines on the record: 117
first: 2023-01-08
most recent: 2023-01-08
sittings or episodes: 1
sources: podcast

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“I hope so. I was mostly nervous that I would not be helpful enough because that's, you know, I love teaching. And you're a good interviewer. So”
2023-01-08 · We Study Billionaires · RWH020: The Disciplined Growth Investor w/ Fred Martin · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I totally agree. And you might have, that may have been a thread that you, I'm going to, I'm even more interested now rereading the book because I think I'll get more out of it next time. This is a fun journey, William. Thanks.”
2023-01-08 · We Study Billionaires · RWH020: The Disciplined Growth Investor w/ Fred Martin · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“And quick story. This is a miracle. My wonderful son's widow, you know, was really considering suing a wrongful death suit against the kid that got tangled with my son. They were riding bikes. And well, I was really against it. And she decided on her own not to do it. And that's a miracle. That's the way I look at it, you know? So stuff happens, sometimes good, sometimes bad. And you have a choice. You're going to roll your 10 up, you know, or you're going to soldier on and you soldier on.”
2023-01-08 · We Study Billionaires · RWH020: The Disciplined Growth Investor w/ Fred Martin · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“This interview is a great thing. I mean, I could either chance to have my voice heard, chance to connect with you. This is a labor of love. And so how can I be, you know, how can I, the other issue is I had the example of my dad, my mom died at 67. My dad lived till he was 91. He soldiered on. It was just a crushing loss for him. She was just, he was crazy about her and she died at 67, you know, and he just soldiered on. But I think you got to just, you know, if it's a good thing that happens, treasure it because there'll be bad stuff, but soldier on. And I don't think we have the, I want to say this carefully, but I don't think we have the right to roll our tent up because bad stuff happens. I just don't, I mean, nowhere does it say, you know, you can choose to do that, but I don't think you need to. I've been so lucky health.”
2023-01-08 · We Study Billionaires · RWH020: The Disciplined Growth Investor w/ Fred Martin · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I mean, so stuff happens as you get older when stuff happens, you know, and I think you do have to understand stuff happens.”
2023-01-08 · We Study Billionaires · RWH020: The Disciplined Growth Investor w/ Fred Martin · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“The way we've worked with our associates' widow has been the whole firm rallied around her. We had a, he was a big soccer fan for the local MLS franchise and we had rented a big box. We had a day in celebration of him. I mean, so I think there has been a lot of miraculous things. There are miracles all the time. You just have to see them. They're right in front of you, you know. I have so enjoyed the process of your book, at least as it relates to me. It's been just a, it's been a joy. I mean, I was written back and said, our paths will cross again. I just knew they would. And they have. Okay. But yeah, I think that when people, you know, by the way, last year my 70-year friend died, he had a, he was a fabulous guy. He had almost a version of brain disease that closed his throat. And after a while, he couldn't eat, couldn't swallow, and finally, you know, was so weak. They took him off food and he died.”
2023-01-08 · We Study Billionaires · RWH020: The Disciplined Growth Investor w/ Fred Martin · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“A healthy person goes, Hey, this was a great moment. Go with my wife of Alzheimer's. She's a wonderful person. We don't have as many wonderful moments as we used to have. But we do have some wonderful moments. So I take those and I try to say this is a wonderful moment. I'm going to remember that when she can't remember something or, you know, her temper gets out of control or something. So I would say you can practice that. You can, you know, again, I'm a child of God. So that's my prime identity. But if something good happens, I'm going to accept it. I'm going to say this was good. This was a good moment. There'll be bad moments coming. I get that. But this was a good moment. What you do is you recharge your batteries. There's always a risk of being a Pollyanna, but we've had throughout this process extraordinary acts of kindness.”
2023-01-08 · We Study Billionaires · RWH020: The Disciplined Growth Investor w/ Fred Martin · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I think the thing that I would say is this. So, the other thing I've really concentrated on is if something good happens, enjoy it. You know, when a depressed person goes, well, today things are going pretty well, but tomorrow's going to”
2023-01-08 · We Study Billionaires · RWH020: The Disciplined Growth Investor w/ Fred Martin · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“A son Okay, so you're a father, a brother, son. Okay, husband, those are all roles. You play an author. Those are roles you play. But what is your identity? And so I have multiple roles. And my identity is I'm a child of God. And that is what drives me. So that's how I can cope with losses and not dissolve. And by the way, my wife was diagnosed with Alzheimer's in March. So we're dealing with that. But I tell you that not to elicit sympathy. I tell you that having my faith and having my identity be as a child of God helps me weather these things. I mean, it just, the loss is incomprehensible. To this, you know, each morning I reading a Bible has little stories of mourning. And I'm still processing my son's death. It's been over a year and I'm still trying to process it. It's a real hard one to come to grips with.”
2023-01-08 · We Study Billionaires · RWH020: The Disciplined Growth Investor w/ Fred Martin · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Expert bike racer and then six weeks after that, one of my long running beloved business associates was hit by a train and killed. So, this all happened last summer and in 21. And so one of the things that helped me with my middle son was the most like me. So it makes it even, you know, it's just a wonderful young amazing architect, just fabulous. And so I fought along and hard about it. And so one of the things that I concluded was we go through life and we have roles like your husband, do you have kids? I assume you do. Yeah, yeah.”
2023-01-08 · We Study Billionaires · RWH020: The Disciplined Growth Investor w/ Fred Martin · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Sort of issue framing, you know, and you know, like margin of safety and process, and so it reframe my view of the world. And I didn't even share this with you, but, you know, it's been a rough three years. We got sued by a former employee. That was tough. My middle son was killed in a bike accident last summer. He's the most wonderful young man with two kids.”
2023-01-08 · We Study Billionaires · RWH020: The Disciplined Growth Investor w/ Fred Martin · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Make you less fearful. Because I put in a proper perspective. I went from not how much you collect, what kind of steward you are. It was a paradigm shift. So, you know, am I charitable giving? I tell them when I give and hope for a bull market gives you more. So I don't give in bear markets. I give in bull markets because I'm investing for the future and I expect them to. But yeah, maybe it just, I just got less. I changed the paradigm. How you, we've talked a lot about this today, about”
2023-01-08 · We Study Billionaires · RWH020: The Disciplined Growth Investor w/ Fred Martin · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Goofy, but how do you lead if you're not a bad follower? Somebody said to me, Well, you're so successful. How do you control arrogancy? And I said, well, as soon as I feel a little bit full of myself, I compare myself to Christ and I'm right back in the dump. Okay. So I don't have any problem. So my relationship's got better, but I became a better investor, which I didn't know. It was one of those things. It was a, and I didn't, I would also tell you that I didn't like no light bulbs. I didn't like wake up one morning. Like, you know, the sun is shining. I had a lot to unlearn. This was a long, I'm still at it, but it's a long journey.”
2023-01-08 · We Study Billionaires · RWH020: The Disciplined Growth Investor w/ Fred Martin · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“And what happened is actually maybe a little better as an investor because I got less afraid of losing money than the next guy. I got it in the right perspective, okay? I did something else. We've talked about this idea of, you know, running the right amount of money. How about changing your paradigm with respect to assets? So how about saying that it's not how much assets you collect over your lifetime? It's what kind of steward of those assets you are. Now I've changed the paradigm. So it's not about how much you collect. And I've become a much better steward. I've given a lot of money away, but only the places that really help a wide variety of places that help all kinds of people that need help, but they're effective. And it transformed my relationships. It made me a better, I was always a natural leader and a terrible follower. And now because I became a follower, I'm a better leader. I know that sounds.”
2023-01-08 · We Study Billionaires · RWH020: The Disciplined Growth Investor w/ Fred Martin · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Like the Son of God because nobody could, you can't make this up. And who in their right mind allows himself if he had any chance to save himself? And he had the power to do it. Why'd he let himself be humiliated and killed on the hope that we would all follow him? There was no contract like saying, I'm going to do this and you're all going to do that. It was just like, anyway. And of course, all of us worry about our legacies, you know, and he didn't have kids. He didn't have any money. And, you know, talk about a legacy. I mean, this is like the legacy and all legacies. So, anyway, that's part of it. The other part, because I'm not stupid, I'm thinking to myself, if I do this Christian stuff, am I going to lose my competitive edge? I mean, you're successful a certain way.”
2023-01-08 · We Study Billionaires · RWH020: The Disciplined Growth Investor w/ Fred Martin · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“So I started, and I got invited to a Bible study group by a friend of mine who quit. I went on for 12 years. But I read the four Gospels. And if you read that, what happens to all of us is, I remember first time I went this Bible study thing. I look all around like, who are all these strange people, man? This is strange stuff. These are a bunch of holy rollers. But when I read the four Gospels, and if you actually read that and you actually take the time to read what Christ actually says in there, Dearest, you can almost pick up a section and get three or four things that are just literally Nokia, senseless, radical concepts on how to live, how to think about things, how he answers questions, the stoning of the woman who was a prostitute. Is without Sincast, the first stone. This is just like ridiculous stuff. And I thought to myself, because I'm a skeptic. I thought, there's no way he was.”
2023-01-08 · We Study Billionaires · RWH020: The Disciplined Growth Investor w/ Fred Martin · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“So, the context was I hadn't been to church since I was 17, so my marriage failed, my first marriage, and I was a central part of the failure. If you're a stand-up person, all your marriage fails, you can't blame the other person. You're a central player. I like some parts of where I was going, but I realized that I needed some sort of an overarching framework to go forward. And I read the four Gospels. I read the story of Christ. And I read it. I mean, there were some things that happened. I was talking to a counselor who I didn't even know he's a Christian. And he says, you have no spiritual basis to your life.”
2023-01-08 · We Study Billionaires · RWH020: The Disciplined Growth Investor w/ Fred Martin · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I was on a treadmill this morning. I have to turn the TV out of force. But I love playing sports. So, you know, but I have to tell you, I think 80 plus percent is genetics. I do. And 10% is luck and 10% is what you do. I think as you get older, purpose and relationships is going to lead you to better health. For what it's worth.”
2023-01-08 · We Study Billionaires · RWH020: The Disciplined Growth Investor w/ Fred Martin · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“A very high proportion is genetic good luck, right? I mean, my oldest brother has taken phenomenal care of himself. He's the one with MS, but he's taken phenomenal care of himself. I haven't taken that kind of care. I've been really, really lucky. So let's not discount that. I think, but I would share this. I think never smoked moderate drinker. Never did drugs. And the other thing I watched my dad, my dad was 6108, 155. He was moving all the time. I don't know how fidgeted you are, but I'm fidgety and I'm always doing stuff. So, you know, without even trying, I have a garment watch. We own the stock and I have a watch and it measures my steps every day. And I average about six miles walk in a day just a normal activity because I'm doing stuff. So I think if you stay active, that's one of the best things you can do. I do exercise regularly. I don't particularly don't like.”
2023-01-08 · We Study Billionaires · RWH020: The Disciplined Growth Investor w/ Fred Martin · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“John Well, yeah, I'm not sure. I don't know about you. I'm not quite there, but for me. It's a funny story. About four or five years, we have an annual dinner for the firm, and there was a planted question. Somebody said, so Fred, what are you planning on to do it to phase down? And before I could answer my wife said, can I say something? And they said, sure. She said, he's not coming home. So I said, well, you just got your answer. But I think it's a highly individualistic, you know, my hope for you is when you're 70, you're still vigorous and you're learning and you're trying to do stuff and you have gifts and you're trying to keep past those gifts on and you will infect people around you. I should tell you though that if your health stays good, you know, the problem I have now is I'm still really fit. And so you don't, like I play tennis, but I don't play with guys quite as old. Some of the guys are 50. So I'm still struggling to win. It's just against younger guys now. So it's not a whole lot more satisfying, but at least you're out doing stuff.”
2023-01-08 · We Study Billionaires · RWH020: The Disciplined Growth Investor w/ Fred Martin · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“And so, and I don't have any trouble getting him when he comes to work. I mean, it's just, it's a hoot. And most of my friends are retired that there's not a tension there, but there's one of my close two 70-year friends, one's retired, the other passed away last year, longtime clients. Really tragedy. But what do you do if your health is good, which is a gift? And you can really do this stuff. And you get to help other people and you get to have a lot of fun doing it, not a fun like giddy, but like a deep sense of satisfaction. Man, that's priceless stuff. I mean, I feel like I'm lucky. I tell people, you say, why don't you retire? I said, man, this is way too much fun. I love to do this. So, I mean, you know, everybody has their own way of doing it. And I've seen men really, like my other friend who's retired, he's just grabbed retirement. He's just having a hoop. So he's all in on that. You know, it's great, you know.”
2023-01-08 · We Study Billionaires · RWH020: The Disciplined Growth Investor w/ Fred Martin · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Well, well, no, what you're kind of in that transition period. Know, when you're young, as a guy, you're trying to prove yourself, and you're probably harder nosed than you want to be, and you're driving hard and you're, you know, and you're not super relational because, you know, it takes a lot of time and effort and you get older and you begin, you know, you have kids and grandkids. And you get these deep relationship with clients and friends and associates. And it's just so rewarding. And they care about you. And that means you like to get up in the morning and go see them and interact with them. So that's a big deal. Okay. The other one is purpose. And I have this gift. It's an eight. I know how to manage money. And I love to be able to keep doing that because I can. And I've created, you know, I don't do as much here as I used to because we've got great people around me, but I still get to invest, deal with customers and go out and get some new business. I mean, that's the thrill for me. That's the juice.”
2023-01-08 · We Study Billionaires · RWH020: The Disciplined Growth Investor w/ Fred Martin · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“The fourth thing might be the catch all question, and that is some really experienced guy told me price is what you pay and value is what you get. Can you tell me, do you agree with that? And can you tell me how you honor that in what you're going to be telling me? And just listen. But the first three will get rid of, I'll bet you won't get, you'll get, why do you want that? Nobody ever asks that, you know, that sort of stuff. But now you've put the questions on your ground, not on their ground, because they want to talk to you about annuities or variable annuities or this product or that product or this product or that product, this special thing, that special thing. And that's all nice, but you want to know those three things. So that's what I would tell people, those three questions.”
2023-01-08 · We Study Billionaires · RWH020: The Disciplined Growth Investor w/ Fred Martin · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“For marketing front end lo You're the pro, I want you to tell me what it's costing. Okay, the third thing is can you tell me each of you, report to me what my mix of assets is and the most important determinant of your annual volatility or your risk profile, quite the same, but we'll leave it at that and your return expectations, your mix of assets between stocks and bonds. So can you give me those three things? Will you give that to me every year? And if you started with that discussion, you're going to win out all but a few of them. But those are the three”
2023-01-08 · We Study Billionaires · RWH020: The Disciplined Growth Investor w/ Fred Martin · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“You tell me how much it cost me in total to do business with you. And I don't mean just your fees. I want a total look at what it's costing me. Can you do that for me? And I want an annual report. And I want the dollar amount and I want to percentage of my assets.”
2023-01-08 · We Study Billionaires · RWH020: The Disciplined Growth Investor w/ Fred Martin · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Become empowered to ask the right questions. And I took 99% of what I know and simplified it into a few things like killer mistakes and how to avoid them. What are three things you have to know? You have to know what compound interest is. You have to know what an investment asset is. And you have to know about margin of safety. Okay. So we're rolling that out. And so I switched course. So there are three things that if you want to start a discussion, if you're going to go hire somebody, okay. Here's the three things that you start with. Not even references like how have you done, if you want to winnow it down, you ask them three questions. Will you figure out for me every year how I did last year? I want to know what my profits were last year. I want to know what I started with, how much I put in or took out and what I ended up with. I want to know my net profits. And then I'll figure out what percent that is. Can you do that for me? Sure.”
2023-01-08 · We Study Billionaires · RWH020: The Disciplined Growth Investor w/ Fred Martin · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“We started off, by the way, I just finished putting it into a wonderful course, which I'll send you a link to. So I mechanized it. I paid a lot of money. It's a fabulous course. I think it's online and instructor-led on what I migrated to is originally I thought they're trusted our industry is really low. So if we worked on a relationship between client and advisor that would work, but the feedback I got from advisors is your questions are going to cause our fees to go down. So I'm not interested. Okay. So I switched gears and I'm going to fullman a revolution. My goal is 20 million Americans.”
2023-01-08 · We Study Billionaires · RWH020: The Disciplined Growth Investor w/ Fred Martin · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“For people where we run all their money and shepherd them through the tough times, can we there's an art form to that? And so I've had pretty good life. If I had more money and less client appreciation, I don't think my life would be as good.”
2023-01-08 · We Study Billionaires · RWH020: The Disciplined Growth Investor w/ Fred Martin · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“But for me, that's priceless. And so I just want you to, you know, we have 40 year customers. And, you know, I'd like to think that new people coming in get another at least 20 good years of run out of here. So you got to think about people coming in. Do they have the same chance for a great return as the people been here a long time? And look, I have a great life. I do pretty much what I want to do. And I work with great people here. And we have great clients. Boy, that's not a bad place to be. And it's, but to get that, you got to give up something. And, you know, my plane would fit in the baggage compartment of some of the mega jets owned by the hedge fund guys. But you know what? I got something they don't have. So I just think I'm not obviously, I'm intensely competitive, but I just think this was a higher reason. I just think it over, you know, and the art form is, can we deliver really great results in the context of”
2023-01-08 · We Study Billionaires · RWH020: The Disciplined Growth Investor w/ Fred Martin · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Probably once a month get a thank you note. I get teased by a little bit. They're often really old 40 year customers, women that are 95, write me in Freddie and say, Freddie, because of what you've done for us, here's what I'm able to do for my life, you know, or for my grandkids and all that stuff. That's priceless stuff. I don't know what dollar amount you can put on that.”
2023-01-08 · We Study Billionaires · RWH020: The Disciplined Growth Investor w/ Fred Martin · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Even that Five Yeah, I did. I waited six years to buy it. Yeah, it was dropping a million a year. So it's a great airplane, by the way. But I think, you know what, what I mentioned to you in the email sent is that all we've ever done is mid-cap and small cap. And so you sort of begin to understand what kind of what size you can, you know, what's the right size where you can still perform. And I get this from my dad, by the way. He's not a great investor, but he was a customers man. And they loved him. And he used to tell me, you know, he worked for the Broken District. He used to tell me he had the most secure job in America because his customers were oil. And I never forgot that. And it's the customers that pay us. And here's the trade-off.”
2023-01-08 · We Study Billionaires · RWH020: The Disciplined Growth Investor w/ Fred Martin · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“We've had a lot of questions about ESG and what does it mean and all that stuff. And our response was a positive response, which is the gold standard of our business is the fiduciary obligation to clients. And if ESG can help, we're interested in it. In fact, G, governance has been a key risk factor for us. But the other stuff, we've been polite in saying it doesn't really help us. But when you unpack the fiduciary obligation, I think it's a very deep obligation. It's been around for hundreds of years, and you can't simply say we put our clients' interests. First, you have to live it. And so you have to run your business carefully. You have to keep your expenses down, and you have to run your personal life in a way so that you can always be in a position to represent your clients. And so I live on a tiny fraction of my income. I do have one luxury. I own a jet, partly because I love to fly.”
2023-01-08 · We Study Billionaires · RWH020: The Disciplined Growth Investor w/ Fred Martin · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Always thought he was one of the, I stood next to him one time at a conference and he was a humble guy. I didn't talk to him at all, but I thought, and I think he was loyal to a folk. I think Fidelity gave him too much money to run. I think he just burned him out. But he was Bill Miller was up there, Peter Lynch. There were some of these guys that just are, you know, the idea of investing these guys that are they're like a sports figure that can walk on there and just be so talented with some special gifts. Yeah.”
2023-01-08 · We Study Billionaires · RWH020: The Disciplined Growth Investor w/ Fred Martin · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“And I thought to myself, I don't know if there was a way to figure out what they were worth. I mean, I just, conceptually, it looked like the right thing to do, brand names, pays a dividend, worried about the markets. But I'm not sure that, you know, he really knew what he owned. And it was, you know, really hard on him. But I always thought that he was a very similar to us, that he had a growth mentality, and he was very value conscious. And I believe that's true. I think that's, you know.”
2023-01-08 · We Study Billionaires · RWH020: The Disciplined Growth Investor w/ Fred Martin · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Whose name was I'd love to know. He was one of my I mean this in a very respectful way. The 0708 was fascinating to me. I mean, they're always fascinating, but if you predate that, I think it was 0405. I wrote this piece and I said, I don't understand this. I call it the Gold Major Treasury Bills, but part of the piece said, if its straits are in half, how could the financial lender keep reporting the same returns on invested capital and something's wrong here? I didn't go into I didn't do a lot of digging. I'm not a short seller, but it just struck me. And, you know, he loaded up with dividend paying brand name financial service companies in 07 and 06 and 08. They got killed.”
2023-01-08 · We Study Billionaires · RWH020: The Disciplined Growth Investor w/ Fred Martin · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Of our young analysts do people thrive on new ideas and stuff like that. So, one of the things that we're going to them and saying, you know, look, we may not be adding a lot of new names. We'll see, but what you can do is deepen our understanding of our existing holdings. And it's amazing to watch it pick up. We have a missile going on right now. It's a company that is just lit off like a candle, okay? And we're now trying to put flesh around that. How sustainable is it? How big is our addressful market? One of the new young guys is digging on that and it's just wonderful to watch. So Buffett's right. You know, you don't have an unlimited number of, I don't know how affirm that, you know, most money managers have 50 to 100% turnover a year, which means they're always looking for new ideas and they're, you know, that would be exhausting. I don't know. How could you, I just can't quite understand how you could do that because nobody has that kind of analytical bandwidth, you know?”
2023-01-08 · We Study Billionaires · RWH020: The Disciplined Growth Investor w/ Fred Martin · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Just think about Buffett the concept of analytical bandwidth. It's not infinite. This is one of the conceits of being a human. You think you have infinite, I'm still struck by your self-awareness to say, I don't want to read balance sheets. It doesn't mean much to me. What you're saying is I have some really great strengths. I'm going to work on those, but I don't have unlimited bandwidth. I don't have unlimited strengths. And I'm not going to try to be all things to all people. What I said to that young guy was, I want you to conserve your decisions. We have that right now. Just think about how you manage investment team. So we spent three hard years. We have a beautiful looking portfolio. We generate a lot of capital gains in 20 and 21. We did some tax selling this year, so we don't have gainings this year. I don't think there's much we need to do for the next seven years. That's what a good-looking portfolio we have.”
2023-01-08 · We Study Billionaires · RWH020: The Disciplined Growth Investor w/ Fred Martin · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Doers in their high integrity. And so I, and it's true in a stock, the idea of it's so tempting and the beauty of the markets is that you can exit a position anytime you want it at very low cost. That's the good news. The bad news is you can exit a thing anytime you want, so you don't have to be committed at all. You know, when you got married, you didn't get married and say, well, you know, we'll see. I'll try this for a little while. You know, our pastor at church says when you get married, throw away the key. Say divorce is not an option. We're just not going there. That really changes the equation. And when you think about a stock, why not, at least in your head, say we're not buying this with the idea of selling it? We're buying it and we'll do all the work because it's so tempting. So the stock runs way up and all of a sudden, you know, but it's not overpriced, but it's up a lot. You think, oh, let's, you know, you never go broke taking a profit. So I think the idea of conception.”
2023-01-08 · We Study Billionaires · RWH020: The Disciplined Growth Investor w/ Fred Martin · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“And it was a difficult company to understand. And then we blind because we had interviewed all of them, but we blinded the essay so we didn't know who wrote them. So we came out with two kids that were head and shoulders better than everybody else. Then two interns. There's even funnier stories on that. But we thought about it, and one of the people in the firm goes, these guys are really talented. They're not super expensive. We hired both of them. So we actually made a midcourse shift and added two of them. And they're both remarkable young people. One is an immigrant from Moldova, and he's prenaturally gifted it.”
2023-01-08 · We Study Billionaires · RWH020: The Disciplined Growth Investor w/ Fred Martin · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“He was all in. He was all in. Well, it has to do with the standard. So if you say to yourself, when we hire somebody, regardless of their age, we like this to be the last place they work, then you're going to put a lot of upfront work into it because the reward could be a 50-year employee, right? And so it becomes worth it. And we've actually refined that a lot as a funny story we hired. It was 21 or 22 interviews with Nick. We decide to add an analyst about three years ago. We had 70 qualified resumes for one spot. And so we worked it down, worked it down. They did two essay questions. I forget what they were, but they were grueling. And multiple interviews worked it down to seven. And we have a very active intern program. So the seven, five had been interns with us. So they already knew us. And we then, it was really nasty. We had them analyze the stock we'd owned for 15 years and said, what should we do with it?”
2023-01-08 · We Study Billionaires · RWH020: The Disciplined Growth Investor w/ Fred Martin · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I took her down, went to a wedding, and four of my brothers were there. And when the weekend was done, my oldest brother called me over and he said, it's been decided. I said, what's that? He said, don't let her go. What my brother said. And so that was a pretty good testimony. But I thought you were, it's funny, the older I get, the more I solicit other opinions, the more respectful I am of other opinions. It's an oddest dynamic. The more I know, the more I realize that other opinions, you know, are often, you know, I told you at the outset of this call that I'd learn a fair amount from this call. I'm interested. I picked up two or three or four things already from talking to you because you have some unique qualities and I can learn from that. And I'm interested in your opinion on stuff. And you just keep absorbing.”
2023-01-08 · We Study Billionaires · RWH020: The Disciplined Growth Investor w/ Fred Martin · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I think that was absolutely brilliant margin of safety application because, and I know you well enough, I don't know you super well, but I know you well enough that you were reading their answers when you say they all thought she was lovely, you lost over the fact that you know how your dad was going to respond. You knew your mom's range of responses and you gauged those. And I think you were really smart to ask them because my wife and I were we've been married 12 years now. We're both married before and we do a divorce care ministry and we tell people, look, fall in love with them, but then put the cunning business person side on and understand that how they were before you got married is how they're going to be after you get married. So just understand that because one of the biggest problems in marriage is people think that they love me so much they're going to change. They may still love you a lot, but they're not going to change. And as a funny post script, my wife, who's wonderful.”
2023-01-08 · We Study Billionaires · RWH020: The Disciplined Growth Investor w/ Fred Martin · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Jim and I did it, and I applied it to our group. And I think it works. It's a really interesting way of doing it. But what you're doing is you are honoring the margin of safety because you're saying, look, yeah, I'm good at this, but I have my bad times. And if you guys can stop me, if you have an issue, let's discuss it.”
2023-01-08 · We Study Billionaires · RWH020: The Disciplined Growth Investor w/ Fred Martin · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I'm actually 76. And so we've expanded that to four now. So it's me plus three others that have veto power. So I even tightened the noose more. So what I was thinking was that when you think about margin of safety and you go out to people and you say, okay, you've been here long enough. You understand what we're trying to do. I'm going to trust that you will honor the margin of safety. And by trusting you, we're just going to expand out the number of people that can veto this. So just think of what we've done. We have total buy-in for every decision. Each of us is responsible for the portfolio now because if a stock goes in, they voted, they could have voted not to ever go in. And so I think it's a really powerful risk management tool. Really, really powerful. And I hadn't thought about that. And you're helping me with this, but you're right. It's saying parallel to Gemini had. And I took it when...”
2023-01-08 · We Study Billionaires · RWH020: The Disciplined Growth Investor w/ Fred Martin · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“In the plane, we for some reason So, I think it's a way of life when you think margins of safety, it's taking steps, it's recognizing there will be adverse things that happen, but you can take steps to make them, to prevent them from becoming catastrophic. That's the heart of margin of safety. You're going to have bad stuff happen. The question is, does it become catastrophic?”
2023-01-08 · We Study Billionaires · RWH020: The Disciplined Growth Investor w/ Fred Martin · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Because it keeps you from talking to each other into killing yourselves. Like, I'll do it if you'll do it. Remember, he's an ex Airborne Ranger. I'm not exactly a wallflower. Oh, we can do this. Okay. So that's what it prevents. I'll do it if you'll do it. That sort of thing. Your gut's telling you it doesn't feel right. I'll do it if you'll do it. And then the eagle goes, well, I'll do it if you'll do it. So now you both have dropped the. So both of us are, we had a funny thing happen. So both of us consider that we are solely responsible for the safety of the flight. We've gone to flight school many times over the years. We had one session down at Wichita, and it's a three days in a simulator, three days. First day, we were awful. And we have a really good reputation. And the SIM instructor is kind of looking out of the corner of his eyes. Like, I thought you guys were pretty good. And we knew we stunk. So we discussed it ourselves, you know, at dinner that night. And I think Jim or I said, neither of us acted like a captain. There was no cap.”
2023-01-08 · We Study Billionaires · RWH020: The Disciplined Growth Investor w/ Fred Martin · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“But the first step is to recognize it's really important. Second is to implement processes and steps that enable you to maintain a sufficient margin of safety. And Jim and I have flown together for 25 years. And we still, every flight try to build a margin of safety. And it can be, you know, we went to Denver and back a week ago in terrible weather forecasts both directions. And we have our alternate plans. And so that's how you start to build it. We have plenty of gas. We build a margin of safety. And it's a whole bunch of different steps. But you have to constantly think about margin of safety. You got to always be building that.”
2023-01-08 · We Study Billionaires · RWH020: The Disciplined Growth Investor w/ Fred Martin · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“These adverse events without having a becoming catastrophic, well, then it gets interesting. So there's a million ways to build margins of safety. The first thing is you have to acknowledge how important it is. And I asserted in my book that the pilot community has a much better feel for margin of safety than the investment community because it's much more deadly if you keep violating it, okay?”
2023-01-08 · We Study Billionaires · RWH020: The Disciplined Growth Investor w/ Fred Martin · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Oh my goodness. So let me just again, when you ask these questions, they're great questions. I always try to flash back just for a second. So let me go back to Ben Graham for a second. So, you know, Graham had a searing experience in the early 30s because he lost a lot of money. And that's how he really recovered and began to teach and became a much better investor. And he always said margin of safety was the discount to intrinsic value. And I thought that's true, but I never I thought margin of safety was broader than that. And my definition of margin of safety is it's things you do to keep adverse events from becoming catastrophic. So ever stuff's going to happen. The question is, is it catastrophic or not? And so when you take that approach, you can start to think about in flying, there's Amber stuff that happens. Equipment breaks, you have weather, you have unexpected traffic, you have this, you have that. So how do you handle it?”
2023-01-08 · We Study Billionaires · RWH020: The Disciplined Growth Investor w/ Fred Martin · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“That is, you know, there's an idea on decisions, and I've said this to many people. So let's say there's three kinds of decisions. A decisions, B decisions, and C decision. A are great decisions, make them. C, you're bad decisions, avoid them. Where people spend way too much time is on B decisions. They try to make them before they either turn into an A or a C. So if it's a B decision, don't do anything with it. It's just a B decision. Don't waste time on it. See what happens. It either migrates to C or migrate to A. That's just, so that idea of patience, I think, is, you know, certainly investing patience, but patience on decisions. Sure. I think it's a great idea.”
2023-01-08 · We Study Billionaires · RWH020: The Disciplined Growth Investor w/ Fred Martin · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT